Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Returns With A "BOOM!"

The Good: Good character development, Decent performances, More focused plot
The Bad: Still has a bit too many threads, Annoying use of torture by Daisy.
The Basics: Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns to its more familiar form with "BOOM," which reminds viewers what the show used to be about and how interesting the characters used to be by giving a very classic feeling episode!


Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has largely lost its focus, but as "BOOM" begins, the show had its best potential in a long time to find itself once again. The fourth season had been unfortunately scattered whatwith the early addition of Ghost Rider, followed by the obsessive quest to find the Dark Hold being combined with life model decoys everywhere and the resurgence of the anti-Inhuman Watchdogs . . . all amid S.H.I.E.L.D. being fractured by a change at the top following Daisy going rogue. But, the events of "Hot Potato Soup" (reviewed here!) put Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. in a place where the season could reasonably get very focused.

After all, as "BOOM" begins, the LMD May has been outed and incapacitated, which puts Coulson on a very clear mission; to hunt down Dr. Radcliffe and find the real Melinda May. Fortunately, "BOOM" has S.H.I.E.L.D. refocused on finding May. Radcliffe grows into being a villain while he works with the anti-Inhuman Watchdogs by working with the Watchdogs. In "BOOM," the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. actually return to being smart and doing some spy work, while the Watchdogs focus their hate on the Inhumans and Coulson. And, the result is a fairly good episode!

Coulson is sitting, talking to Mack on the comms while out on a mission that has them hunting the human upon which Aida was based. Aboard the Superior's submarine, Radcliffe and Aida maintain May in her virtual world. Radcliffe provides the Superior with a refined form of terragin crystals intended to turn potential Inhumans into Inhumans so the Watchdogs could experiment upon them. While Simmons delivers the bad medical news to Director Mace, Daisy begins relocating Inhumans to prevent the Watchdogs from getting them.

Confronting Agnes, the woman upon whom Aida is based, Coulson and Mack get an ally in finding May given that she now loathes Radcliffe. When one of the Watchdogs attempts to turn Senator Nadeer using the new terragin, her office is blown up! Coulson and Mack learn that Agnes has an inoperable brain tumor and she is horrified to discover Radcliffe has made a Life Model Decoy duplicate of her, which makes her not want to waste her time even trying to help Radcliffe. When Terrence, the new Inhuman, returns to the Superior and the Watchdogs, he lies about being turned and the assassination of Nadeer - remaining loyal to the Watchdogs.

"BOOM" is nice in that it restores the chemistry of Fitz and Simmons, even if it spends a bit of time fleshing out Mace. Mace has been a fairly underwhelming addition to Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and now that he has been exposed as a lab rat and a fraud, he is a character that is hard to remain invested in. In "BOOM," Mace is relegated to the role of face of S.H.I.E.L.D. in dealing with the public relations nightmare that follows Nadeer's assassination.

Fortunately, Daisy's plot is fairly enlightened as she helps Mace lead the team to deal with the Inhuman who killed Nadeer. Daisy returns to the field properly as an investigator. "BOOM" actually feels like an Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode for the first time in a long time in that the protagonists actually work together doing the forensics half of a spy mission and the result is entertaining in a way that most of the season has not been.

On the Coulson front, Coulson manages to bring a lot of heart to "BOOM." Coulson is expertly played by Clark Gregg and he makes a plausible emotional appeal to Agnes. Gregg is finally able to play Coulson as emotionally realized as Coulson appeals to Agnes to try to find May. Coulson is finally close to admitting his feelings for May and as he tries to use Agnes to get to Radcliffe, Gregg has a chance to deliver his lines with a passion that Coulson is not usually allowed.

Just as Gregg is given a chance to shine in "BOOM," Mallory Jansen continues to illustrate an impressive range with her acting ability as she plays both Aida and Agnes in the episode. As Aida, Jansen delivers her best performance of the episode in a scene where she does not even speak. As Agnes, Jansen is able to play without any of the occasional stiffness of her body language that helps her to characterize Aida and the transitions between the two characters are seamless.

