S.H.I.E.L.D., Love - March 24

And so, the exciting rollercoaster that is the “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” TV series continue! 

First of all, however, my apologies on missing last week’s episode due to a blackout. Pity. Cal Johnson tried to round-up a group of super-villains to stop Coulson and his team, but failed. That is disturbing, and not just for our heroes, who will now have to worry about people with powers going after them on top of regular villains, but also for the fans of the Marvel-verse: are the Inhumans the new mutants? X-Men movie/Marvel franchise is not doing that great – Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Mystique, is about to quit for example – but to replace them with Inhumans role-wise? That does not sound right.

Back to this week’s episode, Coulson and his team are in trouble once more. Contrary to the episode’s title (more on that later), new their problems are not from an external source (like Hydra), but from the inside: a schism is brewing in S.H.I.E.L.D., with Mack and Morse throwing their lot with the schismatics, who think that Coulson is not that good of a leader. Considering how much the “Agents” scriptwriters love to throw curveballs at their audience, maybe they are (the schismatics) correct. Still, considering that their M.O. is turning onto anyone they do not trust (Hunter can been handcuffed in a closet during last week’s episode, for example), and that includes Skye, (who cannot catch a break lately, let us be fair), the odds are set against them, in terms of viewers’ sympathy. In terms of material belongings, planning and the like, however, the separatists are in a different situation: they got, apparently, an aviation carrier with plenty of airplanes to use it upon, and with plenty of crew to run it. True, the Playground, where Coulson currently at, is very formidable, but that will probably not be enough...

On a more personal level, Hunter and Morse have appeared to have broken up over this – Hunter is going pro-Coulson, while Morse is clearly contra-. The actors, of course, have delivered wonderfully upon this, but the scriptwriters haven’t: why is exactly Hunter is so pro-Coulson? ...The problem here is the lack of back-story of Hunter (and Morse): they were an item at one time, then they broke-up and Hunter became involved with Isabelle Hartley, who died in the beginning of S2, (because she was played by Lucy Lawless, and guest stars’ characters tend not to last long on “Agents”), and then, during S2, Hunter and Morse got back. Fine, but why they did not stay together this time? Because Hunter was kept out of the loop by her and Mack? Because he was handcuffed in a closet – or because of Coulson? Some further elaboration would be nice, as “S.H.I.E.L.D.” s2 continues to proceed.

Even now, however, some presumptions can be made: namely that as the ship HunterMorse is sunk, so is the ship SkyeWard: Morse and Hunter have split up, and Ward has given up on Skye, and is doing his best to bond with agent 33/Kara instead. Considering that Skye has shot him, this makes sense. Considering that Ward and Kara have this sort of an Angel(us)/Drusilla dynamic going on as well, the odds of Skye running into Hunter and starting a new relationship with him in the future episodes is very good. 

(Don’t forget – “Agents” got Josh Whedon on their side, the man who split up Buffy with Angel and set her up with Spike, whose British accent surfaced very noticeably in Hunter during “Love...” this week.)

And then, of course, we got the “Love” from the episode’s title – and the episode featured only two couples (as couples): Hunter/Morse and Ward/33, with Skye being the odd one out – but she had a protégé/guru thing going with Coulson himself, so it’s clear that whatever love Skye is going to experience in the future, it won’t be with Ward...

Of course, we also got general Talbot and his wife (as a couple) in this episode as well: Ward and 33 have kidnapped Bakshi from Talbot so that Kara would get closure by subjecting Bakshi to torture. Let’s be honest – she earned it, and Bakshi has officially become pathetic, now that Whitehall is dead, and the immediate Hydra inner circle that was under him, was destroyed by S.H.I.E.L.D. Good riddance to bad rubbish in Bakshi’s case!..

And in case of Talbot, the good general and his wife were this episode’s comic relief: it is not that Talbot is incompetent, his character is, as 33 and Ward were able to fool him easily enough. Talbot is the Sheriff of Nottingham and not even the competent Vaisey from BBC’s series, but the buffoon of the traditional Robin Hood stories instead. Sucks to be him – almost as much as it sucks to be Bakshi...

As for the rest of the main cast of “Agents”? Coulson and May have realized that something is wrong with Mack at least but Mack has learned that Skye was shuffled sideways to clear the air at S.H.I.E.L.D., and in combination with Hunter flying the coup; this has served as a detonator instead. Coulson and May and their team are up to their toughest challenge yet – their fellow agents.

...True, Ward, and Garrett, and the others had been fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as well, at least initially, but then they defected over to Hydra (or were Hydra to begin with), so it was easier to deal with them as enemies instead. With Mack, and Morse, and the others things will not be as black and white – but that is what you get when you live in shadows: eventually everything starts to appear grey...

