Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Turn, Turn, Turn

"Don't trust anyone..."

Well, well, well... what a gripping and twisty-turny episode this is. A lot happens and the status quo is overturned, but not without some good character stuff.

Before we talk about that, though, we ought to talk about episodes tying in with Marvel movies that have just been at the pictures; having not seen Thor: The Dark World I was extremely put out by the fact that it seemed to be required viewing. This time around, however, I just so happened to have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier on my honeymoon a few weeks ago and, for some strange reason, I don't mind so much. Odd, that.

Anyway, let's get back to the episode, as we ended on a cliffhanger; not only is Agent May ratting on the team via a secure line, but Agent Hand suddenly wants them dead. Could she be HYDRA?

After a bit of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper", Someone is after Garrett's plane, too. But first we have to sort out the sudden tension between sort-of traitor May and the rest of the team: apparently she was reporting to Fury all this time, and it was her who, seemingly via currently fashionable "nudge" techniques, put together the team with the aim of keeping an eye on the resurrected but possibly damaged Coulson. Understandably, Coulson is a little put out by this, and their relationship will take a while to repair. But when May tries to contact Fury again, this time with Coulson present, they learn that Fury is supposedly dead. Oh dear. This is something of an "everything you think you know us wrong" moment, and not the last one the episode has to offer.

Joined by Garrett, the team piece together the clues to discover that HYDRA has taken over the upper echelons of SHIELD, and their plane is forcibly headed to the Hub, now HYDRA central. Worse, both Simmons and sometime red herring Triplett are ar the centre of the web.

The second big reveal is that Victoria Hand is not, in fact, HYDRA (and I have to praise Saffron Burrows here, in hindsight, for her performances from the beginning), and Garrett is, which would explain why he's being played by an actor of Bill Paxton's stature.

But perhaps even bigger than this is that Ward, just before he may be about to die on a mission, asks Skye out on a date, and she accepts, thereby fully vindicating the predictions of my good lady wife from way back when. Amusingly, Skye knew about Ward and May because it was "obvious" in the small world of the plane. And, as he's about to risk his life, she even kisses him. Aaah!

So it turns out to be something of a surprise when, with HYDRA seemingly defeated by Captain America and Coulson and the rest of the team off to clean up the organisation, Ward should turn out to be a traitor, killing Hand and working with the splendidly charismatic Garrett. And they bloody go and end it there...!

Wow. How did Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D get so good?

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: End of the Beginning

"(Skye) has something we want. And she will die giving it to us."

Oooh boy. This is a big episode. There is soooo much going on that I don't know where to start. Given the ending, I expect even bigger things next episode. In fact, I couldn't help noticing Jasper Sitwell being suddenly called away for his scenes in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The fallout from that will be huge, and I suspect it will be next. And Fury is waiting to speak to Coulson at the Triskelion?

Still, for the time being, things are already huge. We begin with the team, augmented by Agent Hand (boo!!!), the unfortunate Agent Blake and the awesome Agents Garrett and Triplett, engaged in a comprehensive search for the Clairvoyant, in a clever plan to which Skye (appointed, at last, as a SHIELD agent) is central. In a nice little character moment, it's nice to see Skye, who hasn't previously met Garrett, bonding with him. It's also interesting to see how quickly he picks up on the obvious sparks between Skye and Agent Ward.

Although there are a few red herrings, the presence of Mike Peterson, now looking much more like Deathlok from the comics, sort of leads us to what the team seem to be looking for; an apparent vegetable in a room, and a disembodied voice, seemingly that of the Clairvoyant, goading them. Said goading (see the quite up there) leads very suddenly and very shockingly to Ward shooting the suspect dead.

This is from right out if left field, and seemingly out of character. Is it his feeling for Skye that made him do it, as his words in the later scene with him and Skye seem to imply? Or does he have an agenda? Coulson, for one, thinks the man Ward shot is just a fall guy. He's probably right.

