Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 17: The Team
I thought this episode would just be the Secret Warriors kicking ass as they show off that the Inhumans can too pull off an Avengers and beat up evil bad guy organizations. In a sense that bit happens in the first half of the episode, as Quake, Slingshot, Lincoln and Joey (we need proper superhero names for the latter two) assault the Hydra base and fuck everyone up. From Lincoln lightning-bolting everyone, to Skye doing battle with equal amounts of martial arts and shockwave blasts, to Elena and Joey bantering as they go down a lift and take down a small strikeforce by simply stopping bullets and Flash-zooming in, it's pretty awesome all around. Elena is officially more badass than the MCU's version of Quicksilver.
And when Giyera and Lucio come in and we have actual superhumans fighting each other, it's a big treat to me as well! Lucio, being nowhere as badass as Giyera, ends up being killed by Joey in the resulting fight, though Joey really looks shocked -- he was just a civilian looking for a date, and he probably never killed anyone that closely before.
The big team victory with them driving out Hydra and capturing Gideon Malick ends up being thrown off as, well, SHIELD and the Secret Warriors end up self-destructing as it seemed that one or all of the Inhumans are infected. Fitz and Simmons performing an autopsy on Lucio's body and finding out that Hive is able to literally infect the poor fucker's brain ends up putting all of the Inhumans under suspect. I thought that it was a bit rushed, and we could've had the Secret Warriors actually working as a team for a couple more episodes first... but the rushed manner that the Secret Warriors are put together is probably a contributing factor to how quickly they start to blame each other.
And you do have proper reasons to suspect each of the four members of the Secret Warriors, and justifications for their actions as well. Every member of the team had a moment where they were alone in which Hive could've infected them, and every member have their own reasons as to why they would want to resist -- we all know Lincoln's got a terrible temper and distrust issues, Joey's all out of whack thanks to having killed earlier this episode and it isn't far-fetched to have him disappear and mope, Elena has minimal interaction with SHIELD and hates governments in general, plus she has superspeed, while Skye can pull the guilt-tripping card and she indeed was alone thanks to other characters conveniently putting her in her room.
There definitely was a bit of a Civil War vibe to the whole team splitting up with every member having their own reasons and agendas, and it was told quite beautifully. The grand reveal at the end when both SHIELD and the audience thought it was Lincoln, but no, it was actually Skye that was mind-controlled by Skye was exciting and made a crapton of sense. Having Skye be the traitor is a bold move, with her having a main character throughout the entire series, and seeing her unleash her full glory as Quake, shaking the entire base without abandon as she leaves to rejoin her Inhuman kin, is brilliant. Using Lincoln as the fake reveal was an inspired move, because he really does feel like he could be the traitor from a meta standpoint -- as an audience, we know Lincoln long enough compared to Joey or Elena for him to elicit a reaction from us, but Lincoln is nowhere as likable as Skye. The perfect character to fall. And, well, Skye thought so too, apparently.
That was a brilliant reveal, too, with Skye asking Lincoln to leave still not outright painting her as the killer and could be just Skye letting her friend and lover a way out of everything. But no, Skye is the mole, and it makes sense, and definitely as great a twist as Grant Ward being Hydra in the middle of the first season.
Gideon Malick dies this episode, without an opportunity for redemption, which is a nice swerve as well. With SHIELD having captured him and him being angry about his daughter's death, you'd think it would be the obvious setup, but other than some cryptic warning, he dies offscreen and gets blown up, and only until the end with the big Skye reveal that we see he dies... rather ignominiously.
Malick isn't the only thing that died, though, because neither Elena nor Joey feel happy to be working with SHIELD after the events of this episode, so, yeah, the Secret Warriors just died after a single outing. Joey's just broken after everything, and the poor dude just looks so defeated, and Elena basically gave a grand middle finger to Mack. Poor Mack.
Oh, and in face of everything, we get something positive out of it. Fitz and Simmons finally got together, much to the joy of shippers everywhere. And I am happy we don't get an exhaustive season-long will-they-or-won't-they like what we got in season two, and after their near-death experiences it's definitely sensible for them to want to grow closer. It's a low-key relationship upgrade, a nice little moment in the face of everything.
Overall, a season-changing and status-quo-destroying episode. It seemed like a standard happy fun time as we finally build up to the Secret Warriors being a thing, but the show isn't afraid to take us for a swerve that totally makes sense (not like, ahem, Zoom), and subverting all the transparent ways that it seemed Hive was going to be taken down. We'll see where we go from here, though, and whether Evil Skye will work better than Evil Ward.
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