So Much In Transition, "Scars" Acts As A Weird Splinter Point For The Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Good: Progresses the periferal characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Bad: Derivative, Focuses om way too many characters (none sufficiently), An obvious bridge episode
The Basics: "Scars" tries to keep Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. relevant after The Avengers: Age Of Ultron while getting steamrollered by the foreshadowing for The Inhumans!


As the second season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. reaches its peak, it has an interesting series of challenges accompanying it. Despite leading directly into the latest Marvel blockbuster, The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!), the show has not been getting much respect. As well,Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is doing all it can to try to top the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (reviewed here!). With "Scars," it is hard not to start feeling like Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is just being used as an advertising tool for forthcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe projects. "Scars" formally introduces the concepts necessary for the world to (eventually) embrace an Inhumans movie!

Picking up after The Avengers: Age Of Ultron and "The Dirty Half Dozen" (reviewed here!), "Scars" works hard to connect to the known Marvel Cinematic Universe while foreshadowing what is yet to come. Unfortunately, with all of the external elements influencing it, "Scars" almost forgets to bother with the main characters from Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (outside Skye).

Flashing back to the time when Coulson took over S.H.I.E.L.D. and began Theta Protocol, which was apparently just him secreting away the Helicarier used in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Coulson resumes control over S.H.I.E.L.D. in the present. Simmons finishes removing the H.Y.D.R.A. protocols from Kira (Agent 33). Back at Jiaying's compound, Raina's premonitions lead Gordon to suspect that the Kree, who created the Mist that transformed Skye, Raina, and others, might have an agenda that remains active. In the bowels of Gonzales's ship, Gordon and Raina discover the pitted alien artifact, which liquefies and reforms in front of them. Skye explains the Inhumans to May and Coulson and when Gordon and Raina return to the Inhumans's secluded location, they are confronted by Jiaying and Calvin.

When Coulson sends Skye back to Jiaying, Raina forsees Afterlife under attack by S.H.I.E.L.D. and she proposes to Gordon that she communicate with Coulson. Unable to reconcile Coulson's leadership with the alien blood that resurrected him, Mack resigns from S.H.I.E.L.D. as Gonzales leads a S.H.I.E.L.D. team to Afterlife. When Kira's true allegiances pop up, the mission to make peace with the Inhumans takes a turn for the worse for all involved.

"Scars" plays with the idea that Raina now is a legitimate clairvoyant and seems to have the series splintering off. Even without recent news that Bobbi Morse and Agent Lance Hunter are being set up for a spin-off, Bobbi Morse's place in the episode does very little to advance the main plot. "Scars" has her relegated to a background character with a vague, soap opera-like character arc (she is waiting for Hunter to start talking with her again). In fact, Mack's departure from S.H.I.E.L.D. in "Scars" is a bigger character moment than anything Morse has had in the last several episodes.

Jiaying and Calvin dominate "Scars." As Daisy's (Skye's) parents, they have scenes that are conversations that finally make the two characters pop; their conversations are insular to themselves. They have a legitimate relationship that does not revolve simply around the plot of "Scars" and that finally makes their characters interesting to watch. Cal gets the episode's best quips and Kyle MacLachlan and Dichen Lachman (Jiaying) have decent on-screen chemistry. They are finally given the chance to act and react as if their characters have legitimate lives outside of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Gonzales and Jiaying have an intriguing scene at the climax of the episode, but "Scars" is stuck between what has been and what is coming. The episode struggles to keep Grant Ward in the mix and his late-entry into the episode feels more forced than Jiaying's actions in the episode's crucial scene.

What struck me as "Scars" neared its end was that I neither knew where the series was going . . . nor did I care. At the peak of "Scars," it occurred to me that I can't imagine looking back at Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. from a seventh season and appreciating where the characters were in season 2 and believing they have an organic link between them. In other words, "Scars" works so hard to link to the other portions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that it fails to create anything strong and distinctive on its own. "Scars" "reads" more like an advertisement for fans to go out and watch The Avengers: Age Of Ultron and (in the future) The Inhumans.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The Complete Second Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season here!
Thanks!]

