Peggy and Sousa work on a plan to recover Wilkes and stop Whitney's plans, but face unexpected problems. Thompson finds something dark about Peggy, and Jarvis makes some rash decisions in the aftermath of Ana's shooting.
Tropes:
- Almost Kiss: Whitney almost kisses Manfredi after he praises her scar, but they get interrupted by Peggy and Sousa's arrival.
- Anachronism Stew: The periodic table over the safe goes all the way to Copernicium, meaning it was printed in 2010 at the earliest.
- Artistic License – Physics: The gamma cannon, despite firing nothing but high energy photons, apparently fires in a parabolic arc.
- Beware the Nice Ones: The normally stiff-upper-lipped Jarvis is determined to kill Whitney.
- Bilingual Dialogue: Nonna Manfredi speaks nothing but Italian during her appearance, but she clearly understands everything that's being said in English.
- Call-Forward: Wilkes is quite upset about the gamma cannon, asking if Peggy has any idea how dangerous gamma radiation is. The fact that they're using a gamma cannon to deal with the problem of zero matter and those possessing its power is another one.
- Continuity Nod: A flashback of Peggy neutralizing a nitramene bomb opens the episode, showing a bit of the life that Ana and Jarvis shared in the first season.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Invoked. Following Masters' advice, Thompson gets his hands on a heavily redacted S.O.E. file, Peggy Carter's, that claims she was involved in a massacre during the war that resulted in many civilian deaths. However, Peggy isn't at all fazed when Thompson tries to blackmail her with it, pointing out how convenient it is that Thompson found this file just after Masters ordered him to discover dirt on Peggy. Thompson thus starts to share her suspicion that Masters forged this file, which only increases after Masters brushes off his concerns by telling him the truth doesn't matter, only what's on her record does.
- Determinator: Jason claims that Whitney will never stop hunting Peggy and company until they turn over the uranium cores, ultimately choosing to let Whitney capture him again so he can tell her where the cores are rather than being on the run endlessly until killed.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Or grandma, in Manfredi's case.
- Freakiness Shame: Whitney brushes off Manfredi complimenting her looks because of the Zero Matter scar on her face, but Manfredi insists he's completely sincere. He thinks the scar makes her more beautiful because it shows her power, and a mobster like him admires power.
- Funny Background Event: Manfredi is arguing in the kitchen with his Nonna about the proper way to prepare the spaghetti sauce... while you can see Peggy and Sousa beating the ever living crap out of his men in the other room.
- Historical In-Joke: Jarvis's will identifies the episode's date as July 7, 1947 — when a UFO may or may not have crashed at Roswell. Presumably, it was actually the Zero Matter explosion.
- Hollywood Healing: 24 hours earlier, Peggy could barely move because of having been frickin' impaled. Now she's Italian restaurant brawling alongside Sousa.
- Hypocrite: Both Sousa and Peggy accuse each other of letting personal feelings cloud their judgement, while having the same problem themselves.
- It's Personal: Jarvis intends to get revenge on Whitney Frost due to her role in shooting Ana and effectively ruining their chances of starting a family together. Throughout the entire episode, Jarvis is filled with an all-consuming rage that has never been seen previously.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: After catching Masters stealing the uranium cores, Thompson confronts him about Peggy's falsified file... then wakes up in the lab with no memory of how he got there. Luckily, Peggy and Sousa find him shortly thereafter and explain Masters must've used the lab's memory device on him, then help him trace back his steps.
- Mama Bear: When Sousa threatens Manfredi, his grandmother grabs a knife and lunges at him, until Manfredi holds her back.
- My Beloved Smother: Even a mob boss like Manfredi still bows to quarreling with his grandmother, who nags him in Italian while he's cutting deals.
- Mythology Gag: Anyone familiar with the Marvel Universe is aware of Gamma radiation and its future potential.
- No, Mister Bond, I Expect You To Dine: Played in a funny way, when Manfredi's grandma only serves Sousa a meal.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The tightly buttoned, immaculate, and proper Jarvis is a mess. His collar is undone and tie loose, his sleeves up, his hair disheveled, his eyes red from weeping. At the start of the episode, he's focused on tuning the radio to Benny Goodman in the hopes that it will help Ana and smashes the radio when he can't.
- Revenge Before Reason: After Ana's near-fatal shooting by Whitney, Jarvis becomes ruthlessly focused on killing Whitney Frost himself — suicidally even, as he prepares his will and gives it to Rose for safekeeping in the event that he dies on his mission.
- The Unchosen One: The Zero Matter void draws in Jason rather than Whitney, to her horror. She adjusts quickly, and kidnaps him instead so she can take the Zero Matter from him by force.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Averted; Jarvis shoots Whitney twice the moment he gets close enough. Unfortunately for him, her Zero Matter powers have made her effectively bulletproof.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Ana ultimately begins recovering from her gunshot wound, but a doctor explains to Jarvis that the shot irreparably damaged her womb. Jarvis loses the nerve to tell her that they can never have children now.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Peggy tells Thompson that he doesn't need to cut corners to get ahead, that he's better than that.
