Line #7 Recap/AgentCarterS2E4SmokeAndMirrors


1	Sousa and Peggy decide to confront the Arena Club head on, which is harder than it seems.
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4	!!Tropes:
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6	* ArtisticLicenseChemistry: Mr. Hunt is shot with enough tranquilizer to bring down a rhinoceros, and yet somehow shrugs it off. Sedatives used for large ungulates are fatal to humans, and there's no way to build immunity. Then again, Jarvis uses the gun for koalas, so Peggy was probably exaggerating.
7	* BadLiar: Peggy does a ''terrible'' job at trying to keep Sousa from realizing she's kidnapped Mr. Hunt and stowed him in her trunk, claiming she and Jarvis caught a possum... that is clearly yelling in English to be let out.
8	* BeenThereShapedHistory: According to Hunt, the Council of Nine is responsible for things like the assassination of UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley and TheGreatDepression.
9	* CoolBigBro: Michael was the only one who really supported Peggy and her dreams of adventure, even when Peggy herself had given up on them.
10	* ContinuityNod: One of the flashbacks shows Peggy learning the skills as a codebreaker that would serve her during her career.
11	* DisposableFiance: A flashback to Peggy's past reveals she was engaged to an Army officer named Fred Wells in 1940, and nearly turned down the offer to join the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operations_Executive SOE]] so she could marry him. After her brother's death, she became re-motivated to follow his advice, but her fiancé was a coward who wouldn't join her in the war, so she broke off their engagement and the rest is history.
12	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Chadwick sounds ''horrified'' when Whitney kills Mr. Hunt.
13	* {{Flashback}}: We see glimpses of Whitney's and Peggy's pasts. Turns out Peggy went from a Bletchley Park codebreaker to a military badass because her brother Michael recommended her for an espionage program, knowing she craved a life of adventure. In contrast, Whitney grew up in poverty on the plains with an emotionally abusive mother who cared little for her science genius, telling her that for a woman, looks are the only thing anybody would care about.
14	* GilliganCut: In a flashback, Peggy's mother tells her she will have to start behaving like a lady, eventually. Cue present-day Peggy, showing her behavior hasn't improved while eating with JabbaTableManners.
15	* HeroicRROD: Wilkes is fighting to stay in this world, and he mentions how easy it would be to stop, like being so tired the minute you lay down, you would fall asleep.
16	* InstantSedation: When Jarvis accidentally gets stuck with one of the tranquilizer darts, he drops within seconds. This is not the case for their intended target, Mr. Hunt, who can still fight after one dart, recovers from the second dart to attack again, and only stays down when Peggy gives him a TapOnTheHead with her [[PistolWhipping rifle butt]].
17	* JabbaTableManners: Peggy, while eating sandwich at the beginning. [[GilliganCut This happened right after the flashback where her mother told her to start learning to act like a lady]].
18	* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Mr. Hunt, when captured by Peggy and Sousa, brags that this won't work on him, as he didn't break when tortured by the Japanese during WWII. Rather than go for limb breaking, though, Peggy injects him with what she claims is a strain of malaria that will kill him in minutes if he doesn't talk (it's actually a mutant strain of the common cold invented by Howard).
19	-->'''Sousa:''' ...You gave him a cold.\
20	'''Peggy:''' A ''very intense'' cold!
21	* KickTheDog: Whitney kills a whole cage full of rats just to test her powers.
22	* KillerRabbit: When preparing to capture Mr. Hunt, Jarvis reveals his rifle loaded with tranquilizer needles. Not for subduing Howard's pet flamingo, but for the ''koala''.
23	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Masters tells Peggy and the audience that even if she and her career survive taking on the Council of Nine, as we know from her appearances in ''[[Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier The Winter Soldier]]'' and ''Film/AntMan1'', her allies' fates are still up in the air.
24	* MythologyGag:
25	** Whitney Frost turns out to have grown up on Broxton, Oklahoma, which is the same town where Asgard was remade and floated over after it was destroyed by Ragnarok in the comics.
26	** A golden figure of tragedy/comedy masks can be seen in Whitney's room, a reference to her supervillain moniker in the comics, Madame Masque.
27	* NeverMyFault: Whitney's mother blames her for her lover leaving her.
28	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Vernon Masters shows up to audit the SSR, thus preventing them to raid the Arena Club.
29	* OriginsEpisode: Through flashbacks, this episode serves as one for both Peggy and Whitney.
30	* OutOfFocus: Dr. Wilkes has noticeably less screen time in this episode, although we are given a big reveal about him -- he now has a unique connection to the Zero Matter that others cannot see, possibly implied to be transdimensional travel.
31	* PartingWordsRegret: Possibly between Peggy and Michael. Considering she kept proceeding with her wedding plans until she received the news of his death, it can be assumed that Peggy never talked with her brother again after their argument at her engagement party.
32	* RedRightHand: The black cracks on Whitney's face become larger every time she uses her Zero Matter–derived powers to kill.
33	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwich: Peggy never finishes cleaning up the mayonnaise that drops through Wilkes' hand onto their research.
34	* WeAreEverywhere: Sousa contacts his DA friend to get a warrant to search the Arena Club, little suspecting that he would be in the Council of Nine's pocket too.
35	* WeddingRingRemoval: When Peggy leaves for the front, she takes the letter from the SOE and leaves her engagement ring in its place.
36	* WhatTheHellHero: Sousa chews out Peggy for abducting Mr. Hunt, though it ultimately turns out that the main reason he's upset is because he wasn't kept in the loop about her plans, as he immediately volunteers to help with the interrogation.
37	* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Whitney Frost. She grew up in poverty on the plains with an emotionally abusive and neglectful mother who cared little for her daughter's science genius, telling her that looks are what anybody would care about, and who blamed Whitney for her lover leaving her.
38	* YouHaveFailedMe: Mr. Hunt anticipates that the Council of Nine will kill him for confessing about them to the SSR, so he threatens Chadwick and Whitney to protect him or else he will reveal their own secrets to the Council and the public. Unfortunately for him, Hunt has no idea that Whitney has discovered a perfect way to kill him without leaving any evidence, through her powers.

Context Recap / AgentCarterS2E4SmokeAndMirrors