4/10

For other reviews of television shows, seasons and episodes, please check out my Television Review Index Page for a listing of reviews!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Simmons Resurfaces With Several Problems In “Making Friends And Influencing People!”

The Good: Good character development, Plot develops in an engaging way, Decent performances
The Bad: One-too-many “twists,” Very heavy on plot
The Basics: “Making Friends And Influencing People” enhances the villainy of H.Y.D.R.A. when Simmons works within the organization to recover an asset for S.H.I.E.L.D.


As the big twist for the second season premiere of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., the character of Simmons who was seen throughout the episode was revealed to simply be a hallucination of the remaining tech for S.H.I.E.L.D., Fitz. Spoiler. Two weeks after the premiere, it’s not really a spoiler. But the fact that Simmons was no longer with the team begged the question of where she actually was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The third episode of the season, “Making Friends And Influencing People” addresses the Simmons question right away.

Simmons is now with H.Y.D.R.A. Fortunately, the episode does not ask viewers to buy that premise for too terribly long before it comes to the truth: Coulson has been using Simmons as a mole within H.Y.D.R.A. since she left his S.H.I.E.L.D. unit. In “Making Friends And Influencing People,” Simmons is explored, but the episode is actually a de facto sequel to “Seeds” (reviewed here!), more than it is a continuation of the prior episode.

H.Y.D.R.A. is hunting for Donnie Gill, a gifted teenager who is essentially a mutant who is able to freeze objects or people with just a touch. With Coulson feeling somewhat disillusioned over the number of former-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that have gone missing and fallen under the influence of H.Y.D.R.A., Coulson goes to visit Simmons. Simmons has been working in H.Y.D.R.A.’s laboratory, unwittingly working on Donnie Gill’s case. When her supervisor at H.Y.D.R.A., who are currently working to break S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 33, call Simmons up to his office, Simmons is forced to confess she knows Donnie. As Coulson and his team plan a raid on the cargo ship that Donnie Gill has taken control of, Simmons is put into the field to try to recruit Donnie for H.Y.D.R.A.

But the mission goes sideways when Fitz, taking advantage of the absence of the rest of the team, visits Ward in his prison. In exacting revenge upon Ward for his hypoxia-related injuries, Fitz learns that Donnie was approached by H.Y.D.R.A. and his escape from the Sandbox did not go down the way Coulson thought. With S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.Y.D.R.A. clashing on the cargo ship, Donnie and Simmons are both put into jeopardy with their true allegiances being tested.

“Making Friends And Influencing People” is very well-made, but it has some issues, almost all of which are related to other episodes and how the episode fits in with the larger arcs. The most serious of these is related to the character of Fitz. In the prior episode, “Heavy Is The Head” (reviewed here!), Fitz illustrates the implications that his subconscious knows that the Simmons he has talked to for months is a figment of his imagination when his hallucinatory Simmons encourages him to talk to Mack. Fitz did not make the breakthrough where he consciously indicated he knew that Simmons was gone. But, in “Making Friends And Influencing People,” he knows that Simmons is gone (he shows no reaction to Coulson saying that Simmons hasn’t been around). That Fitz just suddenly accepts that Simmons is gone and has been does not fit when “Making Friends And Influencing People” is considered in-context.

“Making Friends And Influencing People” continues the trend in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. where the show is essentially becoming a supernatural version of Alias. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is now a spy thriller and with Simmons working as an embedded agent inside H.Y.D.R.A., the burden on the show now is to be clever and tread in a direction that is new and different. “Making Friends And Influencing People” does not do that yet and, unfortunately, with the show’s obsession with creating twists at the end of the episode, there is the sad implication that H.Y.D.R.A.’s superior officers have plans for Simmons. That the mission on the cargo boat climaxes in a predictable way is somewhat disappointing.

