Peggy learned a secret but lost a lot more on Agent Carter season 1, episode 3! Read our recap and share your thoughts on “Tide and Time.”
Rules of the house
Peggy’s quiet evening is interrupted by a man attempting to climb into her room. Fortunately, he is not dangerous, only amorous, and looking for his girlfriend Molly.
Unfortunately, Molly is promptly evicted from the Griffith Hotel the next morning for breaking the “No men above the first floor” rule. Ouch.
Impossibilities
After Dooley and Krzeminski empty Mr. Mustache’s room (finding multiple passports and the instant-message typewriter) Thompson reports that Leet Brannis was Russian. Also, he allegedly died in 1944.
Dooley is all, “The dead don’t walk!” because he is a very intelligent man. When Sousa shows up with the Roxxon license plate ID’d – the car belongs to Howard Stark, of course – the chief sends Sousa and Thompson to find out who was doing the driving.
Calling car
Peggy shows up at Howard’s property to investigate his vault. If she can figure out how the thief got in, she reasons to Jarvis, “perhaps I can trace where he went – and locate Howard’s missing technology.”
Jarvis admits that he heard nothing during the break-in – the soothing thunderstorm sent him right off to sleep. Peggy’s incredulity is interrupted by the arrival of Sousa and Thompson. They confront Jarvis about the missing car, which Jarvis has reported missing.
Reluctant to let the men inside – because Peggy is hiding by the flowerpot – Jarvis agrees to go down to the S.S.R.
Traitors and allies
Dooley, Sousa, and Peggy watch Thompson go to work on Jarvis. Thompson claims that the missing car report is, well, missing, giving him a reason to grill the butler.
The file is actually with Dooley, who is convinced that Jarvis has information on Stark’s predetermined culpability. When Jarvis steadfastly asserts Howard’s innocence, Thompson plays his ace. Jarvis’s loyalty is surpassing, Thompson says, “considering you were charged with treason.”
As Peggy watches, stricken, Thompson reveals what he knows. After the charges of treason were dropped – presumably due to Stark’s monetary influence – Jarvis was dishonorably discharged from the army. As Dooley cheers from behind the glass, Thompson threatens to have Jarvis and his wife deported.
Jarvis goes white.
Meanwhile, Peggy subtly extracts the “missing” car report, pulling out her own ace when Dooley heads in to speak to Jarvis.
“Chief Dooley,” she says, with the air of a woman pretending she isn’t standing on a land-mine. “I’m afraid I mistakenly took your stolen car report.”
Sprite with relief, Jarvis makes his escape while Peggy faces the firing squad in Dooley’s office.
Water works
Peggy’s day gets worse that evening, when she brushes off Angie’s friendship. She then repels through the blast hole in Howard’s vault with Jarvis, while digging at him for information on his charge of treason.
Down in the sewer, Peggy realizes that with the city’s floodgates open during the storm Jarvis remembers, Brannis could easily float all of Howard’s treasures out to sea. As they follow the sewer, Peggy confesses she needs to know about Jarvis’s crime in order to trust him.
Reluctantly, he tells her the story.
Jarvis was serving in Budapest and had just met his wife when the war broke out. As Anna was – is – Jewish, she was not allowed to leave Hungary, and Jarvis’s general refused to sign a letter of transit for her. Desperate, Jarvis forged his signature, and was arrested while filing the papers.
Howard Stark, it turns out, “used his influence” to save Anna from Budapest and Jarvis from execution.
Hang on, we need tissues.
Losing at winning
At the harbor, Peggy and Jarvis find a boat bearing Brannis’s wavy-lined-heart symbol. A man in a hat watches as they board.
The boat is packed with Howard’s Bad Babies. Peggy can’t wait to call in the discovery to the S.S.R., but Jarvis senses she hasn’t thought this through.
“Publicly revealing these items won’t clear Mr. Stark’s name,” he says. “They’ll only place you under suspicion with him.”
Peggy can’t handle this truth, insisting that S.S.R. will respect her now. “But they won’t,” Jarvis says. “They’ll only use it to tear you down.”
Crushed, Peggy sends Jarvis to call in the find to Sousa.
Heartbreaker
Unable to convince anyone to cover him, Krzeminski settles in for the night shift with Sousa. He is a brute and a moron, but suspects that Sousa may be “sweet” on Peggy.
“Give it up,” Krzeminski advises. “No girl’s gonna trade in a red, white, and blue shield for an aluminum crutch.”
Sousa takes Jarvis’s hilariously-accented tip and heads down to the pier with Krzeminski.
Cheap shots
Meanwhile, Peggy finds herself in a brutal scrap with the man sent to guard the boat. She takes him out with the seizure-tongs and flees with Jarvis – even though the man is a witness.
When the S.S.R. arrive, Sousa is suspicious at how easy the get is. He and Thompson drive Stark’s goodies directly to headquarters, while Krzeminski drives Peggy’s assailant.
The man in the hat observes.
As Krzeminski relishes the thought of Thompson interrogating someone else, the man poses a concerning question.
“Was that dame working for you?” he asks. “The one on the boat. English broad. Solid right hook.”
“English?” Krzeminski repeats. (Oh crap.) “What did she look like?”
But before the thug can answer, Krzeminski’s car is rear-ended by another driver. Krzeminski storms out to confront the offender, and is shot dead by an unseen figure from a black car.
“I didn’t tell ’em nothing!” the thug cries, but he too is killed. The sleek black car drives off into the darkness.
Watch over me
The S.S.R. is grim when Peggy arrives the next day. Sousa is infuriated – not only because Krzeminski was killed, but because they were set up. He unknowingly picks up where Peggy has slipped in calling in the tip directly to the S.S.R.
“Somebody targeted them,” he tells her. “And I’m gonna find that bastard.”
Dooley is equally stricken, but knows exactly who to blame – Howard Stark!
But there is one bright spot. That evening, Peggy goes to the automat and tries to make amends with Angie. Angie softens over Peggy’s grief, and the two decide to get drunk together on secret schnapps.