So I’m rewatching Agent Carter because it’s time to make ALL THE SOUSA GIFS
and I just realized that Jack tries really hard to interrogate Peggy the way Dooley interrogated the Roxxon employee that helped Leet Brannis make his nitromine.
Jack ends up beating up the Roxxon guy because he’s the stick, but he tries to offer Peggy a carrot to get her to turn over Howard. Of course it doesn’t work and he has to move on to threatening her with violence.
He also tried it on Jarvis by threatening to deport him, and it was going to work. Then Peggy disrupted it by waving the missing car police report around, letting Jarvis know they didn’t really have anything on him.
It must be a terrible blow to his confidence that he can’t do it, that he’s only good for one thing. I think he’s still holding it against her in S2. When Daniel calls asking for help, it’s a perfect opportunity to drag her out of “his” interrogation room. So he can redeem himself.
Of course the irony is that Dottie wanted to make a deal and wasn’t impressed by his threats of violence.
So when I had Enver to myself I grilled him obnoxiously about Sousa’s injury. He didn’t have a lot to say about it because the writers didn’t make many clear decisions, but he did say one thing.
“I imagine that he’s lost a lot of friends.”
Much has been made about the different types of war wounds the AC trinity endured, but Sousa’s generally focus on the physical and any mental ones are sort of related to that. Enver’s interpretation was almost the other way.
Thinking back on season 1, Sousa is sort of apart from the other SSR agents, the audience has generally interpreted this because they’re jerks and he doesn’t want anything to do with them. But what if that’s just the excuse? It would make sense thematically if Sousa’s character mirrors Peggy’s -- she is constantly trying to set herself apart from others, because people she loves get hurt around her. Meanwhile, he’s doing the same and keeping his work interactions light because he’s been hurt too.
“Not everyone came back from war wanting a hug,” Jack says to Sousa after his failed interrogation of the drunk from the docks. Okay, but that might include Sousa. Maybe he didn’t really want to share his story with that vagabond, and maybe it cost him something to do so. It would be consistent with Sousa’s self-sacrificing character to bring that up in a work context when for the rest of the show he’s deflecting any conversation about him /his leg with a flippant remark.
This trend carries into season 2 where Sousa doesn’t have any agents he can trust; he has moles in his office and doesn’t know it, he doesn’t know how unhappy Samberly is or even his full name when he hired him. If he’s not talking to Peggy the only time he talks about his leg is with Rufus Hunt, another baddie. He walks into his office after getting beaten in great pain and trying not to show it.
And he’s very, very concerned with how Jason knew that he’d give up the uranium rods for Peggy.
TL;DR: Sousa has been avoiding emotional connection with people just as much as Peggy has.
are some what purer then generally assumed to be, by both fandom and the other characters around him. If you look at his actual responses to people, he’s not desperate for attention or power as he seems.
1. “I was just doing what needed to be done.” This is Jack’s response to the appearance of the Washington bigwig at the end of Season 1. Not a lie, this is the literal truth. It’s possible he says it only to *appear* humble and we all know his response should be to give Peggy credit. Season 2 puts a different shade on his character, though. Another interpretation was that he was in a difficult place: letting the other man see what he wants to see allows them all to keep working, when calling attention to Peggy might mess that up, for him and for her.
2. “I want to be in the muck.” Jack’s response when Vernon asks if he wants to be "the former chief at the SSR or the muckey-muck at the next big thing”. This is a clever phrasing, he’s seeming to agree with Vernon but what he wants is something between those two options. He wants to interrogate Dottie himself, not trade her for favors. He wants to do the work.
3. “That’s all I ever wanted to do,” Jack responds to Vernon after giving him the Isodyne film that explains the origins of zero matter. Vernon has just told him he’s done his country a great service, convincing him that this is something too sensitive for the SSR to keep. He doesn’t even need any ambition here. On one side is a family friend and mentor telling him something is a security risk. On the other you have Peggy illegally breaking into a private club and coming out with allegations, but no evidence. Tough call. We have no idea what Vernon has done to earn his trust, and meanwhile he knows that Peggy is willing to work outside the law.
4. “I-uh? No? But thank you?” In response to Whitney flirting/asking him to star in a movie with her. His entire conversation with the Chadwicks revolves around the Communist threat, which of course Jack (or any SSR agent) would be on board with. The schmoozing part seems kinda awkward for him though.
5. He doesn’t answer when Vernon gives him a hard time about Peggy acting without his knowledge. He just starts drinking heavier. Until he runs into Jarvis, who implies that Thompson’s motives are less than pure.
