Now is Not the End

"There are only a dozen fences that can handle something this hot. You just got to learn which one. And I figured you'd never have any trouble finding a man." "The trick is finding the right one."

- Howard Stark and Peggy Carter

Now is Not the End is the first episode of the first season of the television series Agent Carter.

Synopsis
Peggy is contacted by old acquaintance Howard Stark when he is framed for unleashing his deadliest weapons and can trust no one else. To help Peggy clear Stark's name, he insists his butler, Edwin Jarvis, be at her beck and call--whether she likes it or not. But the risk is great: If caught, Agent Carter could be targeted as a traitor and spend the rest of her days in prison... or worse.

Plot
World War II is now over, but Peggy Carter still remembers her last moments with Captain America as he was lost during the Battle in the Valkyrie.

In 1946, as Carter prepared to go to work for the New York City branch of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, her roommate, Colleen O'Brien, returned from her night work, relating stories of the return of the veterans and how they have replaced the more experienced women on the job. O'Brien believed that Carter works for the phone company because that is the front used by the spy agency.

Meanwhile, Howard Stark was robbed of many potent and dangerous inventions. The United States Congress had him in trials for three days, in an attempt to learn whether or not he was a traitor, since some of his technology has been discovered overseas.

The SSR is put on the Stark case when he does not arrive for one of his hearings. Carter has been reading about this in the newspaper and knows Stark from the War, but when the agents meet about him, they belittle her viewpoint, even joking her about being Captain America's "liaison." Agent Daniel Sousa defends Carter, but she disapproves, citing that she can defend herself.

After work, Carter ate dinner at the L&L Automat, an automat restaurant where her friend Angie Martinelli worked as a waitress. She watched Martinelli deal with the harassment of a returned veteran, then found a note on her table. This note led her outside, where she meet Edwin Jarvis and Howard Stark. Stark was about to leave to go overseas and recover some of his missing technology, so he asked Carter to clear his name by finding his tech in the United States. He specifically asked her to find a document with the formula for Nitramene, an incredibly powerful explosive. Stark explained that Jarvis, his butler, would offer her any assistance needed, though she insists that she does not need any. Carter learned that the SSR planned to infiltrate La Martinique, a nightclub run by a fence called Spider Raymond; she donned a disguise and went there on her own. While there, she seduced Raymond into revealing that he had the Nitramene, before knocking him out. Upon breaking into Raymond's safe, she found an active Nitramene bomb. Taking the bomb home, Carter defused it with Jarvis' help; however, when she emerged from the bathroom, she found O'Brien dead and a Man in a Green Suit, who had killed Raymond, about to kill her. She fought with the assassin, burning his hand on the stove and causing him to flee, before she cried over her murdered friend.

Carter and Jarvis went to Anton Vanko, who told them that Nitramene emitted Vita Radiation and that only the Roxxon Oil Corporation had the means of weaponizing the formula. She went to SSR file room and got a Vita-Ray Detector to find other bombs.

The Man in the Green Suit uses the Remote Typewriter and receives instructions to do whatever is necessary. Inside the Roxxon Refinery, Carter knocked one man out, and then confronted Leet Brannis, the man who sold Raymond the bomb; he had a milk truck loaded with bombs of the chemical. Carter saw the Y-shaped incision in his neck, and he spoke to her with the aid of a Voice Synthesizer. Brannis released one of the bombs, giving Carter 30 seconds to escape. She calls Jarvis to bring the car around, and the pair were just barely able to escape the explosion and subsequent implosion.

Jack Thompson, the lead investigator from the SSR, obtained the camera with a picture of a blond who left the Raymond murder scene.

As the sun rises, Carter and Jarvis talk at L&L Automat, where she whispered the word "Leviathan" to him. She sees the veteran harassing Martinelli and threatens him enough for him to leave the waitress a good tip. Outside, Jarvis makes a secret phone call.

Cast
Main Cast:
 * Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter
 * James D'Arcy as Edwin Jarvis
 * Chad Michael Murray as Agent Jack Thompson
 * Enver Gjokaj as Agent Daniel Sousa
 * Shea Whigham as Chief Roger Dooley

Guest Stars:
 * Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark
 * Lyndsy Fonseca as Angie Martinelli
 * Kyle Bornheimer as Agent Ray Krzeminski
 * Alexander Carroll as Agent Yauch
 * James Frain as Leet Brannis
 * James Hebert as Green Suit
 * Ashley Hinshaw as Colleen O'Brien
 * James Urbaniak as Miles Van Ert
 * Andre Royo as Spider Raymond
 * Lesley Boone as Rose
 * Bill Kalmenson as Senator Webster
 * Costa Ronin as Anton Vanko
 * Kevin Heffernan as Madison Avenue Guy
 * Tim True as Tipsy Guy
 * Johnny Marques as Bartender
 * Jeffrey David Anderson as Short Bouncer
 * Carrick O'Quinn as Tall Bouncer
 * Arben Selimi as Businessman (uncredited)
 * Kirsten Vangsness as Ruby (uncredited)
 * Unknown Actress as Ana Jarvis
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America  (uncredited stock-footage cameo)

Locations

 * New York City, New York
 * Colleen O'Brien's Apartment
 * New York Bell Company Office
 * L&L Automat
 * La Martinique
 * Jarvis Residence
 * Hotel Cosmopolitan
 * Stark Industries New York Facility
 * Roxxon Refinery
 * Stark Expo
 * Howard Stark's Penthouse (mentioned)
 * Daisy Clover Milk Factory (mentioned)
 * , (mentioned)
 * Washington, D.C.
 * United States Capitol
 * Passaic, New Jersey (mentioned)
 * Iwo Jima, Japan (mentioned)
 * Okinawa, Japan (mentioned)
 * Monaco (mentioned)
 * Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands (mentioned)
 * London, England (mentioned)
 * Germany (on a map)

Events

 * Ambush at Colleen O'Brien's Apartment
 * Destruction of the Roxxon Refinery
 * World War II (mentioned)
 * (mentioned)
 * Captain America's USO Show (mentioned)

Items

 * Vita Radiation
 * Nitramene
 * Sweet Dreams Lipstick
 * Pick-Lock Wristwatch
 * Vita-Ray Detector
 * Stun Light Device
 * Remote Typewriter
 * Voice Synthesizer

Organizations

 * Strategic Scientific Reserve
 * New York Bell Company
 * Leviathan
 * Stark Industries
 * Roxxon Oil Corporation
 * United States Congress
 * Daisy Clover
 * Lucky Star Cab Company
 * United States Army
 * United States Navy (mentioned)
 * Franklin Chemical (mentioned)
 * Eaglestar (mentioned)

Mentioned

 * Project Rebirth
 * Captain America
 * Red Skull
 * Abraham Erskine
 * Franklin D. Roosevelt
 * Winston Churchill
 * Harry S. Truman (pictured)

Trivia

 * This episode was aired along with Bridge and Tunnel as part of a special 2-hour premiere.
 * The song played at the beginning of the episode is "That Man" by Caro Emerald.
 * The songs that play in the diner are "Sugar (That Sugar Baby O'mine)" by Jo Stafford and "Spendin' All My Rainy Days With You" by Glenn Crytzer's Savoy Seven.
 * Howard Stark's congressional hearing scene is a reference to a similar scene in Iron Man 2.
 * There is an error in the episode regarding the time zone clocks in the SSR Headquarters. One clock for New York shows the time as 11:40 while the clock for London shows 5:40. New York is -5 GMT meaning that if it were 11:40 in New York, America, then it would be 4:40 in London, England.