"BOOM" comes together surprisingly well as the new anti-Inhuman Inhuman gives viewers some fun and creepy moments. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. finally becomes interesting and engaging again as it focuses in "BOOM!"

For other television works with John Pyper-Ferguson, please visit my reviews of:
"Broken Promises" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Drive
X-Men: The Last Stand
The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr.
"A Fistful Of Datas" - Star Trek: The Next Generation
Unforgiven

[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 Fourth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the fourth season here!
Thanks!]

7/10

For other reviews of elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, please check out my Marvel Cinematic Universe Review Index Page for a listing of all those reviews!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

"The Good Samaritan" Starts To Flesh Out Ghost Rider On Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

The Good: Decent performances, Moments of character, Good effects, Decent tie-ins to the larger MCU
The Bad: Does not go far enough to satisfy viewers, Weakens Director Mace
The Basics: Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. tries to flesh out Ghost Rider and the current conflict in "The Good Samaritan."


Since the first appearance of Ghost Rider on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., viewers have had to take the character's word for his backstory. Robbie Reyes has told Daisy his story in broad terms, but there has been shockingly little on-screen history for the character. Until "The Good Samaritan," Ghost Rider was a somewhat forced addition to Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. that viewers have been waiting to get an explicit backstory for. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. starts to deliver that explicit backstory with "The Good Samaritan," but it falls short of giving truly satisfying answers to the existence of Ghost Rider.

"The Good Samaritan" is preceded by "Lockup" (reviewed here!) and given how many serialized elements carry over from "Lockup," it is tough not to review the new episode without some references to the prior one. After all, "Lockup" climaxed with Dr. Eli Morrow ending up in the custody of the ghostly Lucy Bauer, which put S.H.I.E.L.D. in an inherently defensive position going into "The Good Samaritan." With Director Mace outing himself as an Inhuman and now, apparently, under the thumb of an anti-Inhuman Senator, "The Good Samaritan" has the work of humanizing Robbie Reyes (Ghost Rider).

Opening with Morrow arriving at the laboratory for a test conducted by the Bauers, Morrow witnesses the scientific team essentially creating a replicator when they create carbon out of air. Lucy tells Morrow about the Darkhold before her husband shuts down the conversation. In the present day, S.H.I.E.L.D. raids the Momentum Alternative Energy Lab and Fitz is able to recognize that Lucy Bauer and Morrow have removed components from their machine. After Daisy visits Gabriel Reyes to bring him back to Robbie, Simmons is assigned by Mace to a clandestine mission. Mace himself arrives at Coulson's plane to recover Quake and the Reyes brothers.

While Mace's forces search The Zephyr, Fitz tries to get answers on the ties between Morrow's company and Isodyne. In hiding, the Reyes brothers reconstruct the events that made Robbie into the Ghost Rider. But when Mace shows up around the containment module, Ghost Rider emerges to confront him! Fitz manages to defuse the situation by tracking down Lucy Bauer and Morrow, which leads a S.H.I.E.L.D. team to the power plant where Bauer is risking thousands of lives to make herself corporeal again!

"The Good Samaritan" has the chance to start to scientifically explain the apparent supernatural elements that have been rising in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. for the first few episodes of the season. The Darkhold initially appears to be a magical book, but the fact that the Bauers use it to build technological devices opens the door for a Thor-like explanation that science and magic are just different technologies. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. started with the resurrection of Coulson using alien technology, so the idea that Robbie Reyes could actually have been dead is not an inherently bad one, but it does deserve a scientific explanation.

