Back on ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’, the plot to save Skye
continues, whether she wants it or not, but before we get into that...
First, the pigeons have stayed, apparently – our (admittedly
half-hearted) attempts to drive them off were unsuccessful, and we are not
ready to call in the professionals just yet. Well, more power to them, I say!
Second, after the initial euphoria of Brontosaurus’ return
has ebbed, the other scientists are once again claiming to take things slow, it
is not certain yet if Brontosaurus is really Brontosaurus, or just another
Apatosaurus species/specimen. Considering that even in ‘canon’ Apatosaurus can
number up to 4 species, this is a reasonable approach.
Then we have River Monsters returning to Discovery channel.
By its standards and the standards of Animal Planet, this is one of the best
things that could’ve happened to it, because otherwise AP is just a load of
crap, with pet shows and ‘Too Cute’, and DC’s ‘Shark Week’ is right there for
comparison, too. I will not be talking about River Monsters in detail just yet,
though.
Now, back to ‘Agents’. This episode had somehow gone all ‘girl-power’
– not only it had focused on Melinda May and her becoming the warm and fuzzy
machine of emotion that we all know and love, but it focuses on other female
characters of the show as well: not just Skye, Gemma and Skye’s mother, for
example, but on Morse and Weaver (team Gonzales) as well, albeit to different
degrees.
Let us start, then, with the star of the episode – Melinda May.
In the flashback, 7 years ago-
Wait. Let us talk about chronology. Skye was born, according
to her parents, back in 1988, making her, supposedly, 26 years old. 1988 + 26 =
2014: in real life, this was last year, back when these episodes were aired and
filmed (?); in ‘Agents’ world 2014 – 7 = 2007, which was when Coulson and May
went to Bahrain (a small island country, located near the western shore of the
Persian Gulf in Middle East, if anyone cares) to try and bring-in an Inhuman
woman from Russia, empowered with super-strength. Fair enough and aside from ‘casting
the type’, the cliché works. The rescue had not. The woman had a daughter,
whose gift was to mentally dominate the others and to take away their pain in
the process, as well as free will. May had to kill her - alongside her mother.
This is not S.H.I.E.L.D. way, and May asked for a job transfer to an office
job, which she got and kept, until Coulson got her back into the field back at
the beginning of the show.
So far so good, but we also get:
- More of Melinda’s ex-husband, Andrew. Not only in
flashbacks, but also he gets mentioned in real life: Coulson had been keeping
in touch with him; not because of their mutual bond with May, but also because
Coulson just may be setting up something called ‘the Delta protocol’ that will
enable him to run some sort of a colony or training camp for super-powered
people such as Skye and Deathlok, and he has also empowered Deathlok further
(maybe because he needs Deathlok’s help in confronting Ward?). Considering that
May (and also Simmons) hadn’t heard about this, this means that either Coulson
had been lying to May...or that team Gonzales (Bobbi, Mack, Weaver, etc) are
lying to May in order to suborn her. May – even with Simmons’ help – will need
all the smarts that she has in order to figure out the truth.
And the same goes for Skye, naturally. Her mother told her
that story as well, but... firstly, she does not appear in the flashbacks,
making one wonder just where she was all the time when May was fighting the
rogue Inhumans and why she had not stepped in. She knows about S.H.I.E.L.D.,
but how and why are different questions that ought to be answered – maybe her
scars hold the key? They look as if someone had tried to tear off her face with
a clawed paw or something like that; when you are dealing with Inhumans, maybe
this is exactly what has happened...but why?
On the other hand, we have, well, Skye’s mother per se: Cal
had told Skye that Whitehall had killed her (Skye’s mother) and used her organs
to rejuvenate himself. Considering that Whitehall had not aged for almost a century
that certainly may be so. Only...now we’ve got Skye’s mother alive and well,
and this means that either someone is
lying to Skye here, or ‘Agents’, as a show, had just hit their first plot hole –
and it’s a major one! Well, only time – and future episodes – will tell us what
version is correct.
What already can be seen, however, is that Skye’s dinner
with her parents feels somewhat choreographed; well, it was choreographed by
the actors, but it feels choreographed by the characters too. Skye’s mother
wants Skye to remain in Afterlife, of course, but she also wants their relationship
to be kept secret, for after the incident in Bahrain 7 years ago, the
inhabitants of Afterlife take a dim view to the whole ‘bond between parent and
child’ thing. This sort of duplicity is not healthy, and may be an indicator of
darker things to come.
Conversely, though, we have Lincoln, whose own Inhuman gift
is the ability to see the future, apparently (just think Rachel the Oracle in ‘Percy
Jackson’ novels), and who had foreseen Skye having dinner with her folks that
she had. This is certainly a twist in the plot and it is anyone’s guess what
will come from that.
While Skye bonded with her parents, Raina bonded with
Gordon, sort of. Raina is suffering from nightmares, low self-esteem (she looks
like a chupacabra!), the realization that she just may constantly be in Skye’s shadow,
to name a few. Gordon is having his work cut out for him...yet he has no
intention of giving up, and he is firmly on team Raina – he honestly thinks she
is beautiful. Considering that everyone else on the show ignored the flower
girl, hated her, or did not know about her at all, (or any combination of the
above), Gordon just might be what Raina needs to get herself out of the pit
that she and Cal had made...
And so, in this episode Melinda took a trip down the memory
lane and found herself in charge of the Playground, surrounded with allies who
just might be trickier than any outright enemies, Skye took a training course
from her mother and learned about May’s adventures in the past, while finding
herself surrounded by family/allies, who just might be trickier than any
outright enemies, Raina has begun to bond with Gordon, and Fitz (who had been
mostly ignored in this episode) had not only hacked into Fury’s ‘toolbox’ (with
an acetylene torch?), but has contacted Hunter and Coulson and together they
will shake-off Fitz’s tail and get a move-on in saving Skye. Another great and
dramatic episode, put otherwise.
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