Marvel’s Agent Carter: Time and Tide Recap

Synopsis of 1×03: Peggy determines that she needs to work backwards to find Howard’s stolen inventions. A secret from Jarvis’  past is revealed and the SSR loses one of their own.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

After two explosive opening episodes last week, Agent Carter follows it up with an episode that’s more quiet, but shows just how high the stakes are for Peggy.

When one of the women in Peggy’s building is kicked out for having a man in her room, her landlord Miriam makes a whole big speech about how the building is impenetrable like Fort Knox. Peggy has an epiphany about what needs to be done and she goes to Howard’s home to talk to Jarvis about it. She says that no building is truly impenetrable, so she should be able to work backwards from the hole left in Howard’s lab to figure out where Leet Brannis took the supply.

However, Peggy’s initial investigation is cut short when Sousa and Thompson show up at Stark’s mansion. Not only have they determined Leet Brannis’ identity, but they found Stark’s license plate and bumper in the Roxxon wreckage. Jarvis feigns ignorance, claiming he reported the car stolen a few days before. Still, Thompson informs him that he’ll either call in a warrant or Jarvis can go downtown with them. Jarvis agrees to the latter, leaving Peggy to run back to the office.

At the office, Krzeminski is begging people to take his night shift because he’s planning on going out tonight with his lady. Peggy goes for the low blow and asks if he’s taking his wife or his girlfriend. She stops into the interrogation room to catch a glimpse of what Thompson is doing to Jarvis. He’s keeping his cool for the most part, but Thompson lets the bottom out by mentioning a treason charge on his record. This causes Jarvis to clam up and Peggy exits the room to grab some files. She goes back in and asks Dooley to sign off on something, taking the file about the car in the process. When Dooley is about to go in to wear Jarvis down, Peggy comes in and apologizes about taking the file “by mistake,” effectively botching the investigation against Jarvis. Peggy is reprimanded, but Jarvis walks free.

Back at home, Angie tries to come into Peggy’s apartment to tell her about her day, but since Peggy’s getting ready to sneak out again, she tells Angie she wants to just go to bed. Angie storms off, but not before an awkward conversation with the new tenant.

Later that evening, Peggy goes back to Stark’s and, with Jarvis, finds that the hole leads to a sewer under the mansion. Since it was raining the night the robbery, Peggy puts together that Brannis could have floated the inventions out on a raft during the night towards the sea. As the two follow the pipeline, Peggy asks Jarvis about the treason charge, telling him that he needs to be honest with her if they work together. With some reluctance, Jarvis tells her that when he was assigned in Budapest (get your squeals of joy out now), he met a woman named Anna. He fell in love with her, but she was in danger due to the fact she was (and still is) Jewish. Jarvis’ commanding general had the authority to sign the papers to protect her and get her out, but he refused. Jarvis forged his signature and Anna was able to escape with Stark’s help. However, he was caught and discharged, but once again, Howard Stark was to the rescue and Anna and Jarvis were married after coming to the states. Sigh of relief and romance, everyone.

At the end of the tunnel, the two spot a ship called The Heartbreaker, which bears the symbol that Brannis drew out in the dirt before he died. The two sneak aboard and find all of Stark’s missing tech, including a device that contracts muscles on contact that was originally invented to be a back massager. Uh huh. “Back massager.” Sure, Howard.

Peggy goes to call in about the find, but Jarvis stops her, asking her questions about how she would lie her way out of it. She says that turning it in would allow her coworkers to respect her, but Jarvis tells her that they won’t. They’ll just use it against her. I hate to say it, but he is right about that. Peggy concedes and tells Jarvis to call it in, but to hide his accent because they know what he sounds like now. This leads to a very hilarious use of fake American accents while on the phone with the SSR.

While Jarvis is calling it in, a man guarding the ship comes in and starts a fight with Peggy. Jarvis eventually comes to her aid and Peggy manages to subdue him with the “massager.” Hearing the SSR sirens in the distance, the two make a run for it.

At the scene, Krzeminski is joyful about the find, but Sousa is suspicious of it being so easy. Krzeminski takes the guard to go and question him and on the drive over, the guard starts to reveal Peggy’s identity to him. However, he is cut short when Krzeminski is rear-ended and killed when he gets out of the car to confront the driver. The driver shoots the guard in the head and drives off into the night.

The next morning at the SSR, the team is mourning over his death. Which is weird because no one liked Krzeminski? Not even the audience, and yet I’m supposed to feel sad for the loss of a sexist cheater who was probably the worst SSR agent AND told Sousa he didn’t have a chance with Peggy because of his leg. Seriously, Steve would probably have punched him for that. Well, I guess that happens when you lose one of your own. Still, Peggy feels guilty because she’s indirectly responsible for his death. Dooley tells them that Stark is responsible whether he pulled the trigger or not and they need to catch him before another agent is lost.

That evening, Peggy goes to the diner to talk to Angie about it. Well, in coded words. She apologizes to Angie and asks if she still has the schnapps. God, I love them so much.

‘Time and Tide’ was much less bombastic than the opening, but it continues to pave the way for the risks and rewards that Peggy is bound to come into before going off to form S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m still not fond of the cheap emotional ploy they pulled with Krzeminski, but I guess they have to start somewhere.