Agents of SHIELD S03E01: Fish Oil Gives You Powers

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 1: Laws of Nature

Well that was certainly a way to start off the season! Where the Flash opted for a slower, more gradual build, Agents of SHIELD just went for straight explosions and action scenes. I do think I prefer this particular season premiere episode, though that's hardly a point docked off the Flash... with Joss Whedon no longer distracted in directing overcrowded Marvel movie sequels, he's clearly put in a lot more work for Agents of SHIELD's second season finale, and this third season is looking to be really, really good.

The opening sequence was great, with the panning view from the remnants of the chrysalis to the burning city, to this newly-awakened Inhuman, Jose "Joey" Gutierrez, running around melting all the metal around him while mysterious military people are gunning after him... and he gets rescued by Skye -- going by the name Daisy now -- showing off her newfound control over her Quake powers and strides in all superhero-like. We see that the new SHIELD, in the timeskip, has definitely put their house in order and it was a greatly scripted opening even with the sheer ridiculousness of a giant elevator box thing with rockets went down to retrieve Joey.

Also, fish oil gives you metal melting powers.

We also see SHIELD's new replacement to the Bus, which is Zephyr-One, looking pretty badass. Yeah, they definitely got a budget increase for CGI! Again, this opening scene is really strong, making me happy that they're not wasting this second (well, third, technically) chance they have to redeem themselves after the crappy first half of season two.

We get to see Skye (well, she prefers to call herself Daisy now but like Coulson I'm going to have a hard time moving on from her old name) play the 'I went through this shit too' role to Joey, explaining stuff about the Inhumans and Terrigenesis, helping to recap the stuff to viewers without feeling too tacked on. It kinda feels a bit like the X-Men mutant homosexuality metaphor, sort of (Joey's character is actually gay, which helps it out a bit) but Skye makes a distinction since you actually change. Regardless of metaphors they are still strong scenes.

On the geeky side, we get confirmation that the Terrigen mist is the only one hiding in seafood and whatnot, and the metal harmful to humans is still sitting at the bottom of the ocean. It doesn't really take up that much space, and we cut back and forth to the other characters too.

Most of this episode is centered on SHIELD trying to figure out who's kidnapping the Inhumans, with a B-plot running of Fitz going on a big search for clues, something I'll cover later. But there's this mysterious military organization apparently hunting Inhumans, something that Coulson and Hunter manage to track down throughout the episode. And I do like the little bait-and-switch we got, with Rosalind (the leader of this op team) overseeing what seems to be scientists dissecting the metahumans, and with the various incarnations of Hydra having a boner for dissecting powered people, that is what we assume... until the confrontation between Coulson and Rosalind came and Rosalind reveals that she's only found corpses and she thought Coulson was the one behind all the killing. Nope, not Hydra.

Apparently this mysterious organization is called the ATCU, basically President Ellis (who makes an unexpected return from Iron Man 3) creates a new tactical team to combat metahumans because the Avengers and SHIELD aren't enough. Rosalind certainly seems to be calling the shots, though, and while Coulson does get away under her nose -- in no small part thanks to pulling out the gag-hand trick out of Joker's book -- she certainly seems like somewhat of a threat. What I'm worried about is that we've already kind of done this 'knight templar military organization' thing before with General Talbott and Robert Gonzales, so we might be retreading old ground... but they do feel relatively fresh enough that I don't mind.

Also, the return of the President, talking about keeping these superhumans in check? Yeah, totally not a build-up to Civil War and the registration act.

Meanwhile, SkyeDaisy's attempts to make a new team of Secret Warriors is kind of put on hold because dr. Garner, y'know, does psychological assessments and that's bothersome. I mean, it's not like Skye is emotionally unstable when she first came out as an Inhuman oh wait. But Skye (yeah referring to her as Daisy's not going to work for me, at least not for the moment) is adamant on making this work, so she and Mack goes off to find Lincoln, who's working as a doctor and wants nothing to do with the Inhumans. As in traditional superhero setting, no one who wants to go back and live a normal life ever gets it, so naturally the moment that Lincoln, Skye and Mack discuss about Lincoln helping to train Joey to control his powers, the mysterious third party that has been killing Inhumans show up.

It's this new dude Lash, and he sorta kinda looks like Blackheart from the Marvel comics. Lash goes unnamed other than in solicitations and just looks like this scary dreadlocked beast-man thing that can apparently just create giant holes and doors and walls on stuff. He's just going around hunting Inhumans, and is apparently strong enough to shrug off the combined blasts of Lincoln's lightning and Skye's quake powers, as well as Mack's bullets. We don't get to see much of him before he's driven away, but Lincoln's Inhuman status has been outed and he's on the run from ATCU and presumably Lash as well.

