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sonofcoulson · 10 months

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1945 Agent Carter and the Howling Commandos

Feature presentation!

This is Peggy Carter's first and possibly only movie with her name in the title.

Peggy, the Human Torch (Jim Hammond) and the Howling Commandos dealing with Hydra cells left after the war.

Espionage! Infiltration! Fighting bad guys!

We open on a memorial service for Steve. They believe he is lost to the icy waters he crashed into.

Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, the Human Torch (Jim Hammond), the Howling Commandos, Colonel Phillips etc attend. Then they share Steve stories at the wake.

Emotions are still raw, especially for Peggy and the commandos.

Howard is still looking for him, the SSR has stopped funding the search so Howard is using his own money. Peggy suggests, however hard it may be, that they try to move on. Howard doesn't believe Peggy, he knows she can't move on. He can't either so he won't give up.

Cut to two young adults being chased down the street in liberated Paris. They are kidnapped. They try to reason with their captors, the young man says, "Do you know who I am?" and the kidnappers know exactly who they are. Not the response he was expecting.

The young woman says "Our father has money, he can pay you". But they are not interested in the money…Hail Hydra.

Back at SSR HQ (or 'the playground') Jim is discussing a mission to locate and take out a Hydra bunker (believed to be in northern Italy) with Peggy and Howard. As they finish Peggy is approached by Lord James Montgomery Falsworth, member of the Howling Commandos, revealed here to be a major financier of the SSR. It was his children, Brian and Jacqueline, that were taken, in Paris, just like their mother. There is no ransom note either, also like their mother.

He is trying to maintain a stiff upper lip but failing miserably. Jim offers to stay and help. Peggy points out that, unfortunately, Hydra won't defeat itself. They resolve to find them. Jim wishes them luck and sets off for Italy.

Cut to Brian and Jacqueline in a holding cell with other prisoners. A Hydra scientist, Werner Rheinhardt, enters carrying the Obelisk artifact in special safety gloves. An armed guard insists one of the prisoners hold it, bare handed. They turn to stone. The stone person is taken away.

They then start harassing Brian to do it, so Jacqueline steps in to volunteer, despite his protests. To their relief, she does not turn to stone. Instead, Rheinhardt utters, 'discovery requires experimentation' and she is taken away as Brian is beaten unconscious with the butt of the guards rifles.

Peggy, Howard and Lord James and the other HCs have travelled incognito, posing as journalists. In their hotel room Gabe and Howard present them with discreet gadgets they designed and produced together. All are impressed with Gabe's hidden talents. Howard laments that he is too well known now to go with them and hopes they don't blow themselves up with the exploding toaster. Jacques excitedly says, "There's an exploding toaster!?". Howard points out that he was joking. Jacques looks disappointed. Howard says maybe next time.

They have traced Brian and Jacqui's last known location to a small café near the city centre. They make discreet enquiries and deduce there is a new waiter who served them on the day and hasn't been to work since.

They go to his address and he seemingly isn't home. Jacques suggests a small controlled explosion to blow the lock. Gabe counters that to be more discreet, then should use the laser disguised as a pack of cigarettes to cut the lock. Jacques is disappointed.

They cut the lock and enter, the apartment is empty but the bathroom window is open. Lord James spies a man on the rooftops who flees. The gang take to the streets while Falsworth squeezes through and pursues across the rooftops of Paris.

The suspect is very good at rooftop running, but not quite as good as Falsworth and they engage in a thrilling chase. Lord James is in constant communication with the team using their walkie talkies disguised as American quarters. Peggy has an idea if he can force the man down to street level.

He is able to corral his quarry down a fire escape and through an apartment window and down the main staircase into the street. The team then begin to cut off his escape routes, through coordination with Peggy, until he is forced down a narrow sidestreet. There he sees Peggy, having not spotted her in the apartment, pleads in French for her help from a gang of pursuing thugs. Je suis désolé, says Peggy pulling out her pistol, my French is a little rusty. The suspect turns away from her to flee again but is punched out by Dugan instead.

Jacques offers Peggy French lessons. She says she lied, she's actually fluent in French, but it was a good line. Jacques looks disappointed.

Falsworth is praised by the group for his amazing free running skills, they ask where he learned them. He says he studied under Georges Hébert who in turn had learned these skills from "indigenous tribes he had met in Africa" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour) for a special military project in WWI.

Peggy surmises that he was the mysterious WWI hero Union Jack. Peggy and the gang are astonished and asked why he didn't show those skills (rooftop running, parkour, amazing feats of agility) before. He says Steve did all that stuff and was better at it too.

