Agent Carter - 'Time and Tide'

Agent Carter: More interrogation scenes than your average police procedural.

The SSR follow up on the dropped hotel key (Man in Green's, not Carter's; my bad) and find the magic typewriter. They also learn that Leet Brannis was a Russian agent who died two years ago. Based on the license plate from Stark's car, they haul in Jarvis for questioning, leaning on him using a shady past including a charge of treason and a dishonourable discharge. While Carter is able to spring him, to do so she has to actively fluff the investigation, thus seriously damaging her hard-won credibility with her male fellow agents.

Peggy Carter may not be a great conspirator, but she excels at the rough stuff.

There is a bit more detective work and Carter and Jarvis track the remaining stolen weapons to a boat, but the focus of the episode is on Carter and the consequences of her off-the-books investigation on behalf of Stark. Unable to take the credit for her find, she has Jarvis call in an anonymous tip, but this leads to the death of an SSR agent when someone rubs out the only witness. As the witness was also able to finger Carter for her activities, we're left to ask: Who had the man killed? Was it Leviathan? Or was it Stark or Jarvis? The killer was thin enough to be Jarvis, but had a bit more swish in his - or was it her? - step. Regardless, it is clear that this is no longer doing a small favour for a friend, as the Agency determine that the boat and the tip were a trap set up to kill one of their own.

The message of the episode is that Carter may be an excellent agent, but she's a terrible spy. It's not that she can't keep a secret; just that she is fundamentally honest. She can lie to her enemies, but struggles with lying to her allies, even the ones who don't like her much. We see also that her relationship with her non-work friend Angie is threatened by her secrecy, and that despite her determination to keep clear of attachments, this hurts Carter. Again, she lacks the detachment of a true spy, a trait which, like her honesty, speaks of her true nature as a hero. Despite her desire to gain respect as an agent, she is willing to drop the credit and even to seem incompetent to protect a friend, and we can expect the strain of her double life to tell more than ever as the series progresses.

I think this is one of the greatest successes of the series so far; that the writers have steered clear of the common failing of equating 'strong female character' with a lack of flaws and weaknesses. Carter is physically capable, intelligent and quick witted, observant and a skilled actress, but she is also loyal to a fault and incapable of entirely switching off her emotions, then again without coming off as irrational. If anything, Jarvis's cool rationality in a crisis is eerie by comparison, and like so much else hints at an even patchier past than some forged letters of transit for his future wife.