The essential conflict between Mace and Coulson in "The Good Samaritan" is one that has Mace dealing with the potential public relations problem of having a murderer in S.H.I.E.L.D. As the Ghost Rider, Reyes killed a prisoner in "Lockup" and was caught on camera. As a result, Mace has the potential exposure of Reyes being revealed as an Inhuman or working adjacent to S.H.I.E.L.D. So, Coulson is worried about actually saving lives, protecting Inhumans and keeping S.H.I.E.L.D. active and effective, while Mace is just worried about appearances. Mace's concept of a transparent S.H.I.E.L.D. is somewhat ridiculous

The story of the Ghost Rider is finally made more explicit out as Robbie has to tell his story to Gabe while they are in confinement, avoiding S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. The backstory starts with Robbie taking Morrow's car for a street race and bringing his studious younger brother, Gabe, with him. En route to the race, the pair is attacked by thugs and Gabe is paralyzed, the car is totaled, and Robbie has a near-death experience after being thrown from the car. "The Good Samaritan" gets its name from the mysterious man who Gabe sees after the accident who rides up on a motorcycle and - to Gabe's mind - saved their lives. From Robbie's perspective, he was dead and was resurrected by the Ghost Rider to get vengeance on those who put Gabe in the wheelchair . . . who were thugs hired by Joe Bauer! But the origins of "The Good Samaritan" are not laid out and that is disappointing. As a result, Ghost Rider still seems more supernatural than anything else.

"The Good Samaritan" ties well into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe by actually trying the second season of Agent Carter into the backstory of Ghost Rider. The current events with Lucy Bauer and the Darkhold ties to Isodyne and Roxxon, which are companies fleshed out and used in Agent Carter extensively.

The reversal in "The Good Samaritan" is good, but the episode lacks true thematic depth, though it does seem like it could lead into a satisfying remainder of the season.

The performances in "The Good Samaritan" are good, but none of them have true depth that allow the performers to shine out of their element. Jason O'Mara plays Mace as surprisingly dull, which continues to undermine him. Sure, it is reassuring to see Mace be smart enough to recognize the game that Coulson is playing, but the revelation is not terribly impressive and it does not give O'Mara anywhere new to go with the character. Instead, Mace starts to move into the realm of gamesmanship that made Coulson and Fury such good Directors of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Beyond that, the performances are simply adequate. Jose Zuniga makes the final act of "The Good Samaritan" engaging to watch, but it is also an act that includes the most intense special effects, so it is a visually exciting act regardless.

"The Good Samaritan" feels like a transition episode as the Darkhold becomes the key element for the current season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the main villain for the season makes an abrupt transition away from the obvious use of Lucy Bauer as the primary antagonist. Ghost Rider gets the chance to mix work and pleasure in "The Good Samaritan" and that is cool, but the episode stops short of being truly satisfying for detailing the true nature of the new Inhuman-adjacent entity in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..

For other works with Jose Zuniga, please check out my reviews of:
"Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Twilight
Mission: Impossible III
Constantine

[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 Fourth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the fourth season here!
Thanks!]

6/10

For other reviews of elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, please check out my Marvel Cinematic Universe Review Index Page for a listing of all those reviews!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Ballad Of Luke Cage "AKA Take A Bloody Number!"

The Good: Decent performances, Good character moments
The Bad: Predictable plot
The Basics: A mediocre ramp-up to the finale, "AKA Take A Bloody Number" gives Luke Cage an understanding of what Jessica Jones went through with Kilgrave and gives viewers that battle they truly wanted to see.


This weekend, I am at a Star Trek convention as a dealer and I was put in the exciting position of having my opinion matter when the conversation I was having with some fellow dealers veered onto the subject of Jessica Jones. The person with whom I was conversing was up to episode seven and unsure whether or not she was going to finish the first season. As I round out my second viewing of the entire season, I find myself considering the question of, ultimately, was it worth it? The penultimate episode of the first season is "AKA Take A Bloody Number" and ramping into the conflict that has been building for the entire season, the episode's direction seems more obvious than audacious and in my conversation, I found myself advising the person to end on the high note of "AKA WWJD?" (reviewed here!) and just leave the season there if she was on the fence about bothering with the show.

