Godspeed, Drunk Monkey
What is the TCB hiding?
We’ve known for a while now that The Commander is hiding big secrets and the past few episodes have certainly revealed that to us. The TCB, as we know it, are there to “protect” America but down in Sub-Level 7 are a number of different codenamed Projects, harking back to great American tragedies of our time. Buddy Holly’s plane is there and even Jim Morrison’s bathtub too.
Elvis is more interested in Project Tupelo, which is an unfinished project that happens to sport numerous pictures and memorabilia for the King of Rock and Roll in its place.
What is Project Tupelo?
Elvis returns to The Commander and tortures him, asking the big boss about Project Tupelo and how it connects to Elvis. Apparently, Elvis has a special power, an ability to command a large legion of fans and start a revolution. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI saw this as a threat, while The Commander saw it more as an opportunity to weaponize rock and roll.
As a result, The Commander used him to reproduce that power and control. With the help of psychedelic drugs advocate Timothy Leary, the TCB created a prototype from Elvis’ DNA to create spies and killing machines.
The test samples produced way too much chaos though and the dosing ended up becoming unstable, giving rise to unstoppable maniacs. As a result, The Commander shut the whole thing down. That is, until Elvis’ Comeback Special in 1968. There, The Commander decided to start the Project back up and create “Agent King”. That, of course, being out Elvis Presley.
CeCe shows up and stops Elvis from pulling the trigger, eventually leading to the King of Rock and Roll quitting the biz for good and going back to live a life with Priscilla.
Does Elvis Presley return to the TCB?
Episode 10 of Agent Elvis then begins in Louisiana, 1956. A young man called Gabriel ends up jamming to Elvis in his room. His father shows up and tries to banish Elvis from the house, but in the process ends up burning himself and the house down. Gabriel blames all of this on Elvis and vows to get his revenge.
Fast forward to the present, and Elvis, after quitting, ends up on the beach chilling with some drinks. Gabriel shows up and introduces himself and wishes him luck for the upcoming show. There’s a whole bunch of fans waiting though, including CeCe who stirs things up. This annoys Priscilla, who ends up catching a flight back to Memphis. Elvis is a typical guy though and is completely oblivious to her mood.
The Commander shows up to see Elvis, asking for a favour; there’s an issue with the concert. Specifically, Gabriel has rigged a satellite dish right in the middle of a Hawaiian volcano and another out in space. The latter has been rigged with a mind control device made from Elvis’ DNA that will infect people around the world, turning them into lunatics if they listen to Elvis’ concert. Elvis believes it’ll affect billions (although The Commander) doubts the validity of that high number, but eventually agrees to help.
Who is the mole?
Part of this comes from The Commander admitting that his list of allies are growing thinner by the second (partly thanks to Bobby Ray’s terrible driving, running over special agents Hervé Villechaize (Fantasy Island) and Jack Lord (Hawaii 5-O)). It turns out the TCB has a mole and the stolen weapons about to be used at the concert could only be used thanks to a guy on the inside.
And who is this man? Well, it’s none other than Robert Goulet. As CeCe learns that this may well be her birth father, Elvis decides to sign up after all and brings Scatter into the rocket, originally assigned to Hervé to fly up and disarm the sonic weapon. This is, unfortunately, a one-way trip but we’ll get to that a little later on. Either way, our chimp does his job, flying up and smashing the satellite to bits, getting rid of the sonic weapon in the process.
Back on Earth, CeCe and Elvis end up fighting against the bad guys down at the Hawaiian volcano, determined to take out the satellite dish which happens to be inside a volcano. Robert Goulet outs himself as the traitor and he ends up fighting with Elvis on the dish. It turns out in the past Goulet was actually the Commander’s right-hand man. He was there and watched as Elvis was turned into an animal.
Is Scatter saved from space?
CeCe saves Elvis from a nasty fate, knocking out her potential-father and taking him out the volcano to avoid him being killed for the exact same reason. On the rim, the pair use a rocket launcher to destroy the dish and eventually take Goulet back to The Commander.
Elvis, Bobby Ray and CeCe all work together and use the former’s plane to fly up into space (as he’s had it modified recently) and save Scatter. Elvis happens to be wearing Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit, which he stole earlier in the series, and brings the chimp onboard.
How does Agent Elvis end?
Unfortunately, Bobby Ray admits that he never installed a heat shield on the ship, meaning they’ll burn up on re-entry. Understanding what must be done, Elvis decides to sacrifice himself by acting as a heat shield himself and protecting those onboard. As he radios in one last time, he regrets not being able to check in on Priscilla.
The Commander watches as the ship re-enters the atmosphere, and calls up TCB’s Howard Hughes, asking him to resume his clone research, admitting that they’re going to need a new Elvis. However, Howard reveals he never stopped.
As the episode closes out, we cut back to Elvis one more time as the star burns up, his helmet cracking as a smirk bursts across his face.
The Episode Review
Agent Elvis has been one hell of a ride and it ends with Elvis Presley burning up in flames. Throughout the show we’ve seen snippets of Elvis’ past through those flashbacks and the past few episodes have finally given us some answers over what’s going on, including evidence that Elvis Presley is actually a clone. This certainly leaves the door wide open for a potential second season to follow and would explain a lot of the flashbacks we’ve been seeing.
We saw Goulet at the end of the series admitting that the chemicals should have killed Presley but it didn’t. The chat with The Commander and Hughes, pointing to the cloning project and how Hughes has never shut it down, also seems to give weight to the idea that this Agent Presley is just another in a long line of clones that have been used.
Ultimately though, this final episode works really well to give extra context to the series while also giving a great balance of action and drama. All in all, this has been a highly enjoyable watch.
Read More: Agent Elvis Season 1 Review
Feel free to check out more of our TV Show reviews here!
-
Episode Rating
(3.5)