cwhite
That setup should work - when importing blendshapes, the Agent SOP expects them to be before the Deform SOP.
However, since GPU blendshapes are not yet supported in the viewport, you'll need to unpack the agent or render to see the blendshape deformation. You can also see blendshapes in the LOP viewport for UsdSkel prims.
Are you sure this should work in version 17, not 18? I used unpacked and render. Agent stays static…Would you describe the procedure in order?