Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Chris Dingess, Stan Lee, & Jack Kirby
Directed by Vincent Misiano

Finally, we get some accountability on how Peggy Carter has been treated by her fellow SSR agents. However, it takes a disaster for them to recognize her abilities and that she’s an asset to the team.

This episode opens with a flashback to Dr. Ivchenko’s (Ralph Brown) work in the Soviet Union involving hypnotism and suggestion. He manages to hypnotize a soldier to not feel any pain as he’s awake for his leg being amputated.

Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is brought into the interrogation room. Sousa (Enver Gjokaj), Thompson (Chad Michael Murray), and Chief Dooley (Shea Whigham) try to get Peggy to admit that she is involved with Howard Stark on a personal level. She holds her own and accuses them of being blind to what’s going on because of their chauvinism.

Jarvis (James D’Arcy) comes in, saying he has a signed confession from Howard Stark. He tries to bluff his way to getting Peggy released, but Peggy finds out. The two are strategizing when she catches Ivchenko tapping out a code on the window sill. She comes clean about everything to Chief Dooley, Thompson, and Sousa in an effort to get them to trust her again because she knows Leviathan is coming in just a few minutes.

Sousa and Thompson both admit they believe Carter. They go to check out the building across the street while Chief Dooley stays with Ivchenko. Later, Dooley takes Carter and Jarvis to another office where he imprisons them and breaks the key off in the lock. He then clears the lab and brings Ivchenko in there. Ivchenko has managed to take over Dooley’s mind.

Ivchenko walks out with one of Stark’s inventions and leaves Dooley with a post-hypnotic suggestion. Dottie (Bridget Regan) was the mysterious person in the building across the street Ivchenko was communicating with. She escapes the agents pursuing her. Dooley sacrifices himself to save lives but makes Peggy promise to get the son-of-a-bitch who did this

I found the interrogation scenes to be great. Not only does Peggy hold her own with the agents, but she manages to give them a dressing-down for treating her as invisible. When they are incredulous that she could have been conducting an investigation on her own right under their eyes without them noticing, she fires back that they never saw her unless she was taking the lunch order or making coffee. They can’t argue with that point because they all know it’s true.

I have to wonder why Dr. Ivchenko is allowed to see so much in the SSR. This allows him to make suggestions to Chief Dooley as well as gain intelligence. Jack Thompson does call the Chief on this. We get a bit more depth to the brooding Dooley before he’s taken from the canvas. His home life has not been up to snuff, and it’s talking about it that leads to Ivchenko being able to worm his way into his head and hypnotize him. Shea Whigham gives his best performance in the final few minutes for his character in the series.

That’s not the end, though. Initially thinking that Ivchenko and Dottie were after Steve’s blood, Peggy panics. However, what they have done with one of Howard Stark’s inventions is actually much more nefarious. We get an idea of it when they have a test run to end the episode. The finale for this first season looks promising!

Previous episode in the series (link): Agent Carter: A Sin To Err

Next episode in the series (link): Agent Carter: Valediction