The penultimate episode of this season of Agent Carter began with a serious misstep, a pointless pre-credits dream sequence featuring "A Little Song And Dance".
This added nothing to the story, imparted no useful information, and was never referenced again. I guess we should be thankful that it didn't go on any longer.
But I have to wonder what the showrunners were thinking, dropping this extended sequence in just as the season heads into its climatic final act?
Thankfully, the rest of the episode was back to Agent Carter's usual high standards.
Escaping their captors, Peggy and Jarvis argue over his gung-ho attitude, harsh words are said, and then he reveals the result of the damage Whitney inflicted on his wife and Peggy understands his anger.
Chief Thompson appears to be playing both sides as he attempts to bamboozle both Vernon Wells and Whitney Frost, while convincing Sousa and Peggy that he's back on the side of the angels.
Frost, meanwhile, aided by Manfredi the mobster, has imprisoned Wilkes, who survived his trip into the zero matter void and came back fully charged with the alien energy. Whitney is desperate to siphon the zero matter out of Wilkes, but isn't sure how.
The masterplan Sousa, Thompson, and Carter cook up involves getting Howard Stark's gamma cannon back in the vicinity of Whitney.
She wants it to drain Wilkes, while the others want to turn it on her, but at the last minute Jack reveals he has a third - and more destructive - option... rigging it as a remote-controlled bomb!
After the awful opening, A Little Song And Dance picked up the pace, delivering a scintillating episode as Thompson kept us on our toes, appearing to flip-flop between allegiances every few minutes, with no-one really knowing his true motivation except himself.
It'll also be interesting to see what becomes of Wilkes and Frost, the two people 'infected' with zero matter. Can Wilkes be saved? Will Frost bow out in an explosion of alien energy or live to thwart Peggy Carter (or even the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.) another day?
Next Time (Season Finale):
I have seen these song and dance dream sequences done on other shows and I usually hate them, but I actually enjoyed it on Agent Carter.
ReplyDeleteIt had no relevance to the rest of the show though, which was a bit odd...
It wasn't so much the song and dance number I objected to, per se (Buffy's Once More, With Feeling is one of the single greatest episodes in geek TV), it was its appearance at this key stage in the ongoing narrative and the fact that it added/imparted nothing to the story.
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