"AKA Take A Bloody Number" bears some blame for that advice. Going into a season finale, especially a first season finale, a show has to have an energy that drives the viewer to watch to the very end. "AKA Take A Bloody Number" lacks the essential urgency of the best penultimate episodes. Instead, "AKA Take A Bloody Number" follows immediately upon "AKA I've Got The Blues" (reviewed here!) and goes in the most predictable, Marvel Formulaic way possible. It's impossible to discuss "AKA Take A Bloody Number" without some references to exactly where "AKA I've Got The Blues" left off.

Following the destruction of his bar, Jessica Jones takes Luke Cage back to the Alias Investigations office to dry him out from Kilgrave's influence. Kilgrave is still alive and has his father, Albert, with him and they are attempting to create a serum that will boost the range and duration of Kilgrave's powers. Jones is convinced that Kilgrave is trying to up his mind-control strength in order to be able to control her once again. At the hospital, Trish is recovering from her ordeal well, when her mother comes to visit. Dorothy tries to get Trish to let her back in and sis rejected by Trish.

Rummaging through the hotel where Thompson was staying leads Jones and Cage to Zalk Labs for a drug that Kilgrave has the technicians making non-stop. Cage and Jones have a heart to heart where Cage forgives Jones for Riva's death. Back at Trish's apartment, Dorothy arrives with a file about the mysterious organization that Simpson was working for from her personal archives. It turns out that Simpson was made into a supersoldier by the same shadowy organization that paid Jessica Jones's medical bills following the car accident that killed Jones's family. Following a technician from Zalk leads Jones into a confrontation with Kilgrave that pits Jones and Cage against one another.

"AKA Take A Bloody Number" does what viewers who are invested in the characters of Jessica Jones have secretly wanted since Kilgrave's powers were verified on-screen. The episode puts the unstoppable force in conflict with an immovable object and the result is entertaining and predictably devastating. The Kilgrave-influenced Luke Cage is a terrifying notion and given that Jessica Jones's super-strength is not enough to stop him, it puts Jones in the difficult bind of trying to survive Cage and Kilgrave while trying to kill the latter and save the former.

On the character front, "AKA Take A Bloody Number" plays off an important, if subtle, moment from "AKA Ladies Night" (reviewed here!), where Jessica Jones deduces through observations just how important Luke Cage's bar is to him. Jones's observations are proven right in "AKA Take A Bloody Number" and without the anchor to normalcy, Luke Cage bounces between being Kilgrave's pawn and Jessica Jones's willing tool in her quest to take down Kilgrave. The episode also plays off the most interesting characterization of Kilgrave, which has him infatuated with Jones and threatened by any man who might take his place in Jones's heart.

En route, "AKA Take A Bloody Number" fills with a scene between Robyn and Malcolm that has the flaky upstairs neighbor setting Malcolm back on the path of virtue. Or virtuous enough to be a sidekick and moral guide to Jessica Jones. Malcolm intends to flee Hell's Kitchen for his parent's home where he wants to reconnect with what is important and, in that way, he has almost the opposite character arc of Luke Cage in the episode. Cage could have been of use to Jones by getting away and leaving any potential sphere of Kilgrave's influence; Malcolm learns he needs to stay to help and find purpose with Jessica Jones. It's a weird conduit that Robyn becomes to help him understand his own arc.

Krysten Ritter gives a decent performance in "AKA Take A Bloody Number," as Jessica Jones is forced on an emotional roller coaster through the course of the episode. Amid the fight scenes, Ritter emotes well. David Tennant does great with the material given to him, but in "AKA Take A Bloody Number" his character Kilgrave degenerates into a pretty generic Marvel supervillain lacking in the subtlety and intrigue that made him watchable and incredible only a few episodes earlier. Mike Colter exhibits enough range in "AKA Take A Bloody Number" to convince viewers that he can absolutely handle a spin-off if Luke Cage has a decent story to tell [hey, executive producers, if you're reading this - why not shake up the formula you've developed with Daredevil and Jessica Jones and have an established villain in place that Luke Cage finds wherever he goes and have him have to stop him there, as opposed to a similar story with an entrenched protagonist and a rising antagonist who takes several episodes to arrive on-screen for a big reveal?].