6. “I’m Chief of the NY SSR. I work for the federal government.” His clipped response to Jarvis’s poking probably makes him just more determined to toe the line.
7. “There is no question, sir!” To Vernon implying Jack might not be suitable for a commanding position. Vernon is threatening Jack’s job and maybe his entire purpose in life, telling him to get Peggy out of the Isodyne mess or else. I don’t know how much Jack hears when Hugh tells Vernon that Whitney is in charge, but what he does get is the evidence that Peggy let Dottie out of prison. Getting Peggy to back off probably seems like a small price to pay to keep his own job.
8. “This is your choice, not mine,” Jack says to Peggy when presenting her with the M. Carter file. Okay, he’s avoiding his own responsibility here, but he does see himself as throwing her a lifeline. He doesn’t respond when Peggy tells him he’s better than cutting corners to get ahead. She sees ambition, but Jack doesn’t have nearly the idea of the scope of the problem or power of Whitney Frost.
9. “My gut is telling me that Peggy Carter--” While discussing the file, Jack is interrupted by Vernon’s flunkie, but he could have been about to tell him that Peggy was onto something.
10. “I won’t let you do this.” When Jack is confronted with incontrovertible evidence that Vernon is dirty, on the phone and by his own eyes, he tries to stop him. He immediately stops listening to anything that Vernon has to say.
The writers did a (too?) good job creating doubt about Jack’s motives, to the point the audience thinks he’s willing to throw in with Whitney for power. Nothing Jack ever says actually reinforces this though: someone without sufficient information, who loves his job and believes in service and has no idea Vernon is corrupt might make all the same decisions. He does react well to Vernon’s praiseful manipulations, but maybe it’s less about ambition and more about feeling like a good man who is contributing to a cause. The interpretation of Jack as ambitious is created by how all the other characters interpret him and treat him--Peggy and Vernon foremost.
TL;DR Thompson doesn’t love power for its own sake; he sees it as a means to an end for getting the job done. His coworkers just don’t see it that way.
Betrayal as a theme in Agent Carter Season 1 and Season 2
It’s no surprise to regular follows of this blog that I LOVE SPY NONSENSE. I love it because at the heart, it’s really about trust and our difficulties as humans giving our trust to others. Everyone has trusted someone they shouldn’t, or longed to do so, which makes it incredibly easy to relate to. Trust, once given, isn’t very dramatic without the most disastrous potential outcome: betrayal.
It’s no wonder betrayal features as a very important theme even among our heroes in Agent Carter.
Peggy knows very well when she takes up the case in Howard’s defense in season 1 that it’s a betrayal of the SSR. She even refers to it as treason.
It’s no wonder, then, that everything is so fraught during the interrogation scene, which I’ve written about before. Most of the audience on that scene focuses on Peggy’s frustration: she’s been ignored professional and now that they have evidence against her, they’ve just gone and arrested her and started interrogating her without listening to anything she has to say. Its more of the same for her, the culmination of all her frustrations through out the whole season.
For the men, all they see is the betrayal. They have different opinions of Peggy between them, but what they know is that one of their own has been killed, and she has been working against them. It’s not unexpected for a spy but it’s still a dastardly act, and they all get over it in a different way.
Dooley is busy getting his brain scrambled by Fenhoff, but he more or less accepts Peggy back to status quo after Daniel supports her and her intel proves good. He doesn’t live long enough to do much other than ask her to avenge him, but at least he recognizes her skills before the end.
Daniel initially is very hurt. It’s not just his coworker who betrayed him, but his (only?) friend. All his other relationships within the SSR are difficult: the other men tease him, Dooley tries to push him off. Peggy is the one person who treats him like a person. Which is a very good reason to be angry with her during interrogation. Even his supposedly sexist accusation that she’s sleeping with Howard can have a non-sexist interpretation: what could make her turn on him and their relationship, other than a deeper relationship with another person? He knows she’s not a political traitor.
He ends up moving past it both because he leans heavily on the facts (Peggy’s intel on Leviathan otherwise proves her story) and because he inadvertently betrays his coworkers too. His exposure to Midnight Oil causes him to attack first Jack and then Peggy; when he wakes his first real reaction is horror at having hit her. He didn’t mean to betray them and it isn’t his fault, but the feeling of being swept along into doing something terrible to someone inadvertently must be pretty clear for him.
