Agent Carter · Season 2 · Episode 2
A View in the Dark
Synopsis
In the Arena Club, The Council of Nine orders Calvin Chadwick to shut Isodyne down and bury every asset before the federal heat gets worse. Peggy Carter and Chief Daniel Sousa pursue the Isodyne lead. Naturally, Isodyne answers with a fake containment leak. Seeing Carter barred from the lab, Jason Wilkes, tired of protecting the men who threatened him with treason charges, decides he trusts Peggy more than his own employer and passes her a note to meet him later. Elsewhere, Jane Scott's body disappears from the morgue. Afterward, Wilkes, ever the crafty scientist, breaks into a locked office to steal a real of film.
Dr. Wilkes takes Peggy to the Griffith Observatory and shows her the film of what Isodyne has been hiding. An atomic test went wrong. Men and vehicles vanished, and one impossible substance was left behind. Isodyne calls it zero matter. Peggy decides they are going to steal it that night. Gunmen ambush them, Jarvis rides to the rescue on an SOS signal, and the three raid the lab before dawn. Inside, Whitney Frost is waiting with a gun and a demand for the specimen. A brief struggle between her and Jason and the lab explodes. Wilkes does not walk out, and no body is found. The zero matter is simply gone. Chadwick's frantic phone call to his wife closes the night: there was an accident, and their world-changing discovery has vanished into thin air. Whitney Frost, still alive, is the only one that knows what really happened..
Reality Designation
This story takes place in the main continuity: 199999
Reality numbers are Marvel's official designations.
Where a universe has no official number we follow the Marvel Database and use its Temporary Reality Number (TRN-1092). Where there is neither — official or temporary — at the time we watch it, we assign a Snark Industries number of our own (SI-001).
Characters in the Episode
SSR agent driving the Isodyne / zero-matter case
Peggy's ally; kicks off the observatory SOS rescue
SSR Los Angeles chief; quietly seeing Violet
Isodyne scientist and informant; presumed killed in the blast
Movie star and Chadwick's wife; corners Wilkes for the zero matter at gunpoint
Isodyne's backer and Senate hopeful; a Council member seemingly out of his depth
Edwin's wife and sparring partner
SSR operative fronting the Auerbach Theatrical Agency
Sousa's girlfriend
Council of Nine member; Roxxon Owner
Council of Nine member; boasts of orchestrating the 1929 crash
Directing the movie "The Woman with the Golden Face", starring Whitney Frost. Is constantly badgering her about her looks.
The body of the late Jane Scott is stolen and the two SSR Agents with it, killed.
Milestone: Killed by Rufus Hunt
One of the Agents transporting Jane Scott's body when Rufus Hunt shows up and kills them.
Milestone: Killed by Rufus Hunt
One of the Agents transporting Jane Scott's body when Rufus Hunt shows up and kills them.
In-Universe Dates
The Wall Street Crash of 1929
Spoken by Hugh Jones
The Manhattan Project
Spoken by Dr. Wilkes - Real Historical Event
Isodyne's failed post-war atomic test
Date printed on the front of the Isodyne Atomic Program Reel that is stolen by Jason Wilkes.
Takes place the day after S2E1: The Lady in The Lake and counted backwards and reasoned from a positive date stated in S2E3: Better Angels.
Comic Roots
Where the episode's people and places come from on the page.
On the page she debuts in Tales of Suspense #97 (October 1967) by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, first fronting a crime outfit as the masked boss "Big M," and she takes up the Madame Masque name in Iron Man #17 (September 1969). Her birth name is Giulietta Nefaria; "Whitney Frost" is the name her adoptive family gave her. Comic Whitney is a crime heiress; this Whitney is a studio-era leading lady who buries a scientific mind behind a smile, a figure the producers fashioned after Hedy Lamarr, the movie star who was also a genuine inventor.
The Council of Nine is the MCU's Secret Empire. Showrunners Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas have said as much: the Arena Club cabal stands in for the comics' Secret Empire, the shadow organization historically entangled with Hydra. Though the show is careful to state the Council's emblem is not Hydra's despite the family resemblance. One member wears a deeper comic pedigree than the rest. Hugh Jones debuts in Captain America #180 (December 1974) by Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema, the oil magnate whose Republic Oil & Gas becomes the infamous Roxxon.
Recommended Reading
Where to go next if the episode left you wanting more.
Whitney Frost's first appearance as the masked crime boss "Big M," the seed of Madame Masque.
Introduces Hugh Jones and the Roxxon saga behind the show's Council businessman.
The Snark File
Easter eggs, callbacks and technical tidbits.
"The Woman with the Golden Face"
The film Whitney is currently filming is an Easter Egg for Madam Masque and her iconic Golden Mask.
Hedy Lamarr
As mentioned above, Producer Michele Fazekas has said Whitney was fashioned after Lamarr, the Golden Age star who moonlighted as a real inventor.
Written in parallel to Doctor Strange
Zero matter was developed in coordination with the Doctor Strange (2016) film. Fazekas has said Marvel's only note back was whether a script "doesn't conflict with the Doctor Strange script."
Wilkes Has A Bad Sense of Direction
When Jason and Peggy are talking atop the Griffith Observatory, he points in the direction of the ocean and says he grew up in the orange fields in that direction. He would have needed to point about 90 degrees to the right for the nearest orange fields in Ventura County.