Peggy says oh pish posh (or something else peculiarly British like that) and tells Falsworth to take the compliments.

They take the suspect for questioning.

Back at the Hydra research facility, Rheinhardt is monologuing to Jacqui about how few people could survive contact with the Obelisk and how they are yet to exactly determine why they do. From what they have discovered by interrogating and dissecting other survivors they believe it is something to do with their genetics being different to other humans. Genetics, muses Werner, you appear to share with your mother. Jacqueline asks if they took her mother, if she is still alive. Werner says she escaped and they don't know how (he is irritated by not knowing things).

He resumes monologuing. There are mentions of a ritual, he says, for beings such as you…to awaken their true potential. The ritual involved crystals and Rheinhardt has actually managed to procure some. He instructs the guard to break it and leaves for the observation room.

The guard follows the instructions and the gas from the broken crystal turns both them and Jacqui into stone. Rheinhardt is disappointed as he believed they were finally getting somewhere. He tells his assistant to put the stone bodies into storage.

Brian, meanwhile, is about to have the latest batch of Hydra brand super soldier serum. It uses the blood of the Obelisk survivors to make up the gaps in Erskine's original formula. After the procedure, they are surprised to see he has survived as the last 47 batches have resulted in death for the test subjects.

Their success is short lived however as Brian, unaccustomed to the super-strength, breaks the lab and accidentally kills the technicians.

The café waiter/suspect wakes up in the basement of an abandoned building. He is interrogated by Peggy (good cop) and Dum Dum (bad cop).

He eventually confesses that he was blackmailed under the threat of being revealed as a Nazi collaborator. An old contact had heard of the Falsworth children coming to Paris. The Café was a favourite of the Falsworths in the interwar years. They had installed the young man as a waiter with instructions to call if they came to the café. They ask for the number and Jim radios Howard to call back to base to trace it to its origin.

The young man says he couldn’t do it before because he was too scared.

Peggy says "Do what?"

The man says that he is now more scared of what will happen if he is found out. He says they are executing collaborators.

Peggy says perhaps they can come to an arrangement, then she realises his intentions. It is too late. He bites the hidden cyanide capsule and dies.

"It's Hydra" says Peggy, "of course it's bloody Hydra."

The number then comes back as Austrian. Howard, glad to feel useful again, will fly them. Dugan realises, entirely too late, they could have used the hand-held hypno-beam disguised as a hair dryer.

The Hydra research facility is masquerading as a grand hotel. Peggy checks in with Howard as he's terrible at espionage and is under strict instructions to keep his mouth shut. Her German is still good and she even manages an Austrian accent. Their disguises are top notch and so they go to their room without suspicion. They do some reconnaissance and Peggy finds an area that is off limits to guests and the staff don't know what's in there.

Peggy goes back to the room and calls reception for help as her "hair dryer" has an American plug. It is secretly the hypno beam. She convinces the receptionist to let the Howling Commandos in the service door. They are disguised as staff and the hypno beam makes the receptionist tell anyone who asks that they are new.

Howard, putting on a slightly different accent, plays the brash American tourist (not a big stretch for him) and wanders into the restricted area and starts taking pictures. The receptionist makes a fuss about not being allowed in there.

The Howling Commandos rush over and Gabe, who also speaks good German, assures them that they'll take care of it. Peggy hurries over with the pretense of rescuing her 'dummkopf' American husband.

The camera is actually a portable x-ray scanner and shows a secret door that is sealed electronically.

The receptionist is starting to get suspicious when Gabe activates the EMP joy buzzer which lets them in the door. They slip away unnoticed in the ensuing chaos. When the lights come back on the receptionist goes to check up on them and they are gone. With no knowledge of the secret door they reason that they simply didn't notice them go past.

They gain access to the underground bunker (it's always an underground bunker isn't it?), stow their gear and change into Hydra uniforms. Jim Morita uses the UHF Pin to radio for backup with instructions on how to get in.

They try to go stealth mode for a while but arouse suspicions when they don't know some of the new Hydra protocols. Howard confirms it with his feeble attempt at a 'Hail Hydra'.

Aware that Hydra research subjects tend not to survive, they launch a full on assault of the facility with back up already on the way.

Jacqueline awakens from what we now realise was terragenesis and has gained pyrokinetic powers. She and her brother make their own way through the compound, with somewhat unintentional violence.

They are heading away from the labs, towards the centre of the huge underground complex of corridors and tunnels. Peggy's team are heading down through the tunnels to reach the labs. They all converge near the centre of the complex.

