Now is Not the End

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 Fall of the Valkyrie.

As she prepares to go to work for the New York City branch of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, her roommate Colleen O'Brien returns from her night work, relating stories of the return of the veterans and their replacing the more experienced women on the job. She thinks that Carter works for the phone company because that is the front that the spy agency uses.

Meanwhile, Howard Stark was robbed of many potent and dangerous inventions. The United States Congress has had him in trials for three days, attempting to learn whether or not he is 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 eats dinner at the L&L Automat, an automat restaurant where her friend Angie Martinelli is a waitress. She watches Martinelli deal with the harassment of a returned veteran, but finds a note on her table. This note leads her to a meeting with Edwin Jarvis and Howard Stark. Before Stark leaves to go overseas to recover his technology, he asks Carter to clear his name and to find his tech in the United States, particularly a document for molecular Nitramene, an incredibly powerful explosive. Jarvis, Stark's butler, is to be her assistant, though she insists that she does not need one. Carter learns that the SSR plan to infiltrate La Martinique, a nightclub run by a fence called Spider Raymond; she dons a disguise and goes there on her own. While there, she seduces Raymond into revealing that he had the Nitramene, but she was surprised when she discovered that he had an active bomb of the chemical. Taking the bomb home, Carter defused it; 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 had a fight with the assassin, burning his hand on the stove, causing him to flee, before she cried for her 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.

Inside the Roxxon Refinery, Carter confronted Leet Brannis, the man who sold Raymond the bomb; he had a milk truck loaded with bombs of the chemical. Brannis released one at Carter and she, with the help of Jarvis, quickly left the scene before the explosion and implosion caught her.

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

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
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America  (uncredited stock-footage cameo)

Locations

 * New York City, New York
 * L&L Automat
 * La Martinique
 * Roxxon Refinery

Items

 * Nitramene
 * Sweet Dreams Lipstick
 * Pick-Lock Wristwatch

Vehicles
To be added

Organizations

 * Strategic Scientific Reserve
 * Stark Industries
 * Roxxon Oil Corporation
 * Leviathan
 * United States Army
 * Lucky Star Cab Company

Mentioned

 * Captain America
 * Red Skull
 * Abraham Erskine

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.