Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #Uprising 2x15 - "Yes Men"

The following recap of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be decidedly pro-Lorelei. Lorelei! Isn't she wonderful? Yes, she is. Beautiful, dangerous, seductive -- did I mention incredible? Wow. I'd follow her on the Bifrost across the Nine Realms into the Dark World and back again. Or at least to that penthouse in Vegas Ward took her to. Oh, and Sif was here too. She's cool. Pretty cool. A little stiff, that Sif. A bit too rigid about being a good soldier and following orders, which is why she gets along with S.H.I.E.L.D. so well and can be taunted about never getting any quality hammer time with Thor. Sif is great, but I'm afraid she is no Lorelei. Lorelei! Where for art thou, Lorelei?

"Yes Men" brought the hottest Asgardians who aren't the blond-haired, hammer swinging Odinson to Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and they all got to play nicely together. But mostly not nicely. Making the most of guest stars Jaimie Alexander from the Thor movies as Lady Sif and Elena Satine of Smallville and Magic City as Lorelei (LORELEI!), "Yes Men" put the gorgeous ladies of Asgard front and center in a smashing episode. And as Asgardians are wont to do, they left quite a bit of destruction in their wake, physically for Coulson's airplane and emotionally for Coulson's team.

Sif was surprised but pleased to find the Son of Coul alive after Thor reported his heroic death before the battle of New York two years ago. For Coulson's part, he's seen Sif in action in New Mexico and was glad to have a heavy hitter from the Marvel movies swinging her double sided sword for the good guys. Plus, it's a big bonus that she can work Fitz's holo table. Coulson wasted no time grilling her about any blue aliens she might be aware of (the Kree get the most significant shout out) but Sif assures Coulson no blue aliens have visited Earth. Coulson knows better, though, and the blood of blue aliens is foremost on his mind, as it's also coursing through his veins as well as Skye's.

According to Lady Sif, Lorelei is a terrible threat to Earth. She was imprisoned on Asgard for 600 years, with a golden collar preventing her from speaking and thus controlling the hearts and minds of men. But after the events of Thor: The Dark World, Lorelei broke free and escaped to Earth. And I for one welcome our gorgeous would-be queen. As soon as Lorelei arrived, a guy who was on his honeymoon and then a swarthy biker gang fell under her thrall. Though a newcomer to this realm, Lorelei quickly grew aware she was scraping the bottom of the barrel for lackeys, but the answer to her prayers (not that she prays) arrived in the form of Agent Ward. Ward arrived with Sif and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to apprehend Lorelei. All it took was some cooing and her sweet gentle touch for Ward to quickly turn, steal a Harley and abscond with Lorelei to a place much for fitting for a woman of Lorelei's stature: Vegas, baby! A penthouse in Caesar's Palace, no less. Probably the Mike Tyson Tiger suite in The Hangover. But the only tiger in this suite was Lorelei, who jumped Ward's bones and showed him her dark world. That Ward, luckiest guy on Midgard.

It didn't take long for Ward to come up with a plan to go on the offensive against his S.H.I.E.L.D. mates. Before Coulson, Sif, and May knew what was happening, Ward and Lorelei had taken the plane, with cheerful help from an amusingly enthralled Fitz. They tried blowing Sif out of their prison cage, but she's really good at not dying and instead hanging on to the outside of airplanes. Meanwhile, Lorelei slapped May around and taunted her that Ward is now hers and confessed that the one he secretly loves isn't the Cavalry he has sex with. Soon, with help from Simmons and by punching out Fitz (Simmons: "Poor thing. He's always getting knocked out, isn't he?") Coulson saves Sif. Sif and Lorelei can have an Asgardian lady smackdown while Ward and May tear the plane apart working out their issues. Sadly, Sif bests Lorelei in physical combat and slaps on the collar that stole Lorelei's sweet voice away. Her spell is broken and Ward and Fitz are back to normal. Though it all came at the cost of May and Ward are now done being not so secret groin buddies. But I must ask, what crime did Lorelei commit that she must be punished so severely? All she did was get some bikers and some cops to fight off S.H.I.E.L.D. and Sif for her. Sure, he broke up a marriage, but so what? That suite in Vegas? Ward paid for it. Why, it was Sif who kicked the door down and damaged Caesar's Palace private property! It's simply unfair Lorelei was taken away from us so soon.

The good news is Skye is alive and, if not well, because as Simmons points out, she was shot twice, her stomach perforated, and was only saved by a mysterious serum made from blue alien blood, she's at least acting normally. Simmons constantly takes samples of her blood but can't determine it's properties, going so far as to yell at Coulson about his stonewalling her ability to report her findings (or lack thereof) to S.H.I.E.L.D. But Coulson has his reasons ("Tahiti sucks") and it's this: He wants answers and S.H.I.E.L.D. is not the place to get them. Rather, they'll do whatever they can to stop him. Coulson needs to know just what the hell Nick Fury knows and why he went to such lengths to bring Coulson back to life, and so do we. Finally, Coulson explains everything to Skye about the blue alien blood that kept them both from meeting their maker, and Skye is pretty non-plussed about it all, simply grateful to be alive. Now, Coulson lays out the endgame for season one, that he and Skye will do whatever it takes to get to the secret of Tahiti and the blue alien -- only for This Week's Shocking Reveal to drop that May has been spying on them the whole time!

"Coulson knows," May reports. Coulson Knows is the new Coulson Lives.

What? What's Sif talking about? Lady, you're talking crazy. #AgentsofSHIELD @JaimieAlexander @ElleSatine pic.twitter.com/6WQ5Gjlhov
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) March 23, 2014

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #Uprising 2x14 - "T.A.H.I.T.I."

In the new sequence of episodes Disney marketing has hashtagged Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #Uprising, "You can't take the Skye from me," is the driving motivation behind Coulson and his Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. This week, the team goes all out in their quest to save a dying Skye, even if it involves disobeying direct orders to release the incarcerated Ian Quinn to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. Indeed, Coulson is so determined to keep Skye in the land of the living, he finally reveals what he knows of the secret behind his own resurrection to Fitz-Simmons. "It's illegal for us to even read this," Fitz warns, but nothing is off-limits when it comes to saving one of their own. So the secret's out, or at least, the 70% of the secret Fitz-Simmons could understand of how and what methods were utilized to bring Coulson back from the dead after New York. What would Skye want?" Simmons muses for a moment, paying lip service to the ethics of whether it's worth going to such extremes to bring Skye back, but no one really embraces that counter argument. Skye would of course prefer to remain on the show. Let's make it happen!

