Chapter 6 Agent Carter series 1 Episode 4

Howard's point of view
Peggy was frowning. At first, I could not work out why, but then the series title (Marvel's Agent Carter) and the series number and episode and the title (Series 1 Episode 4 The Blitzkrieg button) came on screen. The reason Peggy was frowning hit me like a baseball thrown at Yankee Stadium.

This story was about the time we almost broke up. I did something extremely dumb to this day it is likely the dumbest thing I have ever done… and Peggy was rightly utterly furious with me.

A year after the end of World War II, Peggy Carter, agent of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) and old flame of Captain America, now lives in a changed world. Having left behind the life she aspired to while working with Captain America and the Howling Commandos. She now endures a dissatisfying position as a simple office worker under a sexist posse of SSR agents led by Chief Roger Dooley in New York City.

"So, the SSR was the predecessor to SHIELD?"

"Yes. We ran the two concurrently until 1991, but we pretended that the SSR had been disbanded."

"And SHIELD limped along until 2015 when we found out that it was [word redacted] with [word redacted]"

"You will find out about that later"

With Steve Rogers presumably dead after the fall of HYDRA, Carter also finds herself struggling to get over his death, and manages to form close friendships with some of her fellow agents, namely Daniel Sousa, to fill the void.

"Daniel was a very nice guy, he and Angie — my best friend — hit it off instantly. Turns out they were soulmates."

In 1946, billionaire inventor Howard Stark finds himself the victim of various thefts. As a result, he is accused of loaning advanced weaponry to enemy forces overseas, and faces accusations from various law enforcement groups, especially the SSR.

"This is not how things went down." I explained.

Before fleeing overseas to get away from the law, he contacts Carter, who was an old wartime friend of his, and convinces her to help clear his name.

"Peggy and I got together and J. Jonah Jameson of the Daily Bugle had someone break into our house and steal our intimacy journal, which he published. Peggy and I had an ALMIGHTY row, and we almost broke up permanently, but thankfully Ana, Edwin, Obie and Maria talked some sense into us, and we ended up marrying the next week. We sued J. JONAH JAMESON for theft, printing our private property and libelling us by printing rubbish untrue articles."

Assisted by Stark's butler, Edwin Jarvis, Carter goes undercover behind her superiors' backs, uncovering a possible terrorist plot involving a highly potent explosive called Nitramene, which has the potential of annihilating entire cities.

"Peg and I both went to Switzerland until the heat was off because we were newlyweds and because we were owed a lot of holiday time. We tried to figure out what was going on and sent Jarvis all kinds of hints."

Leviathan, a mysterious organization, are apparently the ones responsible for stealing Stark's weaponry, with the Nitramene being their latest target. While trying to keep the Nitramene from Leviathan's hands, Carter comes into conflict with two of their agents, Leet Brannis and a mysterious man in a green suit. A brutal encounter with the two operatives results in all of Stark's Nitramene samples exploding, and both men perish.

"The entire situation was odd."

"Very much so."

The licence plate from Stark's car, which Carter and Jarvis were driving during one of the Nitramene detonations, is recovered by the SSR, marking Jarvis as a suspect. To prevent him from falling under further suspicion, Carter presents a misplaced stolen car report, which frees Jarvis but puts Carter under enmity from her co-workers.

"There was speculation around the office that I only got the job because I slept with Howard which is not true, we went on a date, we didn't do anything until several dates later and on our first date, Howard was a perfect gentleman. We didn't do anything more than hold hands until we were engaged and even then, that was only in private. There is a good reason for it."

Afterward, Carter and Jarvis investigate the theft of Stark's technology, tracing the initial theft to The Heartbreak, a ship located off the docks of Manhattan that is carrying much of Stark's stolen tech. The pair is then attacked by Jerome Zandow, a sideshow performer and bouncer hired by Leviathan to kill Carter. The pair works together to defeat him, leaving him and the stolen technology for the SSR. However, during transfer, both Zandow and SSR Agent Ray Krzeminski are assassinated by a disguised woman.

"Dorothy Underwood, known as Dottie, was the assassin."