What is not unfortunate is that “Making Friends And Influencing People” focuses on Simmons – who was a very minor character in the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - and does a decent job of servicing her character. For all the issues with the lack of character for Simmons, in the first season, she was characterized as a monolithically good person. Given that Simmons is seen right away working for the villainous organization H.Y.D.R.A., “Making Friends And Influencing People” does not insult the viewer’s intelligence by dragging out the idea that Simmons is working for H.Y.D.R.A. exclusively. Coulson and Simmons share a scene together that instantly establishes that Simmons is as good as viewers remember her to be. At the same time, Simmons’s character does move forward; as May notes, Simmons has learned to lie.

The reason to watch “Making Friends And Influencing People” is for a moment near the very end of the episode that is possibly the best in any spy show EVER. When Fitz asks Coulson whether or not his boss has been completely honest with him, Coulson says that of course he has not disclosed everything to Fitz; he’s the head of a spy organization!

Such a great moment pairs with an otherwise mundane spy story well. “Making Friends And Influencing People” might not be perfect or great, but it is watchable and it makes one want to tune in to the next episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

For other works with Reed Diamond, please visit my reviews of:
Moneyball
Meet Bill
Spider-Man 2
Homicide: Life On The Streets

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The Complete Second Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season here!
Thanks!]

6/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Clairvoyant Revealed? The “End Of The Beginning” Comes With The Revelation Of The Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Villain!

The Good: Decent effects, Acting is all right
The Bad: Light on character development, Predictable plot
The Basics: Not the brilliant spy thriller one might have hoped for, “End Of The Beginning” teases the audience yet again with the identity of the primary antagonist on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..


As U.S. audiences await the theatrical release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here!) (and, isn’t there something strange about a Captain America film opening in Europe before it opens in the States?!), they have to hold themselves over for a few more days with Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. for their Marvel Cinematic Universe fix. Because the Captain America section of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the portion that most directly overlaps with Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., it makes sense that there would be foreshadowing in the television series and then fallout from the new film. Given how Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been largely doing its own thing - despite having a pretty direct crossover with the Thor corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the prior episode, “Yes Men” (reviewed here!) – it is unsurprising that it has its own momentum and direction. In “End Of The Beginning,” the most foreshadowing that Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. goes with is a line about Director Fury calling Coulson to the Triskelion. Thematically, there are implications in “End Of The Beginning” that make sense for a crossover with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but whether or not those play out remains to be seen.

“End Of The Beginning” does not follow directly on “Yes Men;” instead, it pushes the long-running thread through the first season of the villain being the unseen Clairvoyant. “End Of The Beginning” takes the fight to the villain and makes a strong, explicit, push to discover the identity of the mysterious adversary. Unfortunately, it does so in an unfortunately predictable way. When a show about brilliant super-spies has characters more dense than the audience, it has a bit of a problem. “End Of The Beginning” has just that problem.

Agent Garret is attacked by Deathlok which brings together the most significant (non-Fury, non How I Met Your Mother cast) Agents converge to stop the Clairvoyant. To design the mission to stop the Clairvoyant, the mission will divide S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agents and keep information compartmentalized. The biggest Agents pair up to try to find which potentially psychic individuals S.H.I.E.L.D. interrogated might actually have been the Clairvoyant. May and Blake end up at an assisted living facility to interview Nash when Deathlok appears and disables Blake. Thomas Nash is not actually at the facility and the recall of the S.H.I.E.L.D. teams puts Agents Simmons and Triplet at the Hub while the rest of the Agents hunt Nash.

Triplet being assigned to the Hub puts dampers on Simmons’s plan to get her hands on the drug used to heal Skye while at the Hub. Tracking Deathlok to an abandoned racetrack, Coulson, May, Ward, and Garret chase Deathlok around the building. Garret and Coulson find Nash hooked up to life support and communications equipment. He psychoanalyzes Coulson and declares that Skye will die to get what his people want from her. Angered by what Nash says, Ward kills him and Coulson is recalled to the Triskelion to meet with Nick Fury. En route to the Triskelion, Coulson and Skye become concerned that Nash might not have actually been the Clairvoyant. Backing that theory up, Fitz discovers a hard line phone line on the Bus and a mole within S.H.I.E.L.D. is exposed to the team!