As Fitz-Simmons' investigation into Coulson's resurrection reveals a non-S.H.I.E.L.D. facility called the Guest House where his operations took place, The Bus welcomes a couple of visitors and a Special Guest Star: Agent John Garrett (Bill Paxton), who brought along his specialist Agent Triplett (B.J. Britt). Tripplet is Garrett's replacement for Ward when Ward decided to join up with Coulson's TV crew. Paxton has been chasing Quinn himself for months and lost some Agents of his own in the process. They're not above threatening to throw Quinn off the plane, even after a furious May delivers a mighty violent beatdown on Quinn that bloodies up that pretty face of his. Quinn claims the Clairvoyant told him to shoot Skye as part of his elaborate plan to discover the one thing he can't see: how Coulson was brought back to life. The Clairvoyant's gamble was that Coulson would attempt to save Skye by finding the same methods he himself was resurrected, which is correct.

Upon locating the Guest House, Coulson, Ward, Garrett, and Fitz encounter heavily armed resistance guarding the place, but it doesn't take long for them to hack and then blam blammy shoot their way in, precisely in that order. Fitz is able to locate the mysterious drug that saved Coulson - GH-325 - and they go on to explode the Guest House in the best James Bond fashion. However, Coulson can't quite leave when he discovers the room marked "T.A.H.I.T.I." He's drawn into the magical place, which is really an operating chamber of mysterious tubes mining chemicals and fluids. When Coulson opens the chamber the tubes originate from, he finds... what the hell is that? Is it a Life Model Decoy? Is it an alien? It's something, or half of some humanoid, and the GH-325 chemical is coming from it. Naturally, this freaks Coulson out, enough where he screams the GH-325 not be used on a convulsing Skye, but what the hell, they didn't come all this way to not use the mysterious drug to save their dying consultant.

Whaddaya know, it worked! Skye doesn't die. She's not out of the woods yet, but the GH-325 is keeping Skye alive and slowly healing her. While Coulson and Garrett lead their away team in the Guest House, Triplett got to bond a bit with Simmons (this is after a very brief, very Marvel-esque, brawl with Ward -- in the Marvel Universe you fight your future ally when you first meet before you Marvel Team Up. It's tradition). Triplett gets the hots for Simmons, and we are also allowed a moment to consider just how invaluable (and attractive) Simmons is to this team, and how it's Simmons (and Elizabeth Henstridge) who may actually be the breakout star of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when season one is done. It seems odd for Garrett to bring in another field capable Agent and then the episode leaves both Garrett and May out of the action scenes in the Guest House, but whatever. Garrett is quick to note and tell Coulson his man Trip has the hots for Phil's biotech girl. This is after they really lay into Quinn what a failure he is, how they have him nailed for confessing to shooting a 24 year old girl twice in the gut, and haul him into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. Maybe Quinn and The Girl in the Flower Dress can both die together in an inevitable future Helicarrier accident. For his part, Coulson doesn't confess to May about whatever he saw in the Guest House. But whatever it is, its fluids are pumping in both Coulson and Skye's bodies.

So, all's well that ends well, sort of, as Skye hasn't woken up yet. But new problems are afoot in Death Valley, California as the Rainbow Bridge from Asgard brings forth something sexy, which Asgard is wont to do: Lorelei (Elena Satine) has come to wreck marriages and enslave Midgard, apparently in that order. To foil her next week, Asgard will send not Thor but someone equally sexy...

Asgard, you're just so good to us.

I think Skye was fakin' it. Like Buster in Arrested Development season 3. @ChloeBennet4 @clarkgregg @jedwhedon @MoTancharoen #AgentsofSHIELD
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) March 5, 2014

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 2x13 - "T.R.A.C.K.S."

With "T.R.A.C.K.S.", Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finally flexes its muscles and shows us what their little show about secret agents set in the Marvel cinematic universe can really do. Easily the best episode of the series thus far, "T.R.A.C.K.S." plays like a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a train. It's a propulsive thrill ride told from multiple perspectives, almost like Rashomon except every piece fills in the puzzle rather than contradicts, and it all ends with a bang. Two bangs, actually. One would have sufficed, but the second was just cruel for the sake of cruel. By the end of the episode, arguably the most important member of the series and also the least qualified to be a field agent placing herself in harm's way, Skye, is knockin' on heaven's door while another, Mike Peterson, is revealed to be a bona-fide Marvel Comics character: Deathlok.

Coulson has been hot on the trail of the odious Ian Quinn ever since their one and only phone conversation went sour. Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. team sets up an elaborate undercover op on a train traveling through the Italian countryside where Cybertek, Inc., "a small firm that deals with advanced technology and research" that isn't Centipede or A.I.M., is transporting a mysterious package Quinn purchased for ten million dollars. Follow the money, or the package the money bought, and it leads S.H.I.E.L.D. right to Quinn. "If everything goes as planned," Coulson muses, "Cybertek won't even know we're there." Of course, Cybertek knew they were there all along, thanks to a traitor in the Italian authorities, but also probably because Coulson and his team are the poorest, most obvious, attract-as-much-attention-to-themselves-as-possible undercover team in the history of the spy genre. There's hiding in plain sight and then there's causing loud ruckuses on trains, which seems to be the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s specialty.

On the other hand, the character work was delightful. Paired as a father and daughter, Simmons took it as an opportunity for over-preparation. To Coulson's chagrin, she crafted an elaborate backstory of herself as Coulson's estranged daughter traveling with the ashes of her late mother, furious at her absentee dad for his dalliances with prostitutes. (Plural, extra funny for a Disney family show.) Who was this ruse supposed to bamboozle, the Italian train conductor? Yes. And of course, the ashes of her mum spill all over said conductor. Real subtle undercover work. Meanwhile, Skye and Fitz pose as young American lovers, settled after Skye attempts a Scottish accent. The two of them decide to really sell themselves as Americans by being as loud and boorish as possible, babbling on about their six month anniversary to the Italian conductor. (Fitz playing American and asking where there would be a restaurant "with big portions" was inspired.) Eventually, Fitz and his (latest) "pretend girlfriend" set up in the baggage car to handle communications. Ward and May are the only ones who act reasonably spy-like in their cover, yet once behind close doors it's all relationship drama between them when May reveals she's told Coulson about the MayWard Knocking Boots Situation before flinging herself out of the window and onto the roof of the train.

Of course, it all goes sideways, and cleverly, from multiple perspectives. Coulson and Ward are made by Cybertek's mercenary security team and are forced to jump off the train while a grenade detonates purple mist around them. May is attacked on the roof of the train and parachutes off, finding Coulson and Ward frozen by the purple mist, and then is kidnapped by their Italian police traitor and tortured. Well, tortured for like a minute, before she Mays Up and murderizes everyone. Meanwhile, hiding in the baggage car, Fitz-Simmons and Skye are attacked by a merc; Simmons ends up frozen by the purple mist, which turns out uses the same compound as Fitz's Night Night Gun but stronger. When the train switches rails and stops so Cybertek can make delivery of the package to Ian Quinn, Skye and Fitz fling themselves into imminent danger by following. While all that is going on, Coulson and Ward, via a truck they don't know May hotwired, return to The Bus to play catch up. We learn that neither top S.H.I.E.L.D. agent knows how to operate Fitz's holo table, and Ward decides it's an opportune time to address the MayWard situation with Coulson. "Really? You wanna do this now?" Coulson scolds before threatening to send Ward to Alaska to oversee Blonsky's (The Abomination from The Incredible Hulk!) prison cell if he ever jeopardizes a mission because of a little thing called "sex." Then May showed up, murderized the Italian traitor, and took a shower.