The penny finally drops during a conversation between Coulson and Skye: the Clairvoyant is not literally telepathic at all, but a SHIELD agent. And then it comes out that Skye has been reporting to someone on an encrypted line, and Coulson confronts her. I don't think she's connected to the Clairvoyant, though. But one of the regulars, at least, must be.

We end with the team trapped in their crashing plane, with Agent Hand, who always seemed a wrong 'un, trying to kill them all. Exciting times. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D is on fire right now.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The Magical Place

"I trust the system. They keep secrets for a reason."

This is quite obviously the big, mid-season "event" episode; the status quo is temporarily changed with Coulson captured, and Centipede are further built up as the season's Big Bad, with the mystery deepening over the identity of "The Clairvoyant". There are also further hints that S.H.I.E.L.D is not an entirely cuddly organisation; Agent Victoria Hand, now the teams boss, cares a lot about "taking down" Centipede but very little about Coulson.

This is, essentially, a Skye episode, though, confirming her status as the series' favoured character as she gets to save the day by being not only brilliant but independent, as Agent May has kindly arranged for her to get chucked off the plane. Skye is so cool here: she follows the money trail, bluffs her way into interrogating a dodgy lawyer and gets not only information on where Coulson is being held but also a rather swanky car.

Coulson, at first, is horribly tortured for information on his resurrection, but the Clairvoyant is clearly not impressed; he has the torturer casually killed and replaced with the familiar Raina, our woman in the flower dress, who gets what she wants through more civilised means. That is, before the team arrives to rescue Coulson and arrest Raina. Her interrogation is bound to be interesting.

We learn some little bits of information about Coulson's interrogation from a doctor played by Ron Glass; the false memory of Tahiti was implanted in order to blot out the unimaginable agony of his resurrection. He was dead for days. His resurrection was a strange decision, made because for some reason he was deemed important. Samuel L. Jackson gets the briefest of cameos as Nick Fury.

This still leaves many questions. Why was Coulson deemed worthy of resurrection? How was it done? Who ordered it? What was the price, for the trope has it that immortality always has a price? They're stringing us along, the bastards. And now I want to know about the Clairvoyant, too.

And if that's not enough, Mike Peterson is still alive. And Centipede are controlling him through his eyes...

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The Hub

"Not everyone gets sent to Tahiti."

"It's a magical.. place."

this episode may get the most James Bond opening yet, with a bit of skiing to freedom, but we're left feeling somewhat ambivalent about this organisation that our heroes work for. Not only are Ward and Fitz sent on a suicide mission to South Ossetia to zap some MacGuffin called the Overkill with no extraction plan, but it's clear that Skye is just being strung along with the false promise of finding stuff out about her parents. Coulson may be a little conscience-stricken about this (although he himself is not allowed to know, and furthermore there are definite parallels with his apparent resurrection in "Tahiti"- is he a robot or something, as Skye jokingly suggests?), but May doesn't. Still, at least he tells her what he knows: she was dropped off at her orphanage by a S.H.I.E.L.D agent. I bet her parents are people we old Marvel True Believers would have heard of.

At least Coulson is a bit more rebellious in that he leads the mission to rescue Fitz and Ward- although this, of course, could have been part of the organisation's plan. The show seems determined, nevertheless, to get us to like Coulson's little team while remaining suspicious about S.H.I.E.L.D in the wider sense.

There are some interesting character moments. Simmons makes  Fitz his favourite sandwiches to eat on the mission, but Ward soon puts paid to this: the sandwiches have to be disposed of as the smell will attract pursuit. This feels almost like a clash of genres- the sweet will-they-won't-they romance between Fitz and Simmons collides with the harsh, humourless world of espionage that Ward inhabits. On the other hand, when Ward breaks the news to Fitz that the extraction is not happening, Fitz stays. Is this his faith in his friends or something else?

We get to see the mysterious S.H.I.E.L.D Hub in West Africa here, yes, but it's an unsettling and morally compromised place. Some uncomfortable questions have been dredged up in this episode as the season's threads continue to develop.

All that said, this isn't the best of episodes and the overall quality seems to be worryingly average. I hope the series takes off soon.





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