Lord James is obviously thrilled that they are both alive and seemingly well.

His kidults tell him to stay back and relay some of their harrowing experiences. They are both afraid of their powers.

Human Torch arrives. He destroyed the Italian base and left an SSR clean up crew. He followed a lead from that base to Austria. Word in Italy was that Werner Rheinhardt is the last head of Hydra.

Seeing Jacqui's fear, the Torch remembers his own struggles in learning to control his own powers.

He reassures her that she can't hurt him and he will help her learn to control it.

Brian wants to be left behind and is distraught at all the death he has caused. Peggy and Lord James convince him to join, albeit reluctantly.

Rheinhardt has escaped to a storage facility.

As it turns out, the kids powers prove useful in accessing the escape tunnel, though the transport is long gone.

Werner is desperately trying to load up as many artefacts as he can before he escapes, especially the Obelisk. He laments that he cannot experiment further on Jacqueline as she not only survived but gained powers too. He is relieved to hear they have more samples of the batch of serum that gave Brian his powers.

Peggy's team arrive, with backup (and the Torch) and get the drop on Werner. They arrest him and his goons. Peggy volunteers to interrogate him.

In the chaos of securing the base, Brian is able to destroy the whole batch of serum. Howard is livid at losing a possibility to complete Erskine's work. Peggy however, approves. She believes that Steve was unique and worries that they could end up with hundreds of Johann Schmidts running around instead.

She sees that Brian has recognised that risk too and that says something about his character.

Peggy arrives at the Playground after her first interrogation of Rheinhardt at the Rat.

Colonel Phillips has been leading the debrief. He notes that Jacqueline and Brian have been reunited with their father. He says their presence here indicates they have some degree of control over their powers.

Jim Hammond says their training is going well. Jacqueline says she hasn't set anything on fire today, at least, not by accident. The two are clearly getting on well.

Brian is more reticent. He hasn't managed to get through a training session without injuring an instructor. Peggy volunteers to help him as she has some experience with super soldiers.

Phillips asks if she got anything useful from Rheinhardt. She says he may have lost his marbles, he keeps going on about blue angels. Besides, she has seen the results of his experiments for Hydra and isn't sure if gaining his knowledge is worth the moral cost.

Colonel Phillips says there are two big announcements. First, after days of research and fact checking and double checking, it appears Hammond was right. Werner Rheinhardt appears to be the last head of Hydra. It's over.

(Many congratulations all around. Apart from Peggy who shakes her head).

Second, he is retiring.

(Various reactions).

He'd been thinking about it and, with the last piece of news, it just seemed like a good time.

He hands over to the new Agent in Charge, John Flynn.

Flynn: Hello everyone. A pleasure to meet you. If I could get straight to business…with the war over and Hydra defeated-

Peggy (interrupting): Don't be so sure they're gone. We have to-

F (interrupting back): Settle down, sweetheart.

P (standing): What did you just say to me?

Howard manages to convince her to stand down. Flynn continues. They will be relocating the SSR base from London to New York. Effective immediately. Everyone will have to relocate. Uproar. Colonel Phillips settles everyone down.

Flynn says the Falsworth children will need to stay on base until they are deemed to be safe. The Falsworths are not happy.

Flynn is starting to get flustered. He apologetically tells Howard that they can longer justify spending SSR funds on a futile search for Captain Rogers. Howard points out they are his funds and he can damn well do what he pleases with them. He walks out. Peggy follows him, leaving the debrief in chaos behind her.

Howard apologises and said he had heard rumours that Phillips was retiring but didn't realise he was being replaced by a moron. He says they should have asked her to take charge. She agrees. This lightens the mood somewhat.

Howard: Listen I was thinking of starting up my own agency.

Just think…you, me, the boys. If Union Jack over there comes with us we can run it our way, the right way. Be like a shield of armour around the world.

Peggy: I'll think about it…

Will you really keep looking for Steve?

H: I have to.

P: You can't move on?

H: I can't. He was my friend.

P: I suppose I can't stop myself helping broken soldier boys either.

Howard leaves her to consider her future with the SSR.

Mid credits:- Lord James Falsworth has just agreed to join Howard's new project and is trying to get the SSR to release his children. Jacqueline and Brian approach him with a theory about their mother.

Post credits:- From a deep dug mass grave in a forest (with Hydra's grand Austrian hotel dilapidated in the background) a person digs their way out. They spend a moment processing their survival. Then they notice they look different from how they remember. It is…Baron Blood!

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