While their S.H.I.E.L.D. mates locate the train and try to determine where Ian Quinn is, Skye and Fitz track Cybertek right to the lovely Italian villa where the trade goes down. Throwing caution to the wind, Skye, perhaps emboldened by her ridiculous success the last time she improvised a field op by herself, penetrates the villa armed with a Night Night Gun. She makes it all the way to the basement, where she discovers a hyperberic chamber containing Mike Peterson! Oh, Mike, you look terrible, all scarred up and missing a leg. Being tight with the Clairvoyant, Quinn knew Skye was coming and couldn't wait to show her what ten million dollars bought him: a new robot leg for Mike Peterson. Mike, part man, part machine, refused to kill Skye and instead was ordered by the Clairvoyant to kill the Cybertek mercs for leading S.H.I.E.L.D. right to them. But that didn't stop Quinn from shooting Skye right in the babymaker! And a second time because he's a bad, bad man!

In the end, Peterson escapes as Coulson's Agents arrive, finally capturing Quinn. They find a bloody Skye at death's door. And there was a copious amount of blood for a Disney family show. Bravo! Thinking quickly, Simmons has Skye placed in the hyperberic chamber to save her life. But S.H.I.E.L.D. can't call this a victory. S.H.I.E.L.D. does have Quinn in custody, yet Skye, who may be an 0-8-4, is very close to being D.O.A. Nor is S.H.I.E.L.D. aware of poor Mike Peterson, wandering out there alone under the thrall of the Clairvoyant, unaware of his new designation. Some guys write their name on their underpants, Mike Peterson has his new name written right on his robot knee: Deathlok.

More episodes like this, please, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

Also, from now on, please use this at the top of every episode with the Marvel logo.

This week's #AgentsofSHIELD should have been titled #SKYEFALL. @ChloeBennet4 could sing the song in lieu of Adele. @clarkgregg
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) February 5, 2014

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x12 - "Seeds"

This week, on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., we learn it only takes one bad seed to start a Blizzard. Or something. The second major (well, minor, but for this show, major) Marvel supervillain debuted on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the form of Donnie Gill, who in Marvel Comics goes by the nom de crime Blizzard. In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Donnie Gill is a sullen, ostracized, teenage scientific genius matriculating at the S.H.I.E.L.D. science academy, dreaming one day of being assigned to The Sandbox. We meet him and his fellow academy schoolchums when they sneak into the S.H.I.E.L.D. swimming pool at night for some sexy time swimming and promptly find themselves in a pool frozen in ice. An incident like that is just slightly weird and inconsequential enough to the security of the world to bring Coulson's crack team to the academy on the case. Well, not, all of them. Coulson and May drop the kids off with Ward in charge while they zoom off to Mexico City on a hush hush mission of their own. Ward's gotta hang with a school full of S.H.I.E.L.D. science nerds who think Fitz is the coolest thing since gamma rays.

A few weeks back, Skye made a crack that she never attended "S.H.I.E.L.D. Hogwarts." It turns out S.H.I.E.L.D.'s academies are actually a lot like Hogwarts; they are divided into different "Houses," like Operations, where Ward learned his secret agent killing skills, and Science, where Fitz-Simmons were the youngest graduates and now return like rock stars to their old stomping grounds. S.H.I.E.L.D. Hogwarts is even run by a British lady, Agent Weaver, who acts like a school marm and not the administrator of a facility that trains adult future spies dabbling in dangerous, sometimes alien, technology. Ward makes a point to show Skye the famed Wall of Valor present in every S.H.I.E.L.D. academy, honoring the names of graduates who fell in the line of duty. Skye immediately finds "Bucky Barnes," which is a cool shout out to Captain America's World War II sidekick. Wait, Bucky came from the science academy? That doesn't make sense. Double wait, Fitz-Simmons pointed out S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded after World War II and Bucky was dead by then, so how is he an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and why would he be on this Wall of Valor? Perhaps Captain America: The Winter Soldier will provide some answers?

Fitz-Simmons dropped some other cool Marvel references in their speech to the academy, mentioning Hydra, Centipede, and A.I.M. But their presentation (and the pictures they promised) was interrupted when Donnie Gill suddenly found himself frozen in a block of ice. Fitz-Simmons and Ward spring to action and free him from the ice after Ward cleverly stomps on the ice device. Fitz then decides to befriend Gill, since he can relate to being a brilliant loner in this school, while Simmons shows Ward and Skye the Boiler Room (of Requirement), the secret place all the students go to hang out in, which has a bar and a pool table. It looked a lot like the Comic Con after party I attended last year, minus the guys in Optimus Prime cosplay dueling with lightsabers while dancing to Nintendo theme songs. It doesn't take long for Fitz-Simmons to figure out Donnie Gill and his school chum Seth Dormer staged the swimming pool incident to lure Fitz-Simmons back to the school, specifically so Fitz could befriend Gill and help him fix his ice making device. A fiendish plan that worked to perfection! With a larger, more powerful ice device now completed thanks to Fitz's unwitting help, Gill and Dormer KO Fitz and abscond with the ice device, intending to sell it to the odious Ian Quinn, last seen offering Skye a job in "The Asset," which introduced Graviton into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  So Ian Quinn's always around when the Marvel comic book villains pop up in the show?

The cool, cruel Donnie Gill and Seth Dormer attempt to complete their sale of their super villain ice device to Ian Quinn, but the heat was on and Quinn backed out. Like dummies, Gill and Dormer turn on the ice device anyway, creating a super storm that forces everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. academy to pause and gaze up at wonder at the inclement clouds in the sky and ice balls raining down from above. The device explodes and Dormer is injured, but May pilots the Bus through the eye of the storm so they can rescue Dormer, while Gill gets away, now newly ice powered and still in league with Quinn. A Blizzard is coming.  Coulson personally calls Quinn and makes with the threats, but Quinn replies that he's buddies with The Clairvoyant, so Quinn is in like Flynn with Centipede. 

Meanwhile, in "Mexico City, Mexico," so that we're all clear where "Mexico City" is, May and Coulson are hot on the trail of a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who was the partner of the dead lady agent who dropped baby Skye off at the orphanage. With Coulson in a perpetual Quiet Mode, still brooding over the surgeries S.H.I.E.L.D. performed that brought him back to life - especially that gross thing the medical droids did to his brain - Melinda May becomes Chatty Cathy, trying to blab Coulson back into talkitude and reaffirm his faith in S.H.I.E.L.D.anity. Coulson, now not a big fan of secrets, pretends he doesn't hear when May reveals she and Ward have been bumping uglies on and off The Bus, but their target was in sight so Coulson and May spring into action, even letting Lola take flight.