Jack in comparison takes the very worst lesson from all of this. Not only does he expect Daniel to turn on him at Fenhoff’s command, but he views Peggy’s betrayal of their budding relationships through his own self-centered lens. From his point of view, betraying the SSR for Howard’s sake must look very much like currying favor with the rich and famous. He also knows Peggy isn’t a political traitor and he has little knowledge or interest in the Peggy/Howard relationship if it isn’t sexual. Why be friends with someone if not to get a leg up?
His betrayal comes at the end when he takes the credit instead of recognizing the contributions of both Daniel and Peggy--but I think he thinks it’s okay because it’s what Peggy did. His behavior, while motivated by self interest, is also validated by his view of what just happened. Why should Peggy be the only one who gets favors out of that whole mess?
Season 2 has less circling around the theme of betrayal, mostly coming through with the continuation of Jack’s arc.
Why shouldn’t Jack work with Vernon? It gets him into the Arena Club. Everything he says to Peggy to persuade her from continuing on the case is based around angering powerful people. He thinks they speak the same language, but they don’t. Peggy doesn’t care if she might get hurt bringing down the powerful Council of Nine. Jack probably thinks this is because of Howard. She’s staying in his mansion, after all. She already has Friends.
Jack ultimately betrays everyone in S2 more or less at the same time. Peggy is discarded right along with Vernon, because he’s decided to do what is Right, and he is the only one who knows that is right then. It’s no more than Peggy did in S1, after all, betraying their agency because Howard was in the right. Jack uses Peggy’s actions in S1 to help support the actions he wanted to take anyway. It doesn’t work out, and he joins up with the rest of the group because he does still want to take Whitney down.
Does Jack learn his lesson? He gives Peggy the pin key, but probably not, since he is shot in possession of the M. Carter file. Why did he keep it? Why not give it to her to destroy or investigate?
P.S. I went through too many posts and tagged all my haphazard Agent Carter with the tag #meta carter.
In season 1 Daniel does the right thing despite the fact that it’s dangerous for Peggy (if she had been convicted of treason with Howard, it could have meant hanging, which she points out to Jarvis).
In season 2 Daniel does the right thing unless it’s dangerous for Peggy...
...he’d be willing to take her down if she was on the wrong side, but if she’s not, if she’s the same as him, and it’s her versus the world, he’ll let the world burn.
what she means: but did peggy carter actually push howard stark into the thames on v-e day? she tells sousa this when he says he's going to investigate howard's boats. she claims howard can't swim and he's only in the boat in the photo to impress the girl. in the very scene previous howard GOES OFF IN THE SAME BOAT, she's clearly lying about howard not being able to swim. howard later swims naked in his own pool at the end of season two. howard and peggy worked together through all of The First Avenger with howard barely trying to hit on her, so it's supremely unlikely he tried to kiss her at the end of the war when she was still grieving steve rogers. he's a hound but he's also her friend and we've never seen him treat her with anything but respect. including a very polite offer to take her to fondue. HOWARD STARK CAN SWIM and thus the entire story is fabricated. but the entire fandom accepts and references that peggy pushed howard into the thames... if people believe it, then it might as well be true.
I live for Peggy asking Daniel directly if he’s okay with working with Vernon. Out of everyone at the SSR she trusts his judgement the most.
I also live for Jack Thompson manipulating everyone with nothing but the truth. Except for Samberly. He knows who he can get away with lying to and who is savvy enough to catch on.
People criticizing Agent Carter because Peggy chooses to stay in LA for Daniel is hella ironic. A woman being independent and a woman in a satisfying romantic relationship is isn’t actually a black and white binary, even if most of pop culture ends up choosing to depict it that way. Marvel already made choices to avoid that: we know Peggy ends up married with kids AND Director of SHIELD. It’s weird to criticize an excellent pop culture representation of a woman just because it doesn’t fit into an overly narrow view. Getting a more diverse representation of women’s choices in pop culture is the very thing we need.
Add to that, literally the entire character arc of season 2 was Peggy learning to rely on others when she needs them. She has to rely on Jarvis, on Howard, Sousa and the others, both because of her injury and because she doesn’t always have every skill required. And it’s Sousa that verbalizes the importance of this for her: it’s a lesson he already had to learn the hard way. She wouldn’t be an effective Director if this wasn’t something she learned along the way. For her to choose HIM means she both recognizes the importance and signifies her willingness to change (that part was still absent in S1). They make each other better people, and while of course a romantic relationship isn’t required to do that (her brotp with Jarvis has done the same in other ways), I literally can’t think of anything more beautiful.
