Peggy Carter really does seem to be attacked from all directions in “The Blitzkrieg Button.”  Leviathan is still out there somewhere, plotting.  Howard Stark is back, and he has some questionable motives.  And, due in part to how Howard came back, a smuggler called Mr. Mink is after Peggy and Jarvis, with a very odd weapon.  It looks something like a Gatling pistol to me.  And, of course, she’s still getting clubbed over the head by the “Men are awesome, women are worthless” theme of the show, over and over and over, but more on that later. 

Howard’s return to America is in his usual ridiculously pampered yet effective style.  He’s supremely unconcerned with how much he inconveniences Peggy and Jarvis as he goes about his business.  He’s spoiled, annoying, and out of control, as well as becoming a cheap comic relief device.  He’s concerned about one of his inventions, the titular Button, which will black out an entire city and damage it for years to come.  OK, that’s bad, and worth getting away from, well, pretty much everyone.

The SSR boys finally do something on their own that doesn’t involve Carter, as Chief Dooley flies off to Nuremberg to interview a Nazi awaiting execution about Finau, a battle that supposedly had no survivors, yet seems to be the source of many of Leviathan’s henchmen.  Dooley actually gets a good scene for his interrogation, proving the SSR can do more than sit around and bitch or be amazingly sexist.

With Dooley away, Thompson is in charge.  He does a halfway decent morale speech, and proceeds to pretty much be a dick, belittling both Carter and Sousa, who seems to be his most effective agent.  Credit where it’s due, Thompson does manage to help Sousa with a witness later on, so he does something useful.

There’s a lot of skulking around as Carter tries to find Stark’s invention.  There’s also a lot of low comedy involving hiding Stark at Carter’s women-only apartment building.  Stark’s a shameless playboy, the women seem eager to throw themselves at him, and the landlady is an annoying petty dictator, self-righteous and judgmental.

Things are not as they seem on several fronts.  Carter and Stark have a major blowout over his invention and his hidden agenda.  Things escalate to the point that Carter says she wouldn’t be surprised to hear Stark stole his own inventions before she storms out and warns him to be gone by the time she gets back.  Her neighbor Dottie is also not as she appears, and there’s a scene with her and Mr. Mink that was a surprise.

There are a lot of cliffhangers in play near the end.  The rift between Stark and Carter is bad, and, since her working for him is most of the premise for the show, you have to wonder how it’s going to end.  Dottie has a new toy, and what we see of her makes me really wonder what’s going on with her.  The SSR, still investigating Finau, learns that Howard Stark was in the area shortly after the “battle,” and then Dooley gets a surprise from the captured Leviathan typewriter.  And, Carter now has something potentially both very valuable and dangerous in her possession.

With all this, it sounds like a good episode, but I don’t think it was.  Actually, I think it was the worst one of the series. They tried to play too much for comedy, and it didn’t come off.  Howard Stark, played by Dominic Cooper, is coming across slimy.  He lacks the charm of Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark, which lets Tony get away with his outrageous behavior, to a point.  As I predicted when they first introduced it, the Griffith and it’s anti-male stance is becoming like something out of a sitcom, and not a good one.  Jarvis was shown with a really bad nervous tic that allowed Peggy to see when he was lying.  Hell, Daredevil (the blind superhero coming to Netflix this spring) could have seen it.

The show is also getting oppressive in what they show of Peggy’s life.  She’s an outsider at work, picked on, taken for granted, and shoved away from anything important or even interesting.  I get that the 40’s were a hotbed of sexism and chauvinism, but do we need to see it in just about every single scene?  Now Peggy’s allies, Stark and Jarvis, seem to have turned on her as well.  There is nothing good in her life, as even her friend Angie is being minimized and kept at a distance because of all Peggy’s secrets.  This is getting darker and darker, and that’s not a good place to be in a limited series that doesn’t have many episodes left.  Even the obligatory Stan Lee cameo didn’t lighten the mood much past his few moments.

I love the way this show started, but I think it’s sliding downhill fast, and I hate to say that.  I do not remotely think this is “A woman can’t carry an action show” I think this is the writers don’t quite know what they want to do.  The tone of the first few episodes was action and fun, and while Peggy was being maligned at work, she was shown to be amazingly effective on her own.  Now she seems to be flailing around with no one to turn to, and, if she’s not working with Stark anymore (I wouldn’t be), no real purpose, and no use for her incredible skills.  I don’t need to see this on a weekly basis.  A frustrating job where the people in charge don’t listen?  I LIVE that, as do many of the people I know, I don’t need to watch it.  I really hope they snap out of this slump soon— they are running out of time to do so.

What I liked: Stark’s modified shipping case was nicely done.  Dottie is getting really interesting.  A few of their comedy bits, like the bumblers in the SSR lab, were amusing.  Peggy kicked ass when they let her.

What I didn’t: Almost everything else.  Stark needs to get beaten, most of the SSR needs to get slapped around, and this comedy routine at the Griffin needs to go.

I want to love this show.  I was excited when I heard about, and I think it started off decently.  But they’re losing it.  I rate this episode at a 2 out of 5.

There are so many female characters I want to see in action on their own, like Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, or even DC’s all female action team the Birds of Prey.  I’m worried this show sliding in quality is going to have a ripple effect and make all of those less likely as the ratings here fall.