But, ultimately, "AKA Take A Bloody Number" is a set-up episode and it is vamping for time as viewers wait for the inevitable confrontation between Jones and Kilgrave that will cap the season.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Jessica Jones - The Complete First Season, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Michael Siberry, please visit my reviews of:
Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance)
House Of Cards - Season 1

5/10

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

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission. | | |

Partial Payoff, Partial Tease, “Aftershocks” Advances Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

The Good: Performances, Moments of character, Mood, Special effects
The Bad: Plot is virtually non-existent.
The Basics: Likely working better in context, “Aftershocks” reflects on the powerful events of the prior episode while making minimal exploration of the fundamental characters of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..


Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns at an awkward time. After weeks of being pre-empted by the period spy show Agent Carter, also set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and at a time when House Of Cards fans are still binging on the just-released season three (reviewed here!), Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. finally returns to television.

Given the climactic events of “What They Become” (reviewed here!), the new episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., comes in at an awkward position. The burden on “Aftershocks” is to illustrate that the investment viewers have had in Skye is a good one. Since the first season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., there has been the tease that Skye is something other than human. Her father, introduced in the second season, has been teased as being non-human as well and in “What They Become,” it seemed that Skye would make a dramatic transformation, which would reveal her true nature. “Aftershocks” was set up to explore what Skye was after encountering the Obelisk in the alien temple . . . and it ends up as more of a tease than a payoff for the faith viewers have had. Even so, it is remarkably satisfying on the level of human drama than many spy shows after cataclysmic events.

Opening in 1983 in a laboratory where Gordon, an eyeless young man who inexplicably teleports around his cell, Jiaying is revealed to be a shepherd of people who have undergone such dramatic transformations. Skye wakes up in quarantine where she mourns the loss of Trip. There, Coulson commits to bringing down H.Y.D.R.A. and declaring their mission a success – whatwith Whitehall being killed. While H.Y.D.R.A. meets to consider a successor to Whitehall within their organization, Raina, altered by her encounter with the obelisk, kills S.H.I.E.L.D. workers to escape the alien temple.

Simmons blows the temple and Coulson reassembles his team to hunt H.Y.D.R.A. Coulson prepares to trade Bakshi for information on H.Y.D.R.A. with Talbot, when he and May are waylaid by a truck. Setting Bakshi up to lure Coulson’s team back to their H.Y.D.R.A. base, Simmons returns to base where she compares Skye’s blood with Raina’s altered DNA. Raina, for her part, reunites with Calvin Zabo (Skye’s father) where she questions exactly what has happened to her. Hunter leads Morse to H.Y.D.R.A.’s headquarters, where Bakshi attempts to kill him and Morse. In the ensuing showdown, H.Y.D.R.A.’s leadership turns on each other creating a power vacuum.

“Aftershocks” makes it very hard for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to no entirely accept mutants. While Quicksilver and the Scarlett Witch were seen in the post-credits scene to the otherwise grounded Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here!), the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been largely unable to utilize or acknowledge the Fox-owned Marvel X-Men mutants. “Aftershocks” entirely shakes up the real-world formula of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Gordon, Raina and Skye. The burden it puts on the Marvel Cinematic Universe is to explain how wealthy, powerful, brilliant, and well-informed individuals like Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and Nick Fury would not know about “mutants” in the next major Marvel movie.

On the character front, Mac asserts himself as one of the more interesting characters of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. in “Aftershocks.” Mac, who was possessed in the prior two episodes leads Fitz to an oblique reference to “Yes Men” (reviewed here!), takes an episode that is packed with supernatural/extraordinary and roots it with a realistic character that is very appealing to the audience. Mac grounds the audience well and he makes the episode far more accessible – even if his key scene is interrupted by Skye having a telekinetic incident.

The confrontation between Raina and Zabo is an intriguing one. While Zabo is now obsessed with revenge on Coulson because Coulson robbed him of the opportunity to kill Whitehall, Raina seeks guidance. Raina has been transformed into a mutant with porcupine spines and Zabo implies that she has the ability to change her form or control her mutations, which keeps Raina in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a wild card.