Soon, they've captured their former colleague, who spins a yarn that 24 years ago, his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents tracked an 0-8-4 and got massacred. The 0-8-4 was the baby who would later name herself Skye, and after Agent Avery, who dropped Skye off at the orphanage was killed, Agent Scaredycat got scared and hid for 24 years, but not before instituting a protocol so that Skye would always be under S.H.I.E.L.D. protection by being cycled to different orphanages and foster homes as she grew up. So the tragic past Skye hated where she felt like none of the foster families ever wanted her was really all for her protection from whomever wanted to kill her. That's pretty cool. Now that she knows that S.H.I.E.L.D. has actually been protecting her all her life, plus she got to hang out at Hogwarts, it only reaffirmed Skye's desire to become part of S.H.I.E.L.D. As Ward watched Skye gaze once more at the Wall of Valor and the names of the Agents who protected her as an infant, one half expected for Skye to start singing "Part of that World," like Ariel in The Little Mermaid.  Later,  Coulson explained what makes Skye such a special person to May in a speech so hackneyed, it would make Stan Lee blush. Thereby truly making Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Marvel as it gets.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x11 - "The Magical Place"

If the mid-season finale, "The Bridge," was Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s The Empire Strikes Back, the follow up episode is indeed the Return of the Coulson. "The Magical Place" picks up 36 hours after Coulson is abducted by Centipede and Mike Peterson's brief tenure as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Trainee ended with a bang. Or a boom, more accurately. Saffron Burrow's cool, by the book (that is to say, personality-lacking) hardass Victoria Hand has taken command of The Bus and filled it with more even more Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., to Fitz-Simmons' chagrin. More alarmingly for Coulson's dream team, Hand seems much more intent on finding Centipede than rescuing Coulson. Meaning Hand is actually doing what a bigwig in a spy operation is supposed to be doing; going after the opposing organization and not committing resources to find one missing Agent. "No one Agent is that important," Hand declares, to which Ward retorts, "Coulson is." And Ward doesn't even know the half of it.

About the half of it is what we finally learn about Coulson's experiences in "the magical place" of "Tahiti." The villainous Edison Po is intently probing Coulson's memories of "Tahiti" via some sort of Centipede mind-reading CAT scan machine to discover the secret of just how and why Coulson is back from the dead. Everyone, Centipede and S.H.I.E.L.D., is certain about one thing: Coulson did die when Loki sceptered him through the heart in The Avengers. Centipede's mysterious, allegedly psychic leader, the Clairvoyant, can't seem to read Coulson and determine how he is alive. The point of Centipede abducting AC is to learn and then replicate how to solve the problem of their Extremis super soldiers dying. And after all, if they can master the problem of death, they can stay on this show forever, or at least until it's canceled. The joke's on Po, though, as the Clairvoyant suddenly decides to kill him, leaving Raina, the silky voiced Girl in the Flower Dress, in charge of sweet talking Coulson into getting back in that mind reading CAT scan machine, pretty please. Raina's play on Coulson (and the audience's!) desire for answers woos Phil back into the machine and we get the answers we sought, kind of.

What we really get that stands out are the following: a guest spot by Joss Whedon alumnus Ron Glass, who played Shepherd Book in Firefly/Serenity, as one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors who operated on Coulson, and a gnarly visual reminiscent of the surgery on Anakin Skywalker at the end of Revenge of the Sith of medical droids performing laser surgery on Coulson's brain. All the while Coulson screamed "Please let me die!" But S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't, at the mysterious insistence of Director Nick Fury (a shot of Samuel L. Jackson in a flashback montage makes for his second cameo in this series). Doctor Ron Glass later confessed to Coulson that he was indeed dead for days but doesn't shed specific details on the hows and whys of his resurrection. All we learn for sure is that Coulson endured at least seven operations and that he was never in Tahiti; those are memories the medical droids implanted in his brain to restore his original personality, lest he become "that thing," whatever that is. A zombie? A Marvel Zombie? Something specific, like the words "Life Model Decoy," would have been really great to hear, but apparently, Coulson is indeed the original model somehow brought back to life and not a machine of any kind. But did we see a glimpse of the Infinity Formula which is the source of comic book (white) Nick Fury's long life? Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't say.

Back on The Bus, Hand doesn't take too kindly to Skye hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s systems during her debriefing. Hand decides S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer requires Skye's services as a consultant and has her dismissed. Ward stands up for Skye's usefulness but when her opinion is sought, May decides to throw Skye under The Bus. This was all a brilliant scheme, of course, by May to let Skye run amok on the outside so that she can use her numerous skills to find Coulson without S.H.I.E.L.D. breathing down her neck. And run amok Skye does, throwing out the S.H.I.E.L.D. playbook and making up a crazy ass scheme as she went along involving cosplaying as Melinda May and blackmailing a snotty billionaire (Rob Huebel) in his home to access his offshore accounts so Skye can follow the money Woodward and Bernstein-style and figure out where Centipede is hiding Coulson. Luckily for Skye, Coulson is no more than a stolen Lamborghini ride away from LA. Dolla bills, y'all.

While Skye is single handedly pulling every wacky spy stunt from every spy movie she's ever seen, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. still on The Bus are en route to Australia to take down Centipede, but then do a total 180 when Skye calls them to tell them where Coulson is. This involves a neat visual of The Bus actually doing a 180 in mid-air. When Skye and the rest of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. arrive in an abandoned desert ghost town once used for nuclear testing, Skye should have also found Indiana Jones hiding in a refrigerator. I mean, it's all Disney after all, isn't it? Instead, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. find a few Centipede Extremis soldiers Ward and May easily dispatch while Skye personally punches Raina right in her smooth-talking yap and rescues Coulson. All that training from her S.O. Ward finally paid off for Skye. Raina is taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody to possibly one day die in a Helicarrier explosion, we learn Hand and S.H.I.E.L.D. did take down Centipede (off screen, how exciting), and Hand relinquishes command of The Bus back to Coulson. And everything's back to normal, especially Skye's wrist, at long last free of the traitor bracelet she's worn for several weeks, her reward for rescuing her beloved AC. We assume she kept her Melinda May cosplay costume for future S.H.I.E.L.D. Cons. Skye looks great as Melinda May.

Meanwhile, we are surprised to learn that Mike Peterson is alive. Or we would have been surprised if J. August Richards' name as a guest star didn't appear in the opening credits. Great job, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. editors. But poor Mike Peterson can't catch a break. Instead of letting him die, instead he's been horribly burned, he's lost one of his legs, and Centipede implanted one of their Eye Spy eye cams in his head. Poor Mike. He's now literally a one legged man in an asskicking contest.

Akela Amadour, Mike Peterson. Why is Centipede only putting their Eye Spy cams in the heads of the brothers and sistas, yo? #AgentsofSHIELD
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) January 8, 2014

Thanks to Ming-Na Wen for the retweet!

