And so, another episode of “Agents” came to pass, and
several new developments came to life – let us start with the less obvious one.
The series’ pace. If the earlier episodes went on at a pace
that is more typical for action series, then starting from last two (and this
one) episodes, “Agents” are moving at a much more breakneck speed; these three
episodes occurred within 24 hours of “Agents”-verse; this makes the series a
tense and exciting one to follow, but also exhausting; not even the movies move
at such a breakneck pace...
Ah well, I am sure the scriptwriters and other stuff knew
what they were doing – now about the characters.
The new team Evil or team Hydra. Agent Garrett is behind all
of this? No, not really believable. He comes across like a mid-level villain who
talks too much (seriously, he never ever shuts up!) who is competent, smug and
ruthless; but anything more? Not seeing it. He (and the rest of Hydra crew?) is
probably ready to turn on each other and everyone else, but they also have
small enough numbers to comfortably fit everyone in into an underground complex
beneath a barbershop in Havana. (That is pure James Bond, BTW.) Considering
that Hydra is a huge organization in the comics the concept that this is the
entire Hydra in the TV series just does not float – just as the concept of
Garrett does not fit into the mastermind villain.
Raina probably thinks so too – when she met the real Garrett
she was disappointed, even if she hid it well and appeared to have recovered by
the end of the episode. Now Raina is not a sympathetic character; she caused Doctor
Debbie to die, she caused Chan to die, and many other people besides. That makes
her an unlikely candidate for team Coulson – in TV tropes, if you selfishly
caused someone to die, you are evil. But considering that she was trying at
least to hedge her bets with Ward, it raises a possibility that she just may
sell out Garrett and the rest of his crew to save her own skin at least.
Finally – Quinn. Ever since his debut in “The Asset”, he had
issues with S.H.I.E.L.D., and he wanted his gravitonium back. Now he got the
latter back, complete with professor Hall inside of it – but only Coulson knows
about the last part. This is going to be a wrench in team Evil’s plans, just as
the fact that Quinn can barely stand Garrett (and vice versa) and Raina has her
own plans, will. Ah well, evil always turns upon itself, the fireworks will be
interesting to watch...
On the other hand, as we move into S.H.I.E.L.D. territory we
see signs of a very similar behavior. A choleric and rather unpleasant colonel
Talbot is moving onto – and into – S.H.I.E.L.D. with his crew – and Coulson
promptly moves out with his team, leaving the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. to deal with
the situation by themselves. There was evidence of separation before, Coulson’s
people and Hand’s people, Coulson’s values and Hand’s values and so on – but this
is still cold.
Within Coulson’s team proper there are also tensions –
Coulson still does not trust Mae (though Skye has warmed up to her), Simmons
has developed enough of personal opinions to be skeptical of Coulson, unlike
Fitz, and now got agent Triplett in her corner to make her own faction; and
agent Fitz is jealous of Triplett because the latter is friendly with Simmons. Ah
well, some competition might do Fitz some good – after all, Triplett did read “Moby
Dick”.
To makes matters worse, nobody really trusts Coulson – this episode
dealt with blind faith. As real-life events have shown, believing blindly in
anyone can lead to problems; America’s blind faith in president Obama had
backfired, badly – but sometimes believing blindly in someone is a part of
being a team. Coulson believed that Fury is alive; the others believed in
Coulson himself long enough to reach Providence, and so on. (For the record,
Coulson’s speech just before the discovery of Providence about them not being “agents
of nothing” was one of the most pitiful and crazy-sounding ones, however.) Of
course, now that blind faith is put to the test, as Coulson can’t reveal to the
others that Fury is alive – at least not right now; considering that Ward
turned out to be evil, that’s probably an appropriate course of action to take,
but...
But yes, Ward’s actions aim to show the corrosive effects of
betrayal on trust; to make him look ‘realistically evil’, so to speak; etc. That
is reasonable. But it will not be any easier for Coulson to keep the fact that
Fury is alive under his hat either. Isn’t all that secret agent situation fun?
Finally, agent Koenig. Apparently, he acted as a comic
relief after all the tension and drama and betrayal earlier in the episode.
(OT: wouldn’t it make sense to put a building called the Freezer some place
cold? They did put the Sandbox into the Sahara desert, for example – but that
logic did not work with the Freezer, it was Providence that ended up in
Canadian snows instead. Go figure.) Considering that most other agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. are either killed off or just make cameo appearances on the show
and are never seen again, odds are that we will not be seeing much of him in
the future.
So: agent Garrett is forming team Evil, (himself, Ward,
Raina, Quinn), and Coulson’s team had a lucky break – but now that Ward is
coming over to get Skye’s password (or have Hydra bomb overrun Providence
within the next 24 hours), it is over. The events are continuing to race forwards
like a thoroughbred horse, and it is anyone’s guess as to what will happen
next.
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