Once again, “Agents” have delivered a very wonderful
episode, one that is directly connected to last week’s episode, “F.Z.Z.T.”. To
remind, in that episode Simmons was exposed to an alien virus, and though she
was able to develop an antidote and to save herself in time, Ward also had to
rescue her when she jumped out of the team’s airplane in a noble
self-sacrificing attempt, and in “The Hub” he has to put Fitz through his
paces...but see below.
“The Hub” is an episode that is based on a conflict of
individual against the system. Skye does not fit into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hierarchy –
at best she is only a newbie and that without even a newbie agent’s wings. She
has no official knowledge, no preliminary info (and honestly, Coulson could
have went an extra mile and explained to Skye beforehand just how S.H.I.E.L.D.’s
official system works, pardon the pun) and as a very independent character the
hub just rubs her the wrong way. Furthermore...
On one hand, if Skye is to remain a member of the team, she
has to learn to work with and trust her teammates, from Simmons to Coulson. On
the other, Whedon himself seems to dislike this sort of an arrangement: “The Hub”
has connotations to BtVS S4, when Buffy had to work with the Initiative, an
organization not unlike S.H.I.E.L.D. in character in that everyone knew their
place and asked no questions. You may or may not watch that particular season
over to realize that this sort of arrangement went very bad for the Initiative;
and as for S.H.I.E.L.D. in this episode it showed that the system was if not
willing then ready to sacrifice individual agents in order to achieve the
greater good...and agent Coulson, for one, is not. His interactions with
agent Victoria in this episode show Coulson’s increasing difference from the
other high-ranking agents, and that in turn may imply that either Coulson’s
relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson himself, or S.H.I.E.L.D. proper may end
up changing (though not necessarily in this season or even the series).
The second main plot line is the deployment of Ward and Fitz
overseas to seize a dangerous weapon by a group of separatists in a region
between Russia and Georgia (an Asian country rather than the American state).
Aside from the fact that this brings back the love-hate relationship between
the States and Russia (you don’t like it? So ignore it!), which lasted from the
Cold War onwards, “The Hub” created a strong feel of Americans deployed
overseas in various missions, military, peacekeeping, etc. This created a
strong patriotic feeling in “The Hub”, something that the States need ever
since Obama administration’s involved in north African and Middle Eastern
countries resulted not just in military disaster, but also in Obama’s
humiliation by Putin of all people...never mind.
The thing is that “Agents” have delivered once more in “The
Hub”. Not only there was a conflict of individual against system, but there was
also a strong element of bildungroman, where a boy grows up to be a man. In
this particular case it was agent Fitz (sorry, but he is more boyish when
compared to Ward), who during the course of this episode grows up
experience-wise to become on a more equal level with Ward. And Ward, of course,
kicked ass as always, though he learned that he is not the only competent agent in the team and that he can trust others to watch his back...and he doesn't need to be alone to be competent or succeed on a mission.
Finally, if Skye learned to rely on her teammates, Simmons
learned to be more self-sufficient: not unlike Coulson, she can follow the
rules if she must...but Skye may have showed her that sometimes you can bend
the rules if want to know the truth. What will amount out of this development...only
time will tell.
So: Fitz & Simmons duo have continued to develop as
characters; so did Skye, and Ward, and Coulson, and perhaps even May, though as
a strong, silent type it is hard to tell. We also learned more about the
mystery of Skye’s childhood, but only a small bit, so perhaps it is another
story?
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