Those that watched last night’s season finale of Agent Carter were treated to a surprise cameo in the final moments. When SSR agents took Johann Fennhoff, aka Dr. Faustus (Ralph Brown) into custody they brought him to his cell where it is revealed that he’ll be sharing his confined accomodations with Dr. Arnim Zola (Toby Jones).
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Captain America screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely now explain why the cameo was introduced. “We’ve wanted Toby Jones to appear since we pitched this show,” McFeely told Entertainment Weekly. “We did not know exactly where it would happen or where he was on his timeline, but we always wanted to show you how Hydra started it’s [reach within S.H.I.E.L.D.].”
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier we learned that Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., which led to its downfall. McFeely and Markus didn’t want to rehash how that came about, but did want to give fans a “little taste” of it.
Were the scenes involving Howard Stark’s (Dominic Cooper) mind being controlled by Dr. Faustus a hint at the Winter Soldier program? “Yes, I think it is safe to say there is a connection,” McFeely revealed.
“It’s a bit of a convoluted timeline in that in the first Captain America, Zola was captured in the same mission where Bucky fell off the train,” Markus added. “Theoretically, a division of Hydra—possibly a Russian division of Hydra—went and got the body while Zola was in custody. Zola had already done something to Bucky, and experimented on him that made him beyond human, which allowed him to survive the fall and make him worth doing the research on. They kept him in stasis until Zola was able to have a little bit of freedom from the American government, at which point he maybe brought his new friend Johann Fennhoff to handle the mind control part of the Winter Soldier project.”
McFeely and Markus said that they did consider some alternate endings with Zola and Faustus. “The debate is when he went from prisoner to collaborator,” Markus said. “In 1946, he was probably still a prisoner, but there was some debate of what side of the bars he’s on.”
If there is a second Agent Carter season they would like to to tell “who Peggy is and where she came from.”
Would you like to see them explore Peggy’s backstory if there is a second season?