And all while we cut back and forth between the other not-so-prominent characters in this episode. We get nice scenes of Coulson talking to both Skye and Bobbi; Coulson snarking about his new cybernetic arm (cool effects on that, too); the odd little friendship of Bobbi being buddies with Fitz (who I don't think she even had a scene with last season); Bobbi herself recovering and having some unresolved tension with Hunter (which is honestly getting old); Skye and Mack talking to Joey; Coulson's scene with Rosalind... Bobbi's temporarily relegated to a support role with the science team owing to her injury from the end of season 2, though honestly the tension with Hunter is easily the weakest point in this episode... though thankfully it's about a marriage proposal instead of a rehash of season two again. Hunter's going off to create a taskforce to hunt down Grant Ward and put him in the ground, so it's nice to see SHIELD being active on hunting down Hydra.

May is, by the way, still on holiday. Well.

Also, let's talk about Mack for a bit. I've made my dislike for Mack rather clear throughout the second season, only sorta growing to like him near the end when he starts making sense and helping Skye out. Here he seems to have gotten over his racist xenophobia, and his anger to Lincoln is less about him being a half-alien and more because he lightning-blasted some of Mack's buddies during last season's finale. He's certainly happy to hang around with Skye and near Joey, even if he's just kinda being a dick with his sarcasm. I... tolerate him, I guess. That shotgun-ax line was definitely fun, though.

Fitz, meanwhile, is just being a boss and just travelling around hunting down archaeological clues about the monolith, going up to a radical group in Middle East and just owning that confrontation by fooling them with splinter bombs (a nice callback to their usages in season two) before smoothly walking out with that parchment he needs. Yeah, confidence? Uselessness? All abandoned, apparently, and while I don't think time can just fix brain damage like that, brain-damaged-stuttering-friendzoned-Fitz was handled absolutely shittily in season two and I'd rather have an unexplained recovery than them going through that whole shit again. Definitely jarring, but I like it.

Also, I do love how we don't spend the entire premiere having Fitz trying to figure out what happens to Simmons, and just straight up jumps into what the characters are doing about the cliffhanger instead of re-iterating the cliffhanger. Gotham and its stupid batcave can learn a thing or two from this.

Of course, it ends up being for naught since inside this mysterious parchment was a single Hebrew word meaning death, and we get a heartfelt scene between Coulson and a desperate Fitz, as Coulson logically tells Fitz to move on and kind of talks about how they need to contact Simmons's family and whatnot. And we get a nice, carnal scene as Fitz, bereft of all hope, just shotgun-blasts the monolith's casing and just tries to probably kill himself or get himself to where Simmons is... but the monolith is just being a troll and him shouting and hitting the monolith is pretty raw and well-done.

And finally we cut off to the end of the episode, where Simmons is running around with torn-up clothes on some weird desert land that's apparently in space. So yeah, the monolith is a portal. Is it one of the Asgardian realms? Or is 'death' literal and we're actually exploring Marvel's hell? I mean, Lash does kinda-sorta look like Blackheart... or is it just some random Kree-related planet? Simmons is alive, though, and while I have no clue about Marvel comics beyond the most basic, I guess it'll be entertaining to see how this all ties together.

Speaking of things tying together, we get some nice little subtle nods to the Marvel movies. Not as blatant as Agent of SHIELD likes to be in the past, but we did get Sokovia (from Age of Ultron) mentioned several times, and President Ellis' speech does mention events that correspond to Avengers, Age of Ultron and Thor: The Dark World. Plus Coulson and Fitz briefly mention Pym particles (from Ant-Man) as one of the possible things that might happen to Simmons.

Overall? Extremely strong opening episode. It introduces the new status quo, shows off some impressive stuff especially for Skye-Daisy and Fitz, and introduces a bunch of new characters. The ATCU, more Inhumans, Lash the hunter... overall definitely a great episode. Looking forward to more. Definitely loving this new superhero-themed angle we're having, too. Like the Flash, Agents of SHIELD is shaping up to having a pretty strong season. Definitely optimistic.

Also, yeah, it's great that Skye is using her name Daisy in the show which does raise a lot of nice implications about her character growth, how she's changed over two seasons, how she's accepted her Inhuman self and how she's the incarnation of the Marvel comics character Quake... but she's always going to be Skye to me and like Coulson, knowing the lady as Skye for two years or whatever isn't something I can just switch overnight.