The SSR is driven into both depression and determination to solve the case from Krzeminski's death. At the same time, Stark returns to the U.S. after being abducted and held for ransom by a group of thugs working for Otto Mink, an underworld smuggler and black market dealer. Carter and Jarvis manage to rescue him, but unwittingly goad Mink into coming after them and killing them.

"We should have had more backup with this, but that was typical of the SSR, Hydra, and SHIELD. When missions came in, we hardly had time to react!"

However, upon arriving at Carter's apartment, he is ambushed and executed by one of her roommates, Dottie Underwood, who is actually an assassin working for Leviathan and the one responsible for the death of Krzeminski.

"Miriam should have noticed a pungent odour from Dottie's room, but she did not"

Meanwhile, Carter harbours Stark in her home for a short time, unaware of the murder that happened only a few doors away. From Stark, Carter learns of a device in SSR custody dubbed the "Blitzkrieg Button", which he claims to be a highly dangerous EMP weapon that could potentially send New York into chaos.

Peggy suddenly became very stern and glared heatedly at me. I felt like a six-year-old being scolded again.

"But it wasn't an actual Blitzkrieg button, was it, Howard?" Peggy snarled, her eyes glinting wickedly
"No, ma'am it was not." I replied sheepishly.

Upon recovering the device, however, Carter is both saddened and furious to discover that it is merely a containment device meant to house a vial containing the last of Steve Rogers' blood. Saddened and furious with Stark for his deceit, Carter forces him from her home and begins to reconsider helping him.

"I helped you because I didn't believe that you were guilty of what they accused you of. I thought I was reconsidering my position on helping you, but… Ana pointed out to me that I was actually confused about how I felt about you and i realised she was right and then... the soulmate marks manifested physically."

Returning to the SSR, Carter learns that the rest of her team have discovered a message originating from Belarus that possibly connects to Stark's protests from her co-worker, Jack Thompson, Carter is assigned to accompany an SSR team to investigate.

"That mission was not fun, nor was the argument between Agent Thompson and myself which followed the mission!"

The team, which includes Carter and Thompson, arrive in Belarus and rendezvous with the Howling Commandos, who are led by Carter's old wartime compatriot, Dum-Dum Dugan. Together, the group discover that the source of the message is what at first appears to be an old boarding school. They soon find that it is actually a secret Soviet training facility that is home to the Red Room programme, an operation dedicated to the brainwashing and training of young girls into elite assassins; Dottie Underwood is a product of this programme.

"My sister Yelena and I were both in The Red Room… I escaped before they had the chance to sterilize me…The sterilization of those young women is what was known as The Graduation Ceremony." Said Nat.

The team soon finds that Leviathan has taken up residence in the facility, and while battling their way through armed forces, they find two prisoners: psychologist Ivchenko and scientist Nikola. The latter has been forced to perform experiments on Stark's stolen designs, which the team finds have, in fact, been taken by Leviathan. However, Nikola's mind has been damaged during his imprisonment, and he is killed in the ensuing gunfight. The SSR team manages to escape back to New York with Ivchenko. The mission also helps improve Carter's male coworkers' opinions of her.

"I finally began to figure out my feelings."

While still bitter towards Stark for lying about the Blitzkrieg Button, the mission in Belarus convinces Carter that he is innocent and that a Red Room assassin was more than likely the true perpetrator behind the theft. Assisted by Jarvis, Carter theorizes that the assassin would have had to have got close to Stark for them to have infiltrated his vault and seek and question several of his past flings. Unfortunately, none of them seem to fit the puzzle and they are mostly violent. Edwin Jarvis — as Peggy's aide and accomplice, accepts most of their physical displays of vitriol with aplomb.

"This is like a bad spin-off episode of murder, she wrote or something"

Back at the SSR, Sousa discovers that Carter has been performing questionable activities behind the agency's back, and thus she falls suspected of. The SSR pursued her, intending to detain and question her, and chase her back to her apartment complex.