Here’s the thing, when the three teams are moving to interview Clairvoyant suspects, they get waylaid. Garret and Coulson hit a literal roadblock at the same time as May and Blake run into Deathlok. The moment that happened, I turned to my wife and said, “It would be real smart if Deathlok was just a distraction and one of the other teams was actually closer to the real Clairvoyant.” The net result of Deathlok’s attack is that all of the other teams race to save May and Blake, so it makes sense for the Deathlok attack to be used to throw the S.H.I.E.L.D. teams off the scent of the Clairvoyant. So, when Coulson and Skye get around to theorizing that Nash was not truly the Clairvoyant, it’s a bit of a letdown for viewers who have seen a lot of spy thrillers or science fiction works.

“End Of The Beginning” would have character development . . . if it were not for the fact that the prior episode included a character talking on the phone and revealing that they had something more to them than their surface character. Thus, the revelation that comes out in the last act of “End Of The Beginning” is more of a replay of the prior episode’s reveal. As for the Clairvoyant, Ward’s murder of Nash actually fits more with his character than confounds it and the friendship between Garret and Coulson was already alluded to in the episode in which Garret was introduced. So, this episode is light on character development.

By contrast, the guest cast and primary cast interact remarkably well. “End Of The Beginning” marks the return of all three big Agents who are on the same level as Coulson – Hand, Garret, and Blake. Saffron Burrows, Bill Paxton, and Titus Welliver each have at least the same level of on-screen presence as Clark Gregg’s Coulson. Each of them is credibly a super-agent with skills beyond those of Ward, May, Skye, Fitz, and Simmons. J. August Richard’s return as Deathlok plays as a transformative role for him; he is able to strip away more and more of his character’s humanity and the stiffness and inhumanity that he brings to the cyborg is intense. Similarly, Brad Dourif as Nash is great casting; Dourif plays so many villains or creepy characters, so when his name comes up in the credits, it seems credible that he would be the Clairvoyant. Dourif, however, is underused as Nash and the role of the bedridden villain is hardly one of his best ones.

Even director Bobby Roth seems somewhat bored with "End Of The Beginning;" Deathlok does a jump in the stadium that pretty much mirrors Mike Peterson's descent in the pilot episode (reviewed here!) and considering he now is cybernetically altered, one might think such jumps would be different. At least it looks good.

Such is how it is with “End Of The Beginning;” the episode had so much potential, so many pieces ready to achieve some level of greatness, but instead, it executed them as something far more average. The storyline is more formulaic than audacious and the result is an episode that sets up a far more important episode.

For other works with Brad Dourif, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Priest
Pulse
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
The Box
Alien: Resurrection
Nighwatch
Star Trek: Voyager - "Basics, Part 2"
Star Trek: Voyager - "Basics"
Star Trek: Voyager - "Meld"
The X-Files “Beyond The Sea”
Dune
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season here!
Thanks!]

5/10

For other television and movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Paradigm Shift Or Preposterous? “T.A.H.I.T.I.”

The Good: Engaging story, Decent acting, Good effects
The Bad: Light on character development, Big Moral Decision is something of a no-brainer.
The Basics: While supposed to be significant for telling the story of how the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. try to save Skye’s life, “T.A.H.I.T.I.” is notable truly for finally, conclusively, revealing how Coulson’s resurrection was attained for the series.


If one were to believe the hype, the latest episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., “T.A.H.I.T.I.,” is the episode where the Marvel cinematic universe will indelibly change and viewers will finally get the television show that they were teased with all along. That’s hype for you; Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has struggled to find its footing with fans for many reasons, not the least of which is that the show has been taking its time getting to its point and purpose. Many Marvel fans seemed to hope that Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. might be like The X-Files (reviewed here!) or the bottle episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (reviewed here!) where the “alien/demon Of The Week” was replaced with a Recognizable Marvel Villain Of The Week. Alas, for the fans, though; Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been incredibly slow to commit to a-listers. To be clear, the appearance of a-list actor Samuel L. Jackson for a cameo in “0-8-4” (reviewed here!) was very cool, but while Jackson is an a-list actor, his Marvel Universe character of Nick Fury has, at best, been a second string, cameo character as opposed to an integral member of any film in which his character has appeared.