Looks that way, doesn't it? RT@BackoftheHead @ChloeBennet4 May threw Skye under The Bus.  #AgentsofSHIELD
— Ming-Na Wen (@MingNa) January 8, 2014

Cosplay Question: Skye was homeless and broke when S.H.I.E.L.D. took her in. Since she could afford a leather Melinda May cosplay costume, how much does Skye get paid? (Dolla bills, y'all.)

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x10 - "The Bridge"

They say you shouldn't burn bridges, but Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. does just that, in a good way. "The Bridge," an ante-upping, slam-bang midseason finale, at long last follows up on the story threads woven in the pilot as the Agents once again are hot on the trail of the terrorist group Centipede, last seen in "The Girl in the Flower Dress" back in episode 5. In Skye's words, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been playing whack-a-mole with Centipede since their encounter with the ill-fated, would-be superhero Scorch; forcing Centipede on the run as S.H.I.E.L.D. locates and shuts down their bases of operation. Centipede's Extremis-powered super soldiers are also being jeopardized by being constantly on the run. Thanks to experiments on Scorch, the Extremis has stabilized so the soldiers no longer explode, but there are continuing issues with their technology. We also learn Centipede is responsible for the eye implant technology we saw in "Eye Spy." It's all connected! And it's about to get even more connected, like the dots and four.

Centipede's Extremis soldiers bust Edison Po out of prison. Who is Edison Po? He's the guy we saw in the tag at the end of "The Girl with the Flower Dress." He also seems to be a foodie who really likes his steak. More pertinent, he's both a killer and some sort of tactical expert with direct ties to Centipede's mysterious leader the Clairvoyant, acting as the Clairvoyant's mouth piece. Both Skye and May voice their opinion that they'll need some serious backup from S.H.I.E.L.D. if they're taking on superpowered Extremis soldiers. Instead of a squad of Agents, S.H.I.E.L.D., an organization that must be pinching pennies since their giant island fortress the Triskelion houses multiple flying helicarriers (and those don't come cheap), sends Coulson's group one man: enter M.I.K.E. P.E.T.E.R.S.O.N., Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (I won't be typing that again).

Peterson, played with wit and pathos by the J. August Richards, is of course, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first case together and the reason Skye is on the plane. Coulson directly recruits Peterson from the S.H.I.E.L.D. version of Quantico where Peterson has been busy failing to beat Captain America's record for pushing a tractor across a football field. When Coulson tells Mike to "suit up," it turns out he was referring to an actual business suit, which Richards sports with style and aplomb. Meanwhile, Fitz-Simmons, the owners of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Men's Warehouse, apparently (you're gonna like the way you look, they guarantee it), cook up a superhero-esque black uniform for Mike. This after Simmons flirts with him awkwardly. It seems like Fitz-Simmons have been watching Will Smith's Hancock on the Bus because the suit they give Peterson looks a lot like that. May and Skye, both good at math, apparently, again voice the opinion that perhaps they need more backup against Centipede. Mike Peterson has Extremis powers, the Centipede soliders have Extremis powers. 1 < More than 1 = Math. Coulson says, "Hey, the budget of this show is out of my hands" (in effect). Mike's the best (also only special guest star) they've got.

Before, during, and after encountering Centipede, our Agents deal with a lot of personal stuff, all to the angry scowls of May, who would like to focus 100% on the mission and reacts with fury at everyone trying to weave subplots into the episode. May doesn't want Ward making goo goo eyes at her while sparring or taking hits for her during combat in the field (despite Ward explaining the latter was entirely tactical), and she does NOT want to deal with Skye's continuing search for her birth mother. May really lays into Skye, forcing her into her bunk and making her cry. Coulson is torn throughout the episode about which of the Agents under his charge to give calm, fatherly advice to. For once, he leaves Skye be and chooses the fellas: Coulson and Ward driving Lola on an undercover mission have an interesting conversation about Coulson's love life and the toll his dying took on that girl in Portland who plays the cello he told Tony Stark and Pepper Potts about in The Avengers. (We also learn the Avengers still think Coulson is dead.) Coulson also takes the time to counsel Peterson about his son Ace and why Mike hasn't seen his son since the events in the pilot. Skye does the same, since she and Peterson have that "We were the focus of the pilot" connection. We realize that Peterson is kind of unique on this show: an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who actually has family he cares about and a personal life. Most S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents seem to lack that, including significant others.

It seems like Peterson is the person Centipede actually wants to capture. Turns out when Ward shot Peterson in the pilot, the tech in whatever Fitz-Simmons armed the gun with was what stabilized Peterson's Extremis so he could control it. Going right for his Achilles Heel in that way Spider-Man always dreads, hence the secret identity, Centipede kidnaps Peterson's son and arranges a trade on a bridge for Peterson. But man oh man, did S.H.I.E.L.D. get played: Turns out Centipede didn't want Peterson -- it was Coulson they wanted all along! And Peterson helped set Coulson up to save his son. Once Coulson understood, he took the betrayal rather calmly. Poor Mike Peterson, a guy who tries to do good but is forced into moral compromises that betrays his friends. He'll never be like the Heroes of New York Avengers action figures he bought his son. While Mike does retrieve Ace and leaves him safely with Skye, Mike attempts to save Coulson from Centipede and is blown up in the process, sparing him the indignity of being imprisoned by S.H.I.E.L.D. or worse yet, being forced to wear an Internet Nanny Bracelet of Treason like Skye. Centipede, with Coulson taken prisoner by Raina, the Girl in the Flower Dress, and Edison Po (they of the creepy finger-touching interaction), escape via helicopter and open fire on Ward, injuring him, as Skye screams in terror and May looks on, helpless and scowlier than ever.

Why did Centipede want Coulson all along? Because they, like everyone watching at home, want to know exactly what happened the day after Coulson died. Kudos to Centipede, then, for not sitting around waiting for answers and going out and doing something about getting some. That sort of makes Centipede heroes, I suppose. But not really. They're very Big Bads. Thus ends the first half (more or less) of season one of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., in rather intriguing The Empire Strikes Back-esque fashion.

Looking very much forward to Return of the Coulson in January.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x9 - "Repairs"

Curious: Is there some kind of fishbowl containing TV plots that showrunners pull their stories from? In the same week as Sleepy Hollow does a smashing haunted house episode, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. puts its Agents through what's essentially a haunted plane episode. Just a couple of weeks ago, both Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Arrow sent their casts to Russia. In that same week when Fitz was obsessing over a prosciutto sandwich, Boyle became a foodie on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. (Also, Simmons could give Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Santiago a run for her money as a cover girl for Hair Pulled Back magazine.) Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. missed its chance last week to be sympatico with Almost Human and do a sex bot episode. (I would actually enjoy watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tackle sex bots, but let's save that for fanfic forums. Or, rather, let's not.)

If Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were interested, in a meta-way, of addressing the numerous complaints of many viewers, the title "Repairs" would suggest the show is looking to make adjustments towards some of its deficiencies. Instead, "Repairs" centers around the mysterious past of Melinda May and how she became the stone faced action figure that she is. It's also about Skye looking for something to do - seriously, the bulk of Skye's arc in the episode is her making multiple suggestions for ways she could contribute to the case this week and being told to do nothing - until she uses her [Registered: Gifted] power of Human Empathy to suss out the answers to the Problem of the Week. She also bonds with May after being the most confrontational she ever has been to the Tiger Mom of the Bus.

The Problem of the Week is a young woman named Hannah who has become the pariah of her small town. Hannah is blamed as the cause of a catastrophe her church-going small town suffered when there was an fatal accident at their local particle accelerator. Wait, what? A small American town just happens to have a particle accelerator? A particle accelerator. (Coulson helpfully explains exactly what a particle accelerator does.) Where was this particle accelerator located, between the Walmart and the Hardee's? And Hannah, who looks and sounds like Blake Lively, is the safety inspector, the Homer Simpson? Also, an accident that killed a dozen people would have been national news and S.H.I.E.L.D. in this universe would have swarmed it with Agents to secure it. But no, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. only arrive to find out whether Hannah is a telekinetic, acting out like Carrie White in Carrie, all the while pooh-poohing once again that telekinesis exists.

After a near-fatal crowd riot at Hannah's home that plays kind of like a scene from X-Men (people angry at a suspected dangerous telekinetic, a car being launched as a weapon a la Magneto), May shoots Hannah to sedate her and Coulson locks Hannah up in the secure, All-Purpose Room on The Bus for her safety. When Coulson and May play Good Cop, Tiger Mom and question Hannah about her suspected telekinesis, they learn Hannah believes she's being punished by God, sir. But there is no telekinesis and there is no God. What there is, instead, is a g-g-g-ghost! Well, not really. It's actually a man named Tobias, Hannah's co-worker at the particle accelerator, who is now caught between dimensions* (another shout out to Thor: The Dark World and how Thor bounced between dimensions when fighting Malekith - who again is never mentioned. What does S.H.I.E.L.D. have against Malekith? Is he like Voldemort? Speaking of Voldemort, Skye had the best line when, taunted by Fitz-Simmons for never attending S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, she said, "Okay, I never went to your stupid S.H.I.E.L.D. Hogwarts or whatever." World's longest parenthetical aside.)

So Tobias is not a ghost but he does bounce around the Bus "haunting" it by sabotaging the plane's systems and occasionally choking or bonking the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with a wrench. For the second time in the last 8 weeks, the Bus is in danger of crashing and it's super tense for like a minute, but no, May lands the plane fine, no problem. Uh. Whew? Despite all the wires he pulls out of walls, tables he smashes, and Agents he wrench-bonks, Tobias still can't get inside the All-Purpose Room (note restraint from calling it the Room of Requirement - this Bus is not Hogwarts) to get to Hannah. May absconds with her and hides her in a nearby barn to draw Tobias out, wherein May goes womano-e-mano with a dimension-jumping blue collar worker and, after some difficulty, cleans his clock. Luckily, back on the Bus, Skye used her Empathy analyze the evidence and realize that Tobias was not trying to harm Hannah. Rather, he was hurting everyone else trying to hurt Hannah, to protect her. Because he likes her! Awww. In the end, May talks Tobias into letting Hannah go and leave this dimension and return to the unspeakable hell of the Dark World or wherever he teleports to, forever.  No, Tobias, we Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will not help you or figure out how to save you from what's happening to you! Get lost, Tobias! And he does. Problem (of the Week) solved!

What happens to Hannah now? Who will explain to the denizens of her town that wanted her driven out or burned at the stake that it was really Tobias dimensionally shifting from between Earth and the Dark World who caused all the mayhem because he had a schoolboy crush on Hannah? It doesn't matter. What does matter is that, YES! Ward and May did some horizontal Avenger-ing in Ireland, and neither will speak of it. What matters even more is how May got the name The Cavalry. Fitz-Simmons decide that it's time to haze Skye into S.H.I.E.L.D. with pranks, and they do a rather rotten job of it. Best prank these two brainiacs could come up with was a cockamamie story about May killing 100 enemies single handed while riding a horse, which Skye bought. (Fitz's follow up prank involving a scary mop jumping out of a broom closet only succeeded in spooking himself, Ward, and Simmons.) Fitz-Simmons, when pulling pranks in the future, learn from these two.

It was Coulson who gave Skye the lowdown on the real story, and it was far less exciting than the legends: May did take out some enemy agents in Bahrain, and in the process she lost her smile. Or as Coulson puts it, she lost "herself." Heavy, man. You know, if this were Firefly, we would have actually seen flashbacks of what happened to May instead of talkie scenes where four people just tell the story to Skye. But this is the Bus, not Serenity. Coulson also gives Skye the attagirl she's been waiting weeks for, since her Empathy was instrumental in figuring out all the weird shit that went on. Maybe her Empathy will one day take her all the way to the top. (I'm telling you, this series or Skye's career will conclude with Skye as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.) Finally, Skye and May reach some kind of silent understanding, thanks again to the power of Empathy. It's not often you see a network television show end with two Asian women in the cockpit of a plane.

Epilogue: May learns to prank again!

Epilogue to epilogue: God is love. - Nuns to Skye, Skye to Hannah

* Boy, that's shitty. In Arrow's world, being caught in a particle accelerator will grant a man superspeed and not only turn him into The Flash but get him his own TV show. Tobias is in the wrong comic book television universe. And he can't dimension shift into the DC Universe. Poor Tobias. Ah, who cares.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x8 - "The Well"

So, who saw Thor: The Dark World? Pretty great, huh? Action-packed, humorous, cosmic, just about everything you could want in a Marvel movie. Unfortunately for the denizens of the Bus, they missed the boat on Thor: The Dark World and drew clean up duty in Greenwich, England, site of the big conflagration between Thor and the Dark Elf Malekith (who is never mentioned.) Fitz complained that any monkey could pick up shards of alien metal and place them in secure S.H.I.E.L.D. casings for future analysis and storage -- and he would be correct. Why is Coulson's team doing this dirty work, exactly? Maybe Coulson just wants to be riding on Avengers coattails for old time's sake, you know, to stay on the cusp of the big leagues? Exposition from Simmons and Skye as to the nature of Asgardians as aliens and whether other cultures' gods ("Vishnu. Gotta be, right?" says Skye) are also aliens quickly and rather expectedly segueways into how handsome dreamy Thor is. May and Skye agree on this point, just like every woman I know in real life who has seen any or all of the three movies starring Thor. But if we're expecting to see Thor (besides footage of his boots in a montage) or any of his Asgardian buddies from the movies -- Odin, Sif, Heimdall, Loki -- nay, verily, look elsewhere, mortals of Midgard. The God of Thunder is officially "off the grid."