With help from her housemate and close friend, Angie Martinelli, Carter can evade the SSR for a time until she is ambushed and incapacitated by Underwood, whom she soon realizes is the assassin she had been searching for. Before Underwood can execute Carter, the SSR intervene and take Carter away. Taken back to SSR headquarters, Carter is interrogated by Dooley, Thompson, and Sousa, who suspect her of being the assassin.

"Daniel repeatedly told Jack that I was innocent and that the only thing I had been doing was falling for Howard, but as usual, Jack did not listen" Peggy snarled.

Jarvis comes to Carter's aid with a forged document of surrender from Stark. Upon realizing that Jarvis is lying, however, Carter comes clean and confesses that she had been running her own investigation, even showing them Captain America's blood as proof. Unknown to any of them, Underwood has taken up shop in the adjacent building and is communicating with Ivchenko, who himself is also a Leviathan agent. Using his talent of hypnosis, Ivchenko confuses many SSR agents, including Chief Dooley, into getting what he desires. He tricks Dooley into sending a large group of armed SSR agents to Underwood's location as a distraction while he hypnotizes Dooley into leading him to Stark's inventions. He takes one of the devices, something labelled "Item 17", before forcing Dooley to put on the Stark Heat Vest, a prototype suit of armour with an unstable heat source. Unable to remove the vest from Dooley, the SSR are forced to watch Dooley kill himself by leaping from the building, dying as the vest reaches maximum instability and detonates. In the confusion, Ivchenko meets with Underwood, who fled the SSR as well, and the two make off with Item 17.

"See, that should not have happened."

To test the virility of the gas, Ivchenko and Underwood release it in a cinema; a massacre occurs as the people begin to kill one another. The New York City Police Department contacts the SSR and the two agencies investigate. Sousa is accidentally exposed to the gas and has to be knocked unconscious before he stops fighting Thompson and Carter. Just as the agents compare notes about recent events, Howard Stark appears and explains everything. Back during the war, Stark created a gas he named Midnight Oil to keep soldiers awake, but the side effects were too drastic; however, it was stolen by General John McGinnis and used on the Soviet Armed Forces at the town of Fino. Midnight Oil caused the Soviets to kill one another and the incident was dubbed the Battle of Finnow; the brother of Johann Fennhoff was among those killed, and he wants revenge. Knowing that Fennhoff wants Stark, the SSR plans a public announcement to say that Stark has been cleared of all charges. They also use this as an attempt to catch Fennhoff in the act. During the announcement, a shot is fired from a window above, but it misses high. Carter goes to catch the shooter, but upon arriving in the room, she realizes it was planned to shoot high and is a diversion. They return to the ground to find Stark has been kidnapped.

"There was no battle of Finnow"

Fennhoff and Underwood bring Stark to a warehouse, where Fennhoff makes Stark think that he is flying a plane to find Steve Rogers in the ice. But in actuality, Stark is flying a plane directly to New York City, where Fennhoff plans for Stark to release the Midnight Oil on the populated city. Carter, Sousa, Thompson, and Jarvis arrive. Carter fights Underwood while Jarvis gets to a plane and takes off after Stark, prepared to shoot if need be. Carter pushes Underwood off a ledge, but when she looks over, Underwood is gone. She takes to the intercom and tries to tell Stark what is actually happening. Fennhoff catches Thompson by surprise and knocks him out. He then controls Sousa to kill Thompson, but Sousa instead knocks out Fennhoff, revealing he had ear plugs in and wasn't listening. Carter finally convinces Stark of the truth, and he comes back to the warehouse. Fennhoff is arrested and sent to jail.

The team returns to the base and arrives to a government official who congratulates Thompson on his good work, leaving Carter and Sousa in the dust. Carter goes to the Brooklyn Bridge and pours Steve's last blood into the river, saying goodbye forever. Fennhoff sits in his jail cell with a muzzle, and it greeted by Arnim Zola who attempts to communicate with the mute Fennhoff.

"This series was a bit of a mess to be honest, the quality of the writing was questionable, and the plot was all over the place. That's why it was canned after 2 seasons. It was good sometimes and it was very funny…"