So, as viewers eagerly await the cinematic release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and see if there is any crossover with Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., the narrative picks back up with “T.A.H.I.T.I.” “T.A.H.I.T.I.” picks up almost immediately after “T.R.A.C.K.S.” (reviewed here!) and given the way “T.R.A.C.K.S.” leaves one character near death, it is impossible to discuss “T.A.H.I.T.I.” without some references to “T.R.A.C.K.S.,” though “T.A.H.I.T.I.” manages to follow up without continuing the exciting Deathlok arc of the prior episode.

With Skye dying and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s nearest doctors unable to help, Agent Coulson pulls May off beating the captured villain, Ian Quinn, to fly the plane to Bethesda for the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors who resurrected him. With three fighter planes threatening to bring The Bus down, S.H.I.E.L.D. has Agent John Garrett rendezvousing with the plane-based headquarters. Simmons and Fitz make a troubling discovery as the plane heads to Bethesda; Coulson’s resurrection was not done at a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and none of the doctors listed in the official S.H.I.E.L.D. report on the incident actually exist. Under interrogation from Garrett and Coulson, Quinn admits that the Clairvoyant for whom he works could not see how Coulson was resurrected and he was ordered to shoot Skye in order to force S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hand.

Using S.H.I.E.L.D. archives, Fitz and Simmons discover the non-S.H.I.E.L.D. facility known as the Guest House where Coulson’s operation took place. With Garrett, Coulson, Ward and Fitz infiltrate the Guest House where the two operatives left in the bunker resist the S.H.I.E.L.D. team’s entrance. Trapped in the Guest House with a failsafe detonator preparing to eliminate all evidence of the facility, Garrett and Ward work to disarm the bunker’s bomb while Coulson and Fitz look for the wonder drug GH-325, which should regenerate Skye’s damaged tissue. When Coulson sees part of the Guest House labeled T.A.H.I.T.I., he goes into a trance and is convinced that GH-325 is dangerous to Skye.

One of the problems with “T.A.H.I.T.I.” is how the episode fits into the larger Marvel mythos and Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.; the emotional resonance of the episode hinges entirely on the viewer caring about Skye. Given that Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a direct follow-up to larger-than-life Marvel Universe-based movies, where Presidents lives are in the balance, extradimensional beings attack Earth and threaten the multiverse and creatures are created who wipe out large sections of major cities, Skye is not only a minor character, but a troublingly unlikable/insignificant one. The prior thirteen episodes of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. may have put some focus on Skye, but they have failed to make the viewer truly care about her. She’s in the show for obvious sex appeal, but her character is erratic and not in a compelling or interesting way like, for example, Spike from the Buffyverse. In other words, “T.A.H.I.T.I.” hinges on putting Coulson in a position to make an unenviable decision; save Skye and give the Clairvoyant what he needs or let her die and throw the Clairvoyant off his game.

In a world where so many huge events have been seen and villains like the Abomination, Mandarin, and Loki exist, the idea of empowering an adversary like the Clairvoyant who seems to have equal resources to S.H.I.E.L.D. and some superhuman abilities is a no-brainer for an intelligence or military-like organization like S.H.I.E.L.D. Despite Skye being a mysterious 084 case and Coulson and Ward having some protective instinct toward her, the trade off is not a fair one; if the Clairvoyant has motivated most of the action that has preceded “T.A.H.I.T.I.” in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. one non-agent’s life is a fair trade to keep the villain from getting empowered.

“T.A.H.I.T.I.” actually, finally, answers the first season’s initial mystery of how Agent Coulson was resurrected in a straightforward, complete way. Those who suspected (reasonably, given all the clues prior to “The Magical Place”) that Coulson was a S.H.I.E.L.D. Life Model Decoy are likely to only experience a moment’s disappointment after the truth is finally revealed in “T.A.H.I.T.I.” In fact, the only thing that doesn’t truly make sense about how S.H.I.E.L.D. resurrected Coulson is the speed at which they synthesized the drugs needed to do so.