Not to say there is nothing Asgardian in "The Well," which turns out to be not so much influenced by any Thor movie. Rather, "The Well" strangely resembles The Da Vinci Code. Besides the globehopping -- Greenwich to Norway to Seville to Ireland -- and the presence of a mysterious academic who is not who he seems to be, there are also, in an attempt to shine a light on the torment buried within the action figure man named Agent Grant Ward, flashbacks to his most deeply buried memory of a child being trapped in a well. (Just like how Dan Brown's tweedy hero Robert Langdon was trapped in a well as a child.) There are also the villains of the piece, a fanatical "Norse-pagan hate group" who could be stand ins for the religious fanatic Silas, all chasing after the MacGuffan of the story, in this case the three pieces of an Asgardian Berserker staff instead of a mysterious Codex. But I mean, close enough. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is definitely playing in Da Vinci Code territory here.

So Dark The Con of S.H.I.E.L.D.

One piece of the Berserker staff was found by a couple in the forests of Norway, leaders of the aforementioned Norse-pagan hate group. These Norse-pagan haters (meaning that they are Norse-pagans who are full of hate, not that they hate Norse-pagans -- because wouldn't the latter definition make almost everyone else in the world a Norse-pagan hate group?) are fearful and envious of the aliens and superheroes now appearing in this Marvel world and want to cause riots to take the world back, or something. Point is, with the Berserker staff, they are violent and fancy themselves gods. All of the exposition about Norse mythology and the Berserker staff is provided by "one of the world's leading experts in Norse mythology," and before anyone gets excited about seeing Thor's friend, daffy nudist scientist Dr. Erik Selvig, in this episode, no, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't get him either. Nope, instead we get Dr. Eliot Randolph (guest star Peter MacNichol), who takes an immediate shine to pretty, skeptical Simmons, and regales the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with a tale of an Asgardian warrior who arrived on Earth in the 10th century, fought many wars, but fell in love with Midgard and never left. Instead, this mysterious warrior broke his Berserker staff into three pieces and hid them in three places in Western Europe.

The Berserker staff, when touched, elicits rage. It makes the holder see bad stuff within them and then gets them to, in Marvel terms, "Hulk out." (But not anywhere even close to the level of rage Bruce Banner reaches when he Hulks out.) This is exactly what happens to Ward when he and Skye are in the dungeons beneath Seville searching for the second piece of the Berserker staff and Ward runs into the mysterious Dr. Randolph, who absconds with the piece before running into the Norse-pagan haters. While Randolph is held captive on the Bus for interrogation, for the ladies watching who are still hoping for a glimpse of Thor, Ward tries to fill Thor's shoes by losing his shirt. But Ward is infected by the lingering effects of the staff and the madder Ward gets, the... er... madder Ward stays...? Point is, Ward's angry, and no attempts by Skye to reason with him with how cute she is seems to help. Ward is aware of his condition - now haunted as he is of flashbacks to the little boy trapped in the well - and he asks Coulson to be relieved of duty. Instead, the two of them savvy the mysterious secret behind the mysterious Dr. Eliot Randolph.

Ready for it?

Dr. Eliot Randolph is Asgardian! Didn't see what coming, did you? Why in the world would you, conditioned as we are to seeing Asgardians looking like Thor, Loki, and Sif, all beautiful, perfect physical specimens? But no, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would have us willingly accept that Peter MacNichol's nebbish was the Asgardian warrior who remained behind on Midgard and then moved silently down through the centuries, living many secret lives, no one ever aware for a thousand years he is an Asgardian god in our midst. To help explain, Eliot was a mason on Asgard who answered a call to battle on Midgard, and no (as our hearts sink further), he doesn't know Thor nor ever palled around with the future king of Asgard. This creates an opportunity for Coulson to feel big since he does know Thor, even though he can't call him or get him to appear on his show. Later, after Randoph is stabbed through the heart with a piece of the Berserker staff, with Fitz-Simmons fretting about not knowing Asgardian anatomy (how different could it be besides probably not at all?), Coulson plunges his hand into Randolph's chest and keeps his heart from bleeding, or something. What's important is Randolph is able to regenerate (Asgardian healing factor) so that Coulson can commiserate that he too was once stabbed through the heart by an Asgardian weapon and came back to life. Coulson now makes a regular thing of telling strangers his "I died in The Avengers and woke up in Tahiti and I don't feel right!" sob story.

Randolph reveals that the third missing piece of the Berserker staff is hidden in a monastery in Ireland so off the Bus whisks to the Emerald Isle. Wouldn't you know it, the Norse-pagans beat the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to it! And pause for a moment to ask, "What? How?" Instead of being distracted by tales of Asgard and magical rage rods, why aren't the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. remotely curious about how these Norse-pagans, who are all over the news as terrorists, are able to instantly travel from Norway to Spain to Ireland? (My explanation? Heimdall was watching and was bored and opened some Bifrosts for them to travel. Hell, it's better than no explanation.) After Randolph is stabbed through the heart, Rage Ward takes on the Norse-pagans in a super fight. But Rage Ward is overwhelmed by the rage of the Berserker staff as the Norse-pagans' cavalry arrives. Luckily, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have their own cavalry, The Cavalry: May grabs the Beserker staff, assembles it into a whole, and then provides a serious Rage May beatdown on the rest of the Norse-pagans. How did May not get overwhelmed by the rage of the Berserker staff? May answers it's because she sees the things that enrage her every day. ("That's the secret," Bruce Banner once said before the Battle of New York, "I'm always angry.") If they had the budget, May punching a Chitauri giant space worm in the face would be pretty cool.

Instead of recruiting Randolph as an asset for future Asgardian incursions, Coulson lets Randolph off scot free to reinvent himself and live some other new life. Whatever, there's no room for that guy on the Bus anyway, and S.H.I.E.L.D. can keep tabs on him. Meanwhile, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. earn some downtime and a rare overnighter in a bed and breakfast. Simmons is finally able to speak to her mum and dad after ignoring their calls for weeks, in perhaps the most banal of C subplots. Despite putting out all of the signals, Skye completely bombs in picking up Ward in an Irish pub. Ward retires to his room but sees May enter hers with a bottle of wine, leaving the door open for him. Ward follows her in. What's this? Rage May horny? Rage Ward and Rage May getting it on, mayhaps? So much for all of the online Skye-Ward 'shipping, which apparently is named Skyward. Looks like Mayward is the 'ship. That actually makes more sense, the two older, mature, action figures on the team knocking boots. Someone else not getting any sleep is Coulson, who dreams about his relaxing days in the magical place called Tahiti and wakes up in a cold sweat. Oh, and all that stuff about the kid in the well? The swerve was that it wasn't Grant Ward in the well, it was Grant who put his little brother in the well. Either way, this is for the Ward in The Well. 