“Aftershocks” is notable in that its tone is a clear departure from the action-adventure tone of prior episodes. Instead, Coulson’s team is reeling from the death of Tripp and their sense of loss is expressed by every member of the team. Each of the performers in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is given a moment to plumb the emotional depths of their characters. “Aftershocks” gives both Chloe Bennet and Iain De Caestecker the chance to truly let loose in ways they have not previously. Bennet plays Skye as afraid and suspicious in a somewhat minimalist way that plays to her talents.

Iain De Caestecker has had the biggest transformation in his performance of Fitz over the course of the series. After delivering mostly technobabble in the first season, De Caestecker has spent the first several episodes of the second season essentially in shock, playing Fitz as diminished by brain damage. In “Aftershock,” he is assertive, intuitive and De Caestecker plays that out without going over-the-top. The resolution to Fitz’s arc is an interesting one and it affords a great chance for both De Caestecker and Bennet to advance their characters in new and interesting ways in forthcoming episodes.

But “Aftershocks” belabors the set-up more than the substantive reflection on the prior episode. Raina is given more of an exploration of the effects of the Obelisk than Skye is. Sure, she moves things around with her mind, but the full extent of how Skye was altered is not known and only Fitz is clued into the truth. While the emotional ramifications of the prior episode are followed-through well in “Aftershocks,” the plot points are far less compelling.

The result is an episode that might enhance the serialized aspects of the second season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. but holds up less well on its own.

[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!]

6.5/10

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

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

“Nothing Personal;” It’s Entirely Average Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

The Good: There’s nothing really bad in the episode.
The Bad: There’s nothing especially compelling in the episode.
The Basics: As the first season moves toward its conclusion, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has a plot-heavy episode in “Nothing Personal” which sees the return of Maria Hill.


By the time Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. reaches “Nothing Personal,” the show is struggling to remind viewers what is unique about the series. In the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here!), which was essentially just a spy thriller. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the key to keeping a show about the spy community going is capitalizing on the unique elements of the characters and world of the show. In the case of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the key to keeping Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. engaging, is exploring in a compelling way how generally normal humans deal with spying in a world where there are superheroes, mutants, and teched up supervillains operating on the same playing field.

Unfortunately, by “Nothing Personal,” the show has skewed exceptionally far away from the premise and into pretty generic spy thriller territory. “Nothing Personal” only has the presence of a cyborg, Deathlok, to remind viewers that Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is set in a world that is now our own. Sure, they mention Coulson’s resurrection and Man-Thing, but for the most part, “Nothing Personal” is just an episode that continues to work with the fallout of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the U.S. government hunting the Agents.

Picking up immediately where “The Only Light In The Darkness” (reviewed here!) ended, Agent Hill’s multiple tails are incapacitated, by May who tells her that Coulson needs help. While Coulson’s team tries to figure out what happened to the Bus. Fortunately, a note was left behind for the team and Simmons almost immediately finds Koenig's body. With Skye and Ward making it to Los Angeles where Skye begins to decrypt the hard drive, Coulson and his team confim that Ward is a H.Y.D.R.A. agent and they work to track down the Bus. Almost as soon as they find where Skye went with the drive, Providence is infiltrated by General Talbot, the U.S. military and Agent Hill.

While May hunts for the person who actually executed the T.A.H.I.T.I. project, Colonel Talbot threatens the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with prison time. As Skye stalls with Ward, Coulson reveals to Hill that Ward is a H.Y.D.R.A. agent and they leave Providence together. When Skye plays her hand, fleeing the diner puts her in the custody of Ward and Deathlok. While Skye witnesses the brutality of H.Y.D.R.A., the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents contemplate how best to attempt a rescue now that they have fought the U.S. military and truly become fugitives.