On the character front, “T.A.H.I.T.I.” continues the deep friendship between Coulson and May, but does little else other than introduce a potential future love interest for Simmons and create more backstory for Ward and Coulson through the introduction of the character Garrett. Like Victoria Hand before him, Garrett is brought on as a guest character in a way that instantly generates backstory and some sense of conflict without having an enduring effect on the S.H.I.E.L.D. team we watch week after week. In other words, those hoping Bill Paxton’s Garrett might get a spin-off would really be stretching for it.

That said, Bill Paxton does a decent job of forcefully entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Garrett and Garrett’s chief lieutenant, Agent Triplett, is ably played by B.J. Britt (albeit with a very rushed seeded romance line and a somewhat preposterous fight sequence with Ward). The main cast does well with “T.A.H.I.T.I.,” though there are no truly exceptional single performances. To be fair, it’s not That Kind Of Episode; the emotional context for the episode is pretty much out of the way by the end of the first act and the episode becomes a race against time that does not offer much in the way of time for character reflection.

In fine Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. tradition, “T.A.H.I.T.I.” hits its climax a little early, offers a brief moment of introspection and then uses the last few minutes to set up the next big arc. But those hoping for an a-list hero to aid the team against the villain who pops up for the final minutes will remain disappointed. But that’s for next week . . .

On its own, “T.A.H.I.T.I.” may not solve all the prior problems of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., but it does present an exciting race against time story that definitively answers lingering questions from the outset of the series and pushes the overall story arc of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. forward in an interesting-enough way to make one want to tune in again.

For other works with Bill Paxton, please visit my reviews of:
Haywire
Titanic
Aliens
The Terminator

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season here!
Thanks!]

7/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Predictable, But Worthwhile, “The Hub” Buys Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. A Little More Time!

The Good: Moments of performance, Moments of character, Action sequences
The Bad: Painfully predictable plot/character arcs, Most of the characters are utterly unrealistic, Attention to Skye
The Basics: With “The Hub,” Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. gives an episode to the last remaining main character, Fitz, which is presented in an unfortunately formulaic way.


As a fan and a reviewer, I can always tell when a television series is slipping in that I do not prioritize it the way I once did. Truth be told, while my wife has been on a Doctor Who kick lately, I’ve been okay to let her dominate the television. I’ve been so okay with it, in fact, that it did not occur to me until afterwards that I missed last night’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The truth is, that type of lapse indicates to me what emotionally I realized several episodes ago: I don’t genuinely care about the show any more and truly, it is not really living up to the initial hype. It has, however, been renewed for the full season and I’ll stick with it, but going into the seventh episode, “The Hub,” I was certainly not as committed to it as I was at the beginning.

“The Hub” follows on the heels of “FZZT” (reviewed here!) and alludes to the prior episode, which makes sense in serialized television like Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. What also makes sense is that “The Hub” would make an effort to focus on the character of Leo Fitz. Fitz is the last main character on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. to have an episode where his character is fleshed out and the producers give the character a chance to shine after Fitz was robbed of the heroic moment in “FZZT.” Smartly, the writers and producers separate Fitz from Simmons in “The Hub” in order to help differentiate the two reclusive scientists. Unfortunately, the set-up for the episode virtually writes the formulaic resolution to the a-plot. Fitz is not a field agent, which is one of the few aspects of the characters viewers know from the prior six episodes; so “The Hub” puts him in a situation where it seems like his lack of lack of field experience would be a liability, but he proves his worth with both his technical and adaptive skills. Unfortunately, “The Hub” follows that exact model for predictable, plotted, television.