So: Ward has given up on Skye, (while Coulson didn’t), Hunter has given up on Morse, Morse, Mack, and their fellow separatists have given up on Coulson and his loyalists, and everyone and everything is ready to blow on the next episode of Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”!

S.H.I.E.L.D., Who - March 10

And so, having dealt with Hydra in the previous episode, now S.H.I.E.L.D has turned their attention to the sky – and the alien menace. In the case of this episode, the aliens are represented by a pair – lady Sif of the Asgardians, who was already introduced in the last season’s episode ‘Yes Men’ and Thor-related Marvel™ movies – and her current foe, a Kree, an alien who looks like a human, but with blue skin. (Then again, Asgardians do not have even that – they are some of the most human looking of all aliens in Marvel™ world.) Armed with a truncheon, he was likely to be intended a sort of a parody of Thor, a watered-down version of him, so to speak, one that could be defeated by humans, as Morse and Hunter did exactly that – but first...

But first the two aliens gave the back-story to the new plot twist of the series: the Inhumans, like Raina and Skye, were designed to be bioweapons of Kree against their enemies (like the Skrulls, who have not appeared yet on the series). As such, they are very dangerous and must be put down. (A sentiment echoed by agents Mack, Morse and for the moment Simmons as well.) Coulson, being who he is, has refused to put Skye down – or to ship her to Asgard, where she would be contained. 

As a side note the team has also discovered that the Kree had left several Diviners back on Earth and all of them had been misplaced. One, of course, had been destroyed by Tripp, but that still leaves five or six others completely unaccounted for. S.H.I.E.L.D has sunk the temple used to activate the Diviners beneath the sea, but in Marvel™ such actions often have unforeseen after-effects as well...

In any case, lady Sif has returned home, taking the Kree with her, leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. to deal with Skye. This is important, and not just for the obvious reasons: the team is in danger of splitting again. As it happens in the world of “Agents”, as long as the agents work together, they can achieve anything, and defeat anyone using trust and teamwork; when they stop doing that, they gain problems. At this moment in S2, they have problems.

The team is clearly split in their opinion on Skye and the other Inhumans: Mack, and Morse, and for the moment Simmons are clearly against them, while Fitz is firmly on team Skye. Jemma Simmons is clearly upset about this, and so the ship FitzSimmons is acquiring further complications of their own, as well as complicating the general split over Skye and Inhumans for everyone else.

On the other hand, FitzSimmons’ problems pale in comparison to HunterMorse ship and their problems. Hunter and Morse are clearly lovers at this point, but Mack, who is friends with Morse, does not want Hunter to be in on whatever they are doing and in fact has choked him into unconsciousness at the end of this episode. The secret – and plot – of Mack and Morse at this point is something or someone called Backup; their actions are reminiscent of Hydra back in S1...hopefully, this will not be like that in the upcoming episodes, and not just because of the obvious reasons. A big part of “Agents” attraction is that they are unpredictable and capable of unexpected twists in their plot, unlike “Carter”, which was not (except for the season finale, perhaps). A repetition of the second half in S1 in the second half of S2 would diminish this attraction quite a bit. 

That said, Mack had not killed Hunter, which is a plus, and it makes him different from Ward, who had killed agent Koenig #1 back in S1. This suggests that whatever Mack and Morse are in is not too Hydra-like, and it also gives an opening, or suggests one, for a future HunterSkye ship.

Seriously, both Skye and Hunter had been betrayed by their significant others. (Morse may not have been around, when Mack overwhelmed the other man, but she did take his side over Hunter and did not bring him into the loop). And “Agents” are run by Whedon, who has been known to set up complicated love relationships back in BtVS (Buffy/Angel/Spike and Willow and her numerous significant others come to mind) – why not here? And Ward is not around for the moment either as well.

Ward’s absence is interesting. While the rest of the team continues to grow and develop as a team and on their own, he is not. He is out of it, licking his wounds, and bonding with agent 33 in a best-case scenario. When earlier in S2 he had escaped from Talbot’s soldiers and S.H.I.E.L.D. people, he was shown to be more competent than either of these groups, at least on a certain level. Now...who knows?

Speaking of personal development, May has acquired some – in this episode, she appeared to be more talkative and humane, especially when compared to Sif. Perhaps all of the proximity to Coulson, and Skye, and even Fitz is paying off. 