“Nothing Personal” is a decent progression episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., even if it relies heavily on the prior episodes to do what it accomplishes. Outside the soap operatic elements in the relationship between Fitz and Simmons and a single leap that Coulson makes (Coulson deduces, correctly, that Skye is playing Ward when he sees the footage of the two of them leaving Providence together instead of worrying that Skye was a H.Y.D.R.A. agent, too), “Nothing Personal” is a smart character study of the characters in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. May continues to be determined and loyal to Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. and Skye begins her inevitable resistance to Ward. Despite the formulaic nature of the long arc that “Nothing Personal” is a part of (the moment Skye was captured, it pretty much set up a “Skye gets tortured for how to unlock the drive while the Agents come together to rescue her and save the world”), the episode plays out well.

Skye is actually given a pretty awesome dilemma, which was not predictable, in the way Deathlok utilizes torture to get what he wants from Skye. While tormenting another is a very traditional form of torture, there is a cool moment in “Nothing Personal” where Deathlok forces Skye to consider the question of whether or not Skye is a killer, a person willing to do all of the wrong things she accuses Ward of. Throughout the episode, Chloe Bennet plays Skye like a woman whose mental wheels are constantly turning. Fortunately, Ward is not played as stupid in “Nothing Personal,” which makes him a reasonably good antagonist.

Fans of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. might begin to wonder in “Nothing Personal” about Ward’s relationship with the supernatural. In “Yes Men” (reviewed here!), Ward encountered an Asgaardian weapon that tapped into his subconscious. While that episode might be looked at as a bit of foreshadowing for the Ward character, given how evil Ward is supposed to be in “Nothing Personal,” one has to wonder just why the experience with the staff affected the double agent so profoundly.

“Nothing Personal” is notable for the return of Agent Maria Hill, last seen at Stark Enterprises in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Hill has become a professional defendant before Congress in “Nothing Personal” and her easy return to the spy game makes it seem like the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier was mostly inconsequential. I long wondered why Cobie Smulders was not pursuing more of a role in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. while she finished the final season of How I Met Your Mother; it certainly would have given Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hill’s place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe more impact. So, while it is nice to see Hill and Smulders again, the idea that Hill vetted Ward back in the day just makes S.H.I.E.L.D. seem like it was staffed by the least competent people in the world. In fact, the most efficient and smart Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. so far had his autopsy in the first five minutes of “Nothing Personal!”

“Nothing Personal” is not bad, but it is entirely unextraordinary. The episode continues to be a plot-centered story where the characters are reacting more than motivating the direction of the series. “Nothing Personal” seems to illustrate that Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going for the most predictable reversals (if the pattern follows and Ward is actually killed in the season finale, the pattern would have Simmons actually pulling the trigger). That does not make the episode disappointing, just familiar.

For other works with Cobie Smulders, please visit my reviews of:
"Pilot" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Avengers
Safe Haven
How I Met Your Mother - Season 6
How I Met Your Mother - Season 5
How I Met Your Mother - Season 4
How I Met Your Mother - Season 3
How I Met Your Mother - Season 2
How I Met Your Mother - Season 1
The L Word - Season 2

[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.
| | |

A Cheap Retread Of The X-Files, “Repairs” Introduces Another Invisible Adversary!

The Good: Ming-Na Wen’s performance, Character growth for Melinda May
The Bad: Ridiculous b-plot, Largely derivative plot, Predictable
The Basics: The legend of Melinda May grows in “Repairs,” an Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode that is unfortunately weak.


There is something deeply ironic about the latest episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., “Repairs.” The irony comes from how the episode works so hard to be smart in a big picture kind of way – like “The Well” (reviewed here!) before it, “Repairs” follows on the heels of Thor: The Dark World (reviewed here!) and it works to play up the cataclysmic nature of the Greenwich occurrence in the film – but it misses the mark on the little things. The episode is painfully predictable and derivative of at least two episodes of The X-Files that featured invisible enemies and adversaries whose motives were entirely misunderstood. More than that, it includes a ridiculous b-plot whose sole point seems to be to set up a humorous reversal at the end that plays about as badly as the episodes of Star Trek that end with the bridge crew of the Enterprise laughing inordinately hard at some joke at Spock’s expense. Unfortunately for Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., at this point, the big picture successes of the episode do not outweigh the particularly stale feeling of the bulk of “Repairs.”

