Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 15: One Door Closes
Another
pretty great episode of Agents of SHIELD, which is definitely nice and
refreshing considering how spotty the quality has been prior to the mid-season
break. It comes off really strong after the previous episode. This episode
really was more of a set-up for a conflict between the two competing SHIELDs
leading to a SHIELD War being the possible premise for the second half of the
season, while Skye’s Inhuman problems get some exploring as a B-plot. Also
running alongside those two plots is the pretty relevant flashback of how
Real!SHIELD gets formed during the events of Winter Soldier.
The
main plot of the episode involves Coulson finally confronting Mack about the
fact that he has actually been suspecting him for a while and has actually set
up a bit of an ambush to get Mack to talk about who he is working for… except
Coulson didn’t count on a second traitor. Bobbi manages to grab hold of Fury’s
toolbox and manages to kick off a blackout and whatnot, and while we do get a
pretty awesome girl-fight between the two superspies May and Bobbi, the
blackout does happen and I do like how Bobbi and Mack are loose in Coulson’s
base, and we don’t exactly know who is informed about what.
And
Bobbi gets fucking deceived by Simmons of all people, who acts like she usually
does, fangirling over Bobbi and kind of taking her off-guard by looking for
some technical stuff and then zapping Bobbi into submission by handing her two
little cylinders. Shame it doesn’t last, because Real!SHIELD launches
dendrotoxin through the vents and armed forces come in something fierce through
a hole in the wall and kind of arrests everybody. We do get a little argument
between Coulson and Gonzales about the state of SHIELD. I personally don’t
really see a big problem any why both SHIELDs can’t just hang out together and
pool their resources, beyond the fact that Gonzales just hates aliens and hates
the idea of Fury’s legacy carrying on.
They
do have the point about how Coulson is a literal creation of Fury, and how they
needed a democracy to decide how things go instead of just blindly following
the orders of one man. And the flashbacks are actually pretty effective in
showing just what led people like
Mack, Bobbi and Gonzales (and Hartley, who makes a surprise appearance) into
creating Real!SHIELD. I’m not really sure what claim they have to the name of
SHIELD beyond, y’know, having more people. They basically suspect Fury of
stockpiling metahumans all over the globe and they want to crack Fury’s Toolbox
to get to them, and first on the list is re-acquiring Skye. Except, y’know,
Gonzales is more than likely to want to lock her up in a cage instead of
letting her hang out in wooden cabins and slowly control her powers, and that
really is the only strike against them.
We
also get some nice little dialogue between Weaver and Fitz-Simmons, who kind of
blame each other for following ‘the wrong SHIELD’, but put away their
differences when it comes to helping out the injured Mack. None of these
SHIELDs are bad guys, they’re just good guys at each other’s throats because
Coulson has no idea Real!SHIELD exists (and he makes it clear to Gonzales he’s
been trying to look for a majority of the good people hiding out in
Real!SHIELD) while Gonzales is just short-sighted about anything regarding
Fury.
There
are also some nice little character moments here and there. Mack tries his level
best to shield Fitz from an explosion. Fitz and Simmons have a little
reconciliatory moment of hand-holding when they huddle after Real!SHIELD
invades. Simmons and Skye have a nice little talk and while Simmons really
wants to cure Skye, she also respects Skye’s choices. Bobbi, while hell-bent on
bringing down Coulson’s SHIELD, is also unwilling to harm Skye and defends her when Gonzales was bad-mouthing metahumans. Also we’ve got some talk about how Agent Weaver
apparently fended off an Enhanced unleashed by Hydra all by herself, so that’s
an awesome off-screen moment there.
The
flashback is pretty simple but relatively awesome, showing Mack, Bobbi, Hartley
and Gonzales meeting up during the big SHIELD war in the helicarrier (or is it
just a normal aircraft carrier?) with some awesome super-dangerous cargo that
needs to be kept out of Hydra hands. Which I’m betting will come up sometime
down the line. We see Mack watch a good friend of his executed in front of him,
while Bobbi has her own mission to rescue just Gonzales, and then sink the ship
to kingdom come… all while other SHIELD agents are still fighting, trying to
take back the carrier. They eventually decide to say fuck it and defend the
ship nonetheless and evidently does take it back from Hydra. It’s a nice scene,
and I do like how they keep reminding each other that they have their orders,
but at the same time all the faceless SHIELD mooks have manned turrets, are
fighting back, et cetera. Gonzales is awesome. He’s all like ‘I’m still the
commander of this ship’ and that last stand of the four of them against a
shit-ton of Hydra agents? Awesome.
Bobbi
totes distracted that Hydra agent by throwing a goddamn iPhone through the door
crack, which is awesome. Hartley is also not a slouch. Her unexpected
reappearance, her fighting people with a knife… also apparently she’s also a
mole from Real!SHIELD, which doesn’t really change much since she’s, y’know,
dead without really contributing much to the show, but she is awesome in this
flashback so yay.
Meanwhile,
Skye tries out Simmons’ glove-thing which ends up being super anticlimactic. It
does apparently cancel out her powers, but beyond giving her some nausea there
aren’t any apparent side effects either so I dunno. More interesting on the
Skye front is that she gets paid a visit by Gordon after a bit of a horror show
– also apparently Hulk had stayed in the cabin before judging by the metal
plating and the dents… is this the same cabin from the end of Incredible Hulk? Can’t remember.
Gordon
gives Skye the whole ‘you should accept your powers’ spiel, but unlike the more
pushy Calvin Zabo, Gordon relates to Skye and talks about changes inside him,
talks about his own change, tries to explain her powers regarding vibrations and
whatnot instead of Cal’s more psychotic approach. Gordon doesn’t force Skye’s
hand either, only wanting to bring Skye along if she needs help. Gordon makes
the offer, then leaves. Between that and his adorable attempts at making jokes regarding his lack of eyes (which
actually horrifies Skye more) I do think Gordon is a nice fellow. Skye also
manages to show finer control of her powers, turning the water tap into spirals
and shit.
Shame
it all goes to hell soon enough, though. May manages to escape the gassing of
the base and is skulking around, giving her enough time to warn Skye to get the
hell out of dodge, and then break Coulson free. She turns herself in, but that’s
enough of a spanner in the works to allow Coulson to rebuild their own SHIELD…
hopefully without too much of a bloodbath.
And
Skye? Well, she manages to beat the fuck out of a random SHIELD mook even
without her powers, so all those fighting lessons with Ward and May definitely
paid off. Shame Calderon is a xenophobic piece of shit, backstory
notwithstanding, and he pulls a real gun on Skye… who panics and unleashes this
beautiful shockwave that knocks both
Calderon and Bobbi back like ragdolls and completely obliterates a bunch of
poor trees. Neither Calderon nor Bobbi are killed, though Calderon is bleeding
from a shoulder wound, the jackass, but it does freak Skye out to call for
help, and Gordon zooms in to teleport her away.
Meanwhile
Coulson manages to bug off to this random beach bar, and meets up with Hunter
of all people, who Real!SHIELD wasn’t doing a good job of tracking. Granted Hunter
did disable the GPS and everything… but Hunter makes his loyalties to Coulson
pretty clear at the end of the episode after dicking about cocktail umbrellas
and stuff, so it looks like next episode we’ll be seeing Coulson and Hunter try
to take back SHIELD… or something? Real!SHIELD aren’t villains until proven
otherwise, after all. I’m definitely more interested to see how Fitz, Simmons
and May will be treated by Real!SHIELD, as well as just what will the Inhumans
teach or do to Skye, which is the biggest question everyone has. This show has
definitely grown a lot stronger, I must say.
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