Tuesday, 29 April 2014

S.H.I.E.L.D., May 5 - Ragtag



After tonight’s episode it became obvious: the previous episode – “Nothing Personal” – and this one formed this season’s nadir for the titular team: Ward proved to be a traitor, agent Koenig died, and May left. Only May left for a reason – to recuperate at her mother’s, to discover (or uncover?) what is up with the project T.A.H.I.T.I., and to talk to ex-director Hill about providing some assistance to Coulson and co. And because she is that amazing, she succeeds with every part of her agenda. 

That’s agent May. And speaking of amazing, this episode had some equally awesome footage of Coulson and Skye’s escape from the Helicarier – but more on that below.

Hereby, or thereby, or whatever, but this episode had showed that wherever Ward’s loyalties may lie, Skye has made her choice, and it is with S.H.I.E.L.D., even if the latter is represented by Coulson, Tripplet, Fitz & Simmons, plus May and anyone May may be able to involve (like Maria Hill, at least temporarily). And you got to give her credit – not only she is loyal, she is also resourceful, considering that she was able to escape Ward at first, before Deathlok stepped in. Afterwards, Skye resisted until the end, when Deathlok got Ward’s heart to stop, just for a while. True, it may have given Ward second thoughts about Hydra, Garrett, and so on, but it did force Skye to decrypt her code, more or less. And then in swooped Coulson and rescued the damsel. Hoorah!

Incidentally, the getaway via Lola, the amazing flying car was some of the most remarkable movie magic one has ever seen on a TV screen. “Movie” because this episode of “Agents” was strongly tied-in with the Marvel movie-verse: Skye talks about Red Skull (the villain of the first Captain America movie and his archnemesis), Hill goes to work for Tony Stark (perhaps a fourth Iron Man movie in the works), the last part of “Ragtag” talks about the Avengers and so on.

The last part is also important because it reveals the truth behind Coulson’s conditions: the initial procedure cured him physically, but caused him to go crazy until his memories got fixed, and even that was a temporary solution, as the previous episodes of the first season had showed. What’s more, now that Skye had been cured in the same manner, this affects her too. Oops. Judging by Coulson’s last expression in this episode? Double oops.

While Coulson recuperates from his latest bit of knowledge, Skye – from Ward’s betrayal, Hill – goes to work for Tony Stark and May does what she does best, Fitz & Simmons have finally gotten together – sort of. Fitz does confess that Simmons is very, very important for him in his own, overly subtle and indirect way – and for him (well, him and Simmons) this is a big breakthrough.

Agent Tripplet played largely a background role in this episode, and Deathlok was Deathlok: he knows that what he does is wrong, he just assumes that he does not have any choice in doing this. Maybe he does not, in which case his difference from Ward grows even bigger: with this being the penultimate episode of the season, there is only one episode left to see if this will amount to anything.

So: Skye has bested her temptation and Ward, May showed Coulson the truth (and it is not pretty), Fitz told Simmons the truth, and Ward was bested by Skye. Oh, and director Hill came over. All in all – a very good episode.

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