#twoyearsofagentcarter

Peggy knows very well when she takes up the case in Howard’s defense in season 1 that it’s a betrayal of the SSR.  She even refers to it as treason.

It’s no wonder, then, that everything is so fraught during the interrogation scene, which I’ve written about before.  Most of the audience on that scene focuses on Peggy’s frustration: she’s been ignored professional and now that they have evidence against her, they’ve just gone and arrested her and started interrogating her without listening to anything she has to say.  Its more of the same for her, the culmination of all her frustrations through out the whole season.

For the men, all they see is the betrayal.  They have different opinions of Peggy between them, but what they know is that one of their own has been killed, and she has been working against them.  It’s not unexpected for a spy but it’s still a dastardly act, and they all get over it in a different way.

Dooley is busy getting his brain scrambled by Fenhoff, but he more or less accepts Peggy back to status quo after Daniel supports her and her intel proves good.  He doesn’t live long enough to do much other than ask her to avenge him, but at least he recognizes her skills before the end.

Daniel initially is very hurt.  It’s not just his coworker who betrayed him, but his (only?) friend.  All his other relationships within the SSR are difficult: the other men tease him, Dooley tries to push him off.  Peggy is the one person who treats him like a person.  Which is a very good reason to be angry with her during interrogation.  Even his supposedly sexist accusation that she’s sleeping with Howard can have a non-sexist interpretation: what could make her turn on him and their relationship, other than a deeper relationship with another person? He knows she’s not a political traitor. 

He ends up moving past it both because he leans heavily on the facts (Peggy’s intel on Leviathan otherwise proves her story) and because he inadvertently betrays his coworkers too.  His exposure to Midnight Oil causes him to attack first Jack and then Peggy; when he wakes his first real reaction is horror at having hit her.  He didn’t mean to betray them and it isn’t his fault, but the feeling of being swept along into doing something terrible to someone inadvertently must be pretty clear for him.

Jack in comparison takes the very worst lesson from all of this.  Not only does he expect Daniel to turn on him at Fenhoff’s command, but he views Peggy’s betrayal of their budding relationships through his own self-centered lens.  From his point of view, betraying the SSR for Howard’s sake must look very much like currying favor with the rich and famous.  He also knows Peggy isn’t a political traitor and he has little knowledge or interest in the Peggy/Howard relationship if it isn’t sexual.  Why be friends with someone if not to get a leg up? 

His betrayal comes at the end when he takes the credit instead of recognizing the contributions of both Daniel and Peggy--but I think he thinks it’s okay because it’s what Peggy did.  His behavior, while motivated by self interest, is also validated by his view of what just happened.  Why should Peggy be the only one who gets favors out of that whole mess?

Season 2 has less circling around the theme of betrayal, mostly coming through with the continuation of Jack’s arc.

Why shouldn’t Jack work with Vernon?  It gets him into the Arena Club.  Everything he says to Peggy to persuade her from continuing on the case is based around angering powerful people.  He thinks they speak the same language, but they don’t.  Peggy doesn’t care if she might get hurt bringing down the powerful Council of Nine.  Jack probably thinks this is because of Howard.  She’s staying in his mansion, after all.  She already has Friends.

Jack ultimately betrays everyone in S2 more or less at the same time.  Peggy is discarded right along with Vernon, because he’s decided to do what is Right, and he is the only one who knows that is right then.  It’s no more than Peggy did in S1, after all, betraying their agency because Howard was in the right.  Jack uses Peggy’s actions in S1 to help support the actions he wanted to take anyway.  It doesn’t work out, and he joins up with the rest of the group because he does still want to take Whitney down.

Does Jack learn his lesson?  He gives Peggy the pin key, but probably not, since he is shot in possession of the M. Carter file.  Why did he keep it?  Why not give it to her to destroy or investigate?