Agent Carter, Season 1, Episode 3: “Time and Tide”
Written by Andi Bushnell
Directed by Scott Winant
Airs Tuesdays at 9pm (ET) on ABC
First things first, “Time and Tide” is a very boring hour of television compared to the boom of a start Agent Carter got off to in its first two episodes. It’s one thing to spend all of a season’s budget in the pilot, it is another thing to make that explicitly clear by having the very next installment turn out dull as dirt. Through the first 48 minutes or so of the episode, close to nothing happens besides small talk and exposition between various characters. What’s worse, much of this dialogue is used to dispense information the audience should already know, or at least be able to guess is coming a mile away. For a limited event series currently confined to eight episodes, an entire week dedicated to wheel spinning makes little sense and results in about as much entertainment throughout. Then even when the last few minutes start vomiting out important developments, they don’t hit with any weight whatsoever because the show is trying to have things resonate emotionally after only knowing these characters for a short period of time. The result is a great big mess of an episode that doesn’t do much in the way of convincing anyone that it can successfully maintain all of the thrills and feverish action that the strong suit of the pilot.
Agent Carter can’t be expected to look like a Marvel film week in and week out, but it also isn’t too much to ask that less than half the episode happens in the hotel or the diner. Unless the head matron at the Griffith all of a sudden turns out to be a Leviathan agent, the constant reminders that the boarding house is strict and will kick a girl out for the smallest insubordination doesn’t serve a purpose. Having Peggy realize a way into an “impenetrable” building based on Molly being evicted as a tenuous connection to the rest of the episode is cute, but unnecessary. She already has the diner to visit when she needs to talk with Angie, so the hotel is superfluous as a bonding arena and the other girls aren’t well fleshed out enough to be interesting in their own right. Peggy and Jarvis’ walk through the tunnel en route to Howard’s inventions at least changes the setting rather than having yet another scene be set at the Griffith or the SSR building, but their conversation doesn’t ratchet up energy-wise in the least. It is nice that Jarvis is allowed to be more than a butler and a chauffeur so soon, but the pure information dump that is his confession about the war and past love takes away most of the punch. The inspirational tale of Howard Stark rescuing Jarvis and his Jewish girlfriend from assured doom in WWII should elicit some sort of empathy, instead it comes off as yet another shortcut for Jarvis to relate to Peggy’s experiences with Steve and for her to bond with him on a level beyond espionage necessity.
Many of the incidents surrounding the SSR’s attainment of Howard Stark’s inventions and Agent Krzeminski’s death insult Peggy’s intelligence as well as the audience’s. Peggy not immediately realizing that calling in the discovery of the Stark crates to the SSR herself would result in her being marginalized in the investigation and further disrespected by her colleagues is hard to believe. Jarvis having to spell it out for her makes the scene that much worse. The episode’s one quality action sequence is obscured and worsened by taking place in a dark room, even though Scott Winant tries to do some interesting things (if a bit traditional as far as directorial tricks go) with a swinging light and flashlight beam.
The SSR acting as if they’ve never had a fallen comrade before, and Peggy hearing of it only the next morning when she enters the office, assumes the audience can be easily manipulated. Her realization that something bad has happened upon contact with the ladies out front, and subsequent mournful walk through the office, serves as an interestingly framed scene but her close tracking of the case and curiosity about her attacker makes it unlikely that something so tragic would slip past her purview for an entire night. Agent Krzeminski barely had time to make an impression, so the only real reason for his death is for the rest of the agents to deepen in their dislike of Howard Stark, which already exists, and for Peggy to turn to Angie for emotional support, which already happened to a certain extent after her roommate’s murder. Most of the advancements this week are table setting, but for a show with this short an episode order, this comes off as a muddled waste of time instead.
Some other thoughts:
- The show doesn’t waste any time making the subtext that are Agent Sousa’s feelings for Peggy text, does it?
- Chad Michael Murray’s accent is much improved in this episode compared to last week, mostly because it is nearly nonexistent. Regardless, Agent Thompson is still a super creep.
- Speaking of accents, James D’Arcy’s Southern drawl is…something. Not terrible exactly, just something.
- Even in an unflattering jumpsuit, Peggy Carter is still the most stylishly on point agent in history.
- In the next new episode, Dominic Cooper returns as Howard Stark. Even if he doesn’t bring any action, at least he will bring his not-at-all-bad-to-look-at-face.