After rescuing S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Shaw from a Siberian facility he infiltrated, Agent Coulson clams up about what Shaw was doing in the facility. Instead of sharing with the team, the team makes the trip to The Hub, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s classified depot where Skye whines about not having access. Agents Coulson, Ward and May meet with Hand, who informs them that Shaw’s intel points to a separatist group in one of the former Soviet Republics that wants to declare its independence. It has a sonic weapon that it is prepared to use and in addition to Agent Ward, Fitz is assigned to the team to disable and recover the weapon, called the Overkill Device.

Arriving near the border, Ward discovers that his friend Uri is dead. The locals, who do not trust Ward and Fitz, are about to kill them until the power goes out and Fitz gains their trust by restoring the power (having been the one to knock it out in the first place). Skye and Simmons hatch a plan to learn about the mission while Fitz and Ward are getting across the border. Their attempt to hack the system results in Simmons shooting a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with the “night night gun.” Skye, predictably, uses the hack as an opportunity to look into the redacted document about her parents, but she learns that Ward and Fitz were sent into Ossetia without an extraction team. After discovering there is no extraction for them, Ward gets Fitz into the factory to disable the Overkill Device. As the agents at the Hub work to save their team, Ward and Fitz flee the hot zone.

“The Hub” is more flawed from its conception and the incongruent aspects with the prior episodes than actually feeling like bad television. There is, for example, a forced character relationship between Fitz and Simmons that has a budding romantic tension between them that comes out of nowhere. The two have been characterized in the prior episodes almost like a brother and sister; compatriots working together closely who are so invested in their work that they do not consider a romantic entanglement. In fact, there were hints in prior episodes that Simmons actually has a girlish crush on Agent Ward. So, when Skye seems to pull on Simmons’s heart strings in “The Hub” to get her to pretty much commit treason, it does not resonate as well for fans as the writers might have hoped.

On the subject of Skye, “The Hub” is yet another episode that gives too much attention on Skye. Skye, even more than Coulson, dominates the b-plot in “The Hub” and given that she is not even the third most interesting character on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., the overexposure of the character is becoming much more annoying than compelling. In fact, Skye in “The Hub” reveals how little the writers understand their own character; Skye is not written like a terrorist. Skye is supposed to be a hacker from a rogue terrorist organization, The Rising Tide. As such, she should appreciate the concept of compartmentalization. Compartmentalization is what allows terrorist and guerilla warfare cells to survive because no one member can compromise the entire organization. So, Skye’s pissy attitude about being kept in the dark about mission details that she is not authorized to have comes across as far more juvenile and ridiculous than genuinely curious or protective of the team she has joined.

By contrast, May is written as the consummate professional. Ming-Na Wen sells a scene with Clark Gregg perfectly without a single line on her part and it is one of the few delights in “The Hub.” Gregg continues to play Coulson with a straight face, amid even more allusions as to what actually happened to him after The Avengers (reviewed here!). At this point, his resurrection should be pretty transparent, but one suspects the final revelation will be made for a midseason or season finale while jerking along the regular viewers.

While Iain De Caestecker performs the predictable character arc for Fitz adequately, the performance of the episode for “The Hub” actually comes from Brett Dalton’s Grant Ward. When Ward signals for the extraction, Dalton has to emote understanding and acceptance with his eyes while maintaining a professional façade. It’s a tough balance to create, but Dalton nails it perfectly, long before Ward tells Fitz that help is not coming.

Unfortunately, neither that performance, nor the additional tidbits about Skye’s past and the appearance of Agent Hand are enough to give viewers a real thrill. At this point, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is still building. By this point in Angel (reviewed here!), Joss Whedon and his team had already introduced the series-long menace of Wolfram & Hart and even the first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (reviewed here!) had The Master. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been listing along, pulled by loyal Marvel and Joss Whedon fanbases; we have invested in seven episodes now and if the show does not start paying off the investment soon, it is hard to imagine how it will survive. Objectively, it is not as incredible or impressive as other Marvel or Whedon works. Hopefully, now that all six main characters have had at least one episode’s a-plot each, the show will start taking us somewhere.

For other works with Saffron Burrows, please visit my reviews of:
Boston Legal - Season 4
Reign Over Me
Frida

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season here!
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4/10

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© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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