Agent Carter - 'The Blitzkrieg Button' and 'The Iron Ceiling'

Maybe it's the wallpaper that makes this look like a rehearsal shot from a
play.

A two-episode catchup today.

In 'The Blitzkreig Button', Howard Stark returns to New York and hides out in Peggy's room while romancing various of her neighbours. He tasks her with photographing those of his inventions in custody, and then retrieving the titular blitzkreig button, a device intended to black out a city in case of air raid, the effects of which are too widespread and irreversible. Despite his hopes, however, Peggy is not blinded by loyalty, and discovers that the 'button' is actually a container for a preserved vial of Steve Rogers' blood, provoking her to break with him, concealing the vial in the wall of her apartment.

In a subplot, a dodgy individual whom Howard paid to sneak him back into the country betrays him, leading to a cold open of Carter rescuing him from a ransom attempt. He pursues Carter and Stark with an unfeasible rotary machine pistol, but is killed by Carter's bubbly neighbour Dotty, who turns out to be a total kung fu badass.

Oh, hells yeah!

At the head of 'The Iron Ceiling', we learn that Dotty is the result of a Russian training programme to create ruthless sleeper agents; a sort of proto-Black Widow. Meanwhile, a message on the magic typewriter suggests that a Stark weapon is being handed over to Leviathan in Belarus. As Carter knows the codes, the language, the area and is able to set up an operation with the Howling Commandos, she gets a field assignment under Agent Thompson.

The op is, of course, a trap, but they retrieve a Stark blueprint and a psychiatrist kept prisoner by Leviathan to keep their captive physicist stable while he works on it. There is also a killer nine year old girl on the loose, which is creepy enough even without her kicking off y crying in a corner like the Witch from Left4Dead, and home truths to be revealed from the man of action Agent Thompson.

There's a particularly neat moment, when Carter is obliged to change in the men's locker rooms and Thompson tricks Souza into going around to her side of the lockers. After a moment of awkwardness, he catches sight of an old bullet wound on her shoulder which connects her to the disguised photos from the very first episode. I appreciate the arc continuity, as well as the continuing competence of the other SSR agents.

The other arc development involves the battle of Findhelm, in which a great many Russians were massacred by no-one knows who, and which seems to be linked to Stark and to Jarvis's past.