Peggy and Jarvis are chasing down Dottie and Whitney. Meanwhile, Whitney takes quite an interest in Jason, while Masters messes with Sousa.
Tropes:
- Badass Boast: Dottie stops Masters' recitation of his torture successes cold by listing off all the things she's done to herself, much less had inflicted on her by an opponent.Dottie: I've pulled out my own teeth, my own nails, my own hair. I've burned off my own flesh with a blowtorch. I'm no Nazi harlot, and you are wasting my time.
- Call-Forward: When looking through Howard Stark's projects, Whitney notices plans for a palladium-core reactor. This is better known to moviegoers as the Arc Reactor introduced in Iron Man. The palladium gave Tony trouble in Iron Man 2.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Only Howard Stark would develop a field weapon where the different firing sequences are set to the measurements of famous actresses.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Masters tries this on Dottie and fails spectacularly. He tries to intimidate her with all the tools he's laid before her, while talking about Ilse Koch, a Nazi concentration camp director's wife he once put under great pain, but Dottie brags back about how she's subjected herself to torture, including pulling out her own nails, teeth, and hair, and thus isn't scared. But there is something she hasn't prepared for, and it's Whitney coursing Zero Matter directly through Dottie's body.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: More "snarking about rescues", but Dottie's faux-cheery reaction when Peggy and Jarvis are led by armed guards into the cellar where she's being held is priceless.Dottie: Peggy! Is this supposed to be a rescue? What a nice surprise.
- Containment Field: With the blood sample from Whitney acquired in the last episode, Jason is able to power a machine that turns him solid again inside its walls. Another dose from Whitney when she attacks him allows him to exit the device yet remain solid, though it may not be permanent.
- Contrived Coincidence: Discussed. Jarvis finds it unusually fortunate that the signal on Dottie's tracker returned just minutes after they repaired the receiver. Peggy, however, immediately figures that Frost has Dottie and has put her in signal range so that Peggy and Jarvis will come rescue her.
- Crocodile Tears: Frost at her press conference, where she announces that her husband and the other Council members she killed all died in a shipwreck. Sousa thinks she's a great actress but Peggy thinks it's overdone.
- Darkest Hour: At the end of the episode, Ana is in the hospital, Whitney has Jason hostage, Dottie's on the loose, and Vernon Masters has taken control of the LA branch away from Sousa.
- The Dragon: Manfredi is now officially Whitney's, being her muscle and clearly being put in a position of authority over the remaining Council members.
- Fauxshadow: The episode spends a good deal of time with Mrs. Jarvis worrying about Jarvis getting killed on an assignment. In the end, though, he turns out just fine, but she ends up shot and in the ER, her future uncertain.
- Gambit Pileup: With no two gambits at all remotely compatible, even. Whitney, Peggy, and Masters are the primary gambiteers here.
- Gone Horribly Right: For rescuing Dottie, Jarvis brings along a Stark device that creates a powerful concussive burst to blast away attackers. However, he mistakes the delayed firing code for the immediate firing code, resulting in he and Peggy getting captured, then for the device to go off some time later, knocking out their captors.
- Hollywood Healing: Peggy is in remarkably good condition, considering that she was impaled two episodes ago and could barely walk in the previous episode.
- Hope Spot: As Peggy and Jarvis rush to head back home before Whitney gets to Jason, they radio Sousa to reach him first since he's closer. Sousa gets their message, but muggers implied to be sent by Masters intercept him and beat him senseless.
- I Have Your Wife: Whitney kidnaps Jason, then shoots Ana in the stomach right in front of Jarvis and Peggy to delay their pursuit.
- Innocently Insensitive: Jarvis in the car with Peggy, trying and failing to tactfully discuss Peggy's Love Triangle with Sousa and Wilkes.
- Nobody Poops: Now that Jason is tangible again, and eating food, it's reasonable to ask why his containment chamber, which he can't leave safely, contains nothing in the way of "facilities".
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- Played with between Whitney and Dottie — Dottie thinks that Whitney is trying to get information from her using this, but Whitney calmly declares that they're nothing alike and tortures the information out of her instead.
- Played straight with Jason, whom Whitney tries to lure to her side by pointing out that both of them are treated poorly and overlooked by the white men who hold all the power.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Dottie is a tough-as-nails Russian spy who outright brags to Vernon Masters that his threats of torture pale in comparison to the self-inflicted pain she's familiar with. But Whitney Frost's Zero Matter abilities are so powerful that she immediately breaks down into Tears of Fear, and spills everything she knows to her.
- Jarvis's nervousness and comic relief promptly vanish the minute he realizes Ana is in danger, upon which he holds Dottie at gunpoint and barks at her to do what they say.
- Out-Gambitted: Peggy fully expected that Whitney Frost was luring her to Dottie's location. However, she thought Whitney intended to capture her, when really she was luring Peggy away from her actual target, Jason.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Brave though it was, it's not clear what Ana was hoping to achieve by running outside after Whitney and Manfredi.
- Skewed Priorities: Jason accuses Peggy of this, saying she's paying too much attention to trying to recapture Dottie (who could be killed by Peggy at any time with her Explosive Leash), when he's facing imminent vanishment forever and needs her help with his machine to return to normal.
- Too Dumb to Live: Peggy explicitly told that cop not to open the trunk with Dottie inside. When she returns to the car, the cop's dead and Dottie's escaped.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Subverted. Dottie initially pulls this off while Masters is the one in the room, but even she's unprepared for Frost's Zero Matter powers.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: Vernon Masters puts Sousa on extended leave and takes over the LA SSR on behalf of Frost's Council.
- We Can Rule Together: When Whitney realizes Wilkes has also developed Zero Matter powers, she begs him to ally with her so they can research its applications together. Jason, however, refuses, and she knocks him out instead.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: At first it seems Ana will be spared when Whitney tells Manfredi not to kill her, since "we're not monsters", but when Ana refuses to let them leave with Jason, Whitney shoots her to distract Jarvis and Peggy.
- You Have Failed Me: Vernon points out that Stalin's penchant for this trope means that Dottie can never return to the Soviet Union, as she would be blamed for the failure of the Leviathan operation from last season.