“Repairs” is the second episode to truly focus on Melinda May, after the good part she had in “0-8-4” (reviewed here!) and she continues to be one of the most intriguing characters of the series (though, sadly, the one I would bet on being killed off in a Whedon-esque heroic moments – which doesn’t mean much in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. considering how Coulson was “resurrected”). While the series so far continues to belabor Skye as the “outsider working her way in,” it would do much better to focus on the interesting characters who have substantive potential and more than just obvious, market-tested, sex appeal going for them. Melinda May fits the bill and while most of the episode may be a painfully predictable dud, the focus on Melinda May and the adept acting on the part of actress Ming-Na Wen keeps it from being a total loss.

A shop keeper confronts a woman over the death of Jack Benson and when she gets agitated by the clerk, things at the gas station get knocked about and the pumps explode. Back at a hotel, Ward and May clean up after spending the night together (again). Coulson and Skye go over the plan to deal with the woman with the newfound abilities. When meeting with Hannah, she apparently manifests her telekinetic abilities when threatened and May shoots her to end the standoff with locals who menace Hannah. While Fitz and Simmons haze Skye over how May got the nickname “Cavalry,” May and Coulson interview Hannah while aboard the Bus. Hannah believes that she is being hunted by demons because god abandoned her after a laboratory accident at a superconducting supercollider.

When Ward and Skye discover a rival to Hannah at the supercollider, who was killed in the accident, they come to believe that the accident left him falling between worlds and hunting Hannah. As the S.H.I.E.L.D. team comes under attack by Tobias Ford – crashing the Bus – Skye and May independently realize what his true motivations are and May does what she needs to do to stop him.

Perhaps the most problematic aspect of “Repairs,” outside of the banal b-plot which suddenly makes the usually insular Fitz and Simmons into a pair of outgoing pranksters in a way that makes no sense given their previously-established characters, is the adversary. Tobias Ford is treated like an adversary – he made numerous safety complaints at the facility where Hannah was the safety inspector – but his underlying motivation is obvious from the teaser onward. In fact, seasoned fans of science fiction will be utterly unsurprised when he first pops up; Hannah does not seem to have any control over her apparent “power” and so the idea that she is telekinetic is weakly presented and easily dismissed.

With Hannah and then Ford being weak adversaries, it diminishes the heroism of Melinda May. In other words, she is not given a sufficiently strong or compelling adversary to defeat in the episode, minimizing the strength of her character. May is talked about as a great tactician, yet the most obvious solution to one of the big problems in the episode is not taken; May breaks Hannah out of the secure room that Ford does not seem to be able to penetrate. Rather than running away, why didn’t May trap Ford in the very same room?! Moreover, May’s cunning is diminished some by the fact that she seems to have reasoned the true motivation behind Ford’s violent acts only moments before Skye (who is not a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent) did.

None of the problems with “Repairs” truly fall on the cast. Led by Ming-Na Wen, “Repairs” is well-acted and director Bill Gierhart does as well as he can with the material written for him. But the story is simplistic and the b-plot feels like filler (a far more interesting potential b-plot would have been Skye thinking pranks were normal for S.H.I.E.L.D. training and being woefully wrong about that . . . with disastrous consequences). Given that Fitz worked so hard to be taken seriously as a valuable, solid, agent in “The Hub” (reviewed here!), the character regression seems particularly painful for his usually serious character.

Ultimately, “Repairs” is a step back for Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.; the series is proving to be remarkably erratic in its first season and after the prior episode, it seems like the producers did not know how to build on their success and the trended toward the overly-familiar.

For other shows with a potentially supernatural bent, please visit my reviews of:
The X-Files
Twin Peaks
Carnivale

[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!]

4/10

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

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