After the slaughter at the movie theatre, Howard Stark returns to New York to explain to the SSR what the chemical weapon is that is now in the hands of Dr Ivchenko and Dottie.
He proposes using himself as bait to lure the villains out of hiding, but the plan backfires when Dottie creates a distraction and Howard is kidnapped.
Stark is then hypnotised, by Ivchenko, into thinking he flying his plane to retrieve the frozen body of Captain America, when in fact he is heading straight for Times Square with a payload of deadly psychoactive gas.
Peggy, Jarvis, Sousa and Thompson race to stop him.
A nicely pulp-tastic episode with weird science (Ivchenko's comic book hypnosis) and technology (Dottie's automatic rifle), Valediction finally gave us the Peggy vs Dottie fight that the back-half of this season has been building up to. And it was as fesity and bloody as we might have hoped for. Even if the resolution was ultimately inconclusive.
While the main plot, re: Howard Stark's stolen 'bad babies', was resolved, Valediction still left plenty of plot threads dangling for the next season.
The whole issue of Leviathan certainly wasn't addressed (I'm pretty sure that name wasn't even mentioned in this episode), Dottie slipped away to kick ass another day, and then there was the delightfully unexpected coda featuring a big name villain from Captain America: The First Avenger (who also has ties to Captain America: The Winter Soldier).
Season two can't come around soon enough. Let's hope, now that Agent Carter has a home on Fox UK, we don't have to wait months and months after it has aired in the States to get see our countrywoman in action again.
My totally unscientific, knee-jerk, Enjoyment Ratings Average scoring system has netted season one of Agent Carter a score of 4.69 out of five, putting it just behind season one of Daredevil, which scored 4.77.
In comparison, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. hit 4.295 in season one and 4.114 in season two, which confirms for me that Marvel's televisual outings for their comic book properties work far better in the short-season format, as this requires story focus, tight scripting and the elimination of padding.
And as a reminder of this brilliant series, here's a look back at season one of Agent Carter:
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