Agent Carter - 'A Sin to Err'

"Hiding on a window ledge outside a girl's bedroom. Is this what it feels like
to be Howard Stark?"

After her performance in Russia, Carter is finally getting what she's wanted all along, as Chief Dooley sends her out to chase down her own leads. This means hooking up with Jarvis again and chasing down Stark's old girlfriends, because Carter reasons that if Leviathan are training female sleeper agents then no-one is more likely to have got close to Stark than a dangerous woman. Meanwhile, said woman - Griffith Hotel resident and proto-Widow Dotty - makes contact with the supposedly unwilling Leviathan psychiatrist Ivchenko, who is revealed to be a master hypnotist intent on penetrating the SSR lab to steal... something.

"No... This is what it feels like to be Howard Stark."

Sousa uncovers Carter's deception, distracting them from the real threat as they go after her. She takes out a room full of agents from Washington, and Agent Thompson, but has to return to the Griffith for Steve's blood. Angie helps her evade the SSR, but Dotty surprises Carter with her stolen Sweet Dreams lippy and only the timely arrival of Thompson and Sousa saves Carter from a slit throat.

With two episodes to go, we close with Carter a prisoner and the SSR finally taking her seriously, because in the minds of men like Agent Thompson it makes sense that the only capable woman is a bad woman. A Nazi agent or Russian spy might be a lethal femme fatale, but not a 'real' American woman. Of course, Carter is British, and that probably doesn't help; where the other agents see strength in women it's brass and banter, but Carter is all steel and reserve, like a female post-war Benton Fraser. As an Agent, she makes the tea; as an enemy, she gets no slack, although they still can't bring themselves to see her as an actual equal.

While overall benefiting from the shorter run time, I'm in two minds about whether Agent Carter could have done with an extra episode of the SSR taking her seriously. Still, if it would have been better what we have isn't bad, and it will be interesting to see how they turn this around.