And so, May has acquired some personal development, Ward has not. The plot of Morse and Mack is progressing; the relationship between Morse and Hunter is deteriorating, as the relationship of Fitz and Simmons. Lady Sif has arrived, fought with Vin-Tak the Kree and left. The agents have remained behind, and with Skye currently staying in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s holding cell in isolation, things are certainly looking bleak for them, even if one looks away from the rising infighting. We will just have to wait and see as to what will happen next.

S.H.I.E.L.D., Aftershocks - March 3

And so it happened that “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” have come back. No offense to “Agent Carter”, but her show just was not on par with this one.

Where are we standing with “Agents”? When we last saw them, Skye/Daisy and Raina had activated the Obelisk/Diviner, which transformed them, but with different effects. Raina was transformed...into a chupacabra, (no, seriously!), while Skye remained the same externally, yet gained the power to manifest vibrations, powerful enough to shatter glass (and that is just a start!). Her biological faster, Dr. Johnson (a super-villain in his own right), is enthusiastic about this (despite the fact that he is probably bipolar), and plans to involve his former cohorts at the Index to get his daughter to come to him. 

Now, let us leave Skye for the moment (she spent this episode recuperating in the quarantine, so she needs her rest), and turn to Raina. She was not a really sympathetic character, but rather one of the opponents of Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. Yet, as some of the earlier (last year’s episodes) had revealed, while Skye had her friends and extended family to support her, Raina had no one; if Garrett had survived the end of S1, things might’ve been different, but he hadn’t so, Raina ended up on her own by the mid-S2 finale, with nothing but her faith in the Diviner to keep her going, and that backfired on her in a big way. Until this episode, Raina may have been ugly on the inside, but she was beautiful on the outside, and now she is ugly (or, at best, exotic) on the outside...and on the inside?

Raina is in quite a fix, but she has been given the opportunity to start a new life – literally. It will be up to her now to decide whether she can be beautiful on the inside, or not. Of course, she can also die, but now that her fellow Inhuman (forget spoilers, let us call them what they are) has saved her (from the lesser agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), literally swept her off her feet and called her beautiful, she is likely to hang around for another episode or two yet, before she makes her choice or has it made for her, or something.

If the Inhumans are on their way in (Jemma Simmons has already used the word in yesterday’s episode), then Hydra is on its way out – Ward and 33 (Kara Lynn) didn’t even appear in “Aftershocks”, and other Hydra bigwigs were either killed by S.H.I.E.L.D. or by their own, due to an elaborate plot/provocation staged by S.H.I.E.L.D....in a manner similar to how people died in the beginning of S2 due to the Diviner, so some residue of late Whitehall’s involvement with the alien artefacts has seeped down Hydra’s echelons...to their sorrow. Hydra, probably, is not finished per se, but its danger to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the rest of the world has become much lesser... probably. Given the fact how much S.H.I.E.L.D. scriptwriters and producers like twists, Grant Ward might arrive in a nick of time, for example, and revive Hydra at someone else’s expense.

And how did S.H.I.E.L.D. get the better of Hydra in this instance? By teamwork, cooperation and mutual trust. Their team bonds have enabled them to flawlessly fool Bakshi, (though let us not forget that they had him only thanks to Ward), as well as the rest of Hydra. As always, whenever S.H.I.E.L.D. team works together, they are invincible, and as always, they are suffering from internal problems. Nowadays, it Bobbi Morse the Mockingbird and Mack. They may be in some sort of a support group, but Mack has also determined that Coulson has “Fury’s toolbox”, and whatever plans he and Bobbi have up their sleeves, they probably are not benign...

And we also got new fractions (or factions) in the main team. It is Simmons’ turn to befriend Mack over their mutual and new distrust of alien artefacts and technology. Interestingly, in S1 Simmons was all for using alien technology (and anything else) in order to make Earth a better place. Now, she has apparently undergone a 180 degrees turn and wants to destroy it all - including Raina. Skye, has also become someone alien, is less than enthusiastic about this, and has Fitz’s support for some reason. (You would think that Leo would support Mack and Jemma in their new anti-alien enterprise, but no. The ship FitzSimmons has sprung a leak that is more serious than what it looks like at a first glance.)

Let us sum up. Hydra is out. (Except for Ward and 33/Kara Lynn). The Inhumans are in. And S.H.I.E.L.D. is beginning to be split between Mack & Simmons, Fitz & Skye, and Coulson & everyone else. Plus, Mack, and Bobbi, (and maybe Lance Hunter) seem to be following their own agenda – which may belong to another group (i.e. Hydra, AIM), but it may foreshadow, instead, an internal split in S.H.I.E.L.D. rather than an external invasion: Coulson can be toppled and kicked out of power from the inside as well – we’ll just have to wait and see.

Until the next time!