The Iron Ceiling
Hayley Atwell reprises her role as Carter from the film series, and is joined by regular cast members James D'Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, Enver Gjokaj, and Shea Whigham.
Each night they are hand cuffed to their beds, a practice that one such girl, "Dottie Underwood", still carries out in 1946 as she lives incognito as the new neighbor of Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) agent Peggy Carter.
Carter uses her cryptography skills and knowledge of Russian to decode the message herself, and finds map coordinates leading to a Soviet military complex.
The message suggests that at this complex Howard Stark, who the SSR have been hunting, will be selling weapons to Leviathan, which Chief Roger Dooley explains is a covert Russian organization.
Dooley tasks Agents Jack Thompson, Rick Ramirez, and Mike Li to meet up with a tactical unit and infiltrate the complex to cut off the exchange and arrest Stark for treason.
As they are preparing to leave, Thompson tricks Agent Daniel Sousa into walking in on Carter as she is dressing, creating an awkward and embarrassing moment for them both.
Infiltrating the complex, the group finds the boarding school where Dottie was trained, and discover supposed children's films filled with subliminal messaging.
In January 2015, Marvel announced that the fifth episode would be titled "The Iron Ceiling", to be written by Jose Molina, with Peter Leto directing.
[1] Discussing the fact that Carter gets her first proper field assignment in this episode, executive producer Tara Butters stated "It's a big turning point for her relationship with all of her colleagues, both good and bad, so I think it's a nice moment.
"[2] In January 2015, Marvel revealed that main cast members Hayley Atwell, James D'Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, Enver Gjokaj, and Shea Whigham would star as Peggy Carter, Edwin Jarvis, Jack Thompson, Daniel Sousa, and Roger Dooley, respectively.
[1] It was also revealed that the guest cast for the episode would include Eddie Shin as Agent Mike Li, Greg Serano as Agent Rick Ramirez, Neal McDonough as Dum Dum Dugan, Bridget Regan as Dottie Underwood, Leonard Roberts as Samuel Sawyer, James Austin Kerr as Junior Juniper, Richard Short as Pinky Pinkerton, Ralph Brown as Dr. Ivchenko and Jared Gertner as cryptographer.
Though they were not officially announced by Marvel, John Glover and Alex Veadov guest star as a friend of Dooley's and the Russian engineer Nikola, respectively.
[2][7] Series costume designer Giovanna Ottobre-Melton introduced the SSR tactical uniform in this episode, which she intended to have "a pseudo-military meets World War II underground" look.
In the main classroom, the uniform was created using a classic white short sleeve blouse, accented with a blood red tie, and a black pleated mid-calf skirt.
For their physical training scene, I used black wool knitted shorts and white cotton tank tops, accented with a small red branding design.
[11] The episode introduces the Red Room and the origins of the Black Widow program,[2] which will eventually produce Natasha Romanoff,[12] who appears in multiple MCU films portrayed by Scarlett Johansson.