I tend not to make blunt judgments in my recaps but #AgentsofSHIELD #TheWell was lousy. Especially compared to the hype, re: Thor crossover.
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) November 20, 2013

Swerving from #ThorDarkWorld to a rehash of The Da Vinci Code was a series of miscalculations. Really, really underwhelming. #AgentsofSHIELD
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) November 20, 2013

Good news is, all the #AgentsofSHIELD team building paid off. The cast and characters have clearly developed real rapport with each other.
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) November 20, 2013

It would be great if #AgentsofSHIELD could now accelerate the Coulson and Skye stories, as well as provide more excitement in general.
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) November 20, 2013

Maybe a strange complaint this week with all the Thor/Asgard mentions but #AgentsofSHIELD really needs to ramp up its @Marvel connections.
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) November 20, 2013

A year ago, #Arrow by episode 8, had introduced The Huntress, Royal Flush Gang, Deadshot, and mentioned tons of @DCComics iconography.
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) November 20, 2013

Compare #Arrow season 1 to #AgentsofSHIELD, SHIELD has mentioned @Avengers several times but has not expanded the greater @Marvel world.
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) November 20, 2013

#AgentsofSHIELD could've mentioned the Savage Land by now. Madripoor. Attilan. Atlantis. Wakanda. Lay seeds. Otherwise what's this show for?
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) November 20, 2013

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x7 - "The Hub"

"The Hub" is the James Bond-iest episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. yet. Specifically, Goldeneye, if Q had joined 007 on the mission to Russia and brought along a prosciutto sandwich. Our intrepid young heroes are charged with the task of finding and disabling yet another super weapon that would be disastrous if it fell into the wrong hands, but unlike the 084 in "084," it is not alien technology. However, like the 084, the MacGuffan is a rather uninteresting handheld device that shoots energy. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fares far better when it concerns itself with humans developing superpowers than it does ill-defined dangerous objects that blast people with blast-y things. But the point of "The Hub" is really team building, pairing up our Agents in a couple of new Marvel Team-Up iterations, while digging deeper into the show's two major concurrent mysteries. Along the way, "The Hub" is also our most intimate look yet at just how S.H.I.E.L.D. operates.

Welcome to The Hub, a major S.H.I.E.L.D. base in a classified location. It's impressive and bustling with men in identical black suits but as Simmons tells Skye, "this is nothing, you should see the Triskelion." Yes, please! I would very much like to see the Triskelion. And we will in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. At The Hub, S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol is at its protocol-iest, with all of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tight-lipped, heads down, and happily doing their business according to what Level they are ranked. Coulson, Melinda, and Ward are granted temporary Level 8 access for their mission briefing, we learn Simmons and Fitz are Level 5, and Skye is not anything. She is not an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. so I guess she's Level 0. Plus she's wearing The Scarlet Wristband That Isn't Scarlet for her little dabble with treason, so she gets to be magnetically chained to wall access panels from time to time.

Skye bristles at being treated like a second class citizen in a third world nation. She may as well be a Fourth World Hunger Dog. But I do love that Skye questions everything she's seeing and how everyone is behaving because in a way, Skye is right: S.H.I.E.L.D. is cool, but they are also a creepy organization of spybots and they are abnormal and weird. Thor's human friends Jane Foster and Darcy would agree; they're not fans of S.H.I.E.L.D. either. But in another, more accurate way, as we learn throughout the episode, Skye is also not right. S.H.I.E.L.D., as a spy organization, operates on compartmentalization and secrecy, this "need to know" system is in order to protect the lives of their Agents, so that if an Agent is compromised, no one Agent can bring the whole system down. "Trust the system," Coulson repeatedly asks of Skye. Nope, she can't. Skye was recruited by Coulson to "think outside the box" and she professes she wants to be an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. but to be an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. means living in and loving the box. Take Simmons, she just wants to keep her head down and do her job. So of course, Skye gets Simmons to go off book and violate protocol in order to find out what's happening to Ward and Fitz in Russia. This leads comedy. Simmons, who's probably a horrible poker player, gets caught immediately by Agent Sitwell (who is bald - any relation to Stan Sitwell on Arrested Development?). Simmons panics and shoots Sitwell in the chest with the Night Night Gun. "I'm going to get court marshaled for this!" Simmons fears. Her fears are unfounded.

Coulson deals with another major S.H.I.E.L.D. top gun, Victoria Hand (Saffron Burrows). You know she's important because she's Level 8 and wears a pants suit. Otherwise, she's just like everyone else in S.H.I.E.L.D., hiding something, quick to enforce protocol and regulations, and devoid of personality. (But also secretly impressed by acts of heroism.) Hand's presence in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. makes one wonder where exactly Maria Hill falls in the hierarchy. In the comics, Maria Hill is the top dog, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. In the Marvel Studios universe, Hill's rank is more ambiguous. (Is How I Met Your Mother the main reason Maria Hill's career trajectory is so muddy?) One thing that's interesting, from Hill's deleted scene in The Avengers, and an offhand (pun unintended) comment Hand made about Nick Fury, both of these high-powered female Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. take a bit of a withering view towards the Director. Maybe they don't like his leather pimpcoat. Hand takes a couple of little shots at Coulson as one of "Fury's favorites," and questions whether he's glad to be "off that plane" and "back in the big leagues." Coulson says he never left the big leagues. Oh, I'm not sure about that. Coulson's seemingly kneejerk response to the mention of Tahiti - "It's a... magical place..." - stopped him cold this time around.

As for Ward and Fitz, they're the classic odd couple on their secret incursion into Russia. Fitz's motormouth annoys Ward but "The Hub" goes out of its way to give Fitz ample ways to be useful and heroic, whether it's getting in good with Russian gangsters by fixing the electricity in the bar so they can watch football, or busting out his Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak and cool X-Ray Vision Wall Thingie. Ward, the perfect S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, a stickler for protocol who follows orders and wants to execute missions perfectly, took the prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella with a hint of pesto alioli sandwich Simmons lovingly packed for Fitz and chucked it into the muck. What. The. Hell. That was completely out of line and the first time I was sternly on Fitz's side about anything. Yet Ward was also right to do so; they were behind enemy lines and being hunted by dogs who would be able to smell that sandwich a mile away. Everything a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent does has a reason, though they're often kind of dicks about it and explain later, if at all. As the episode continues, the point that Ward gradually comes to respect Fitz's ability and courage is spelled out for us. Ward is nothing if not fond of the nerds he's stuck on a plane with and yes, he will lay down his life to protect them.

Meanwhile, Skye violates every S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol by hacking into their system (so The Scarlet Bracelet That Isn't Scarlet doesn't work when the plot requires it not to?) and learning that there is no extraction plan in place for Ward and Fitz. She also finds the mysterious redacted file about her past but with only seconds to go before she's discovered, she chooses to concentrate on saving her friends. Despite May's confusing non-expressions - Skye's "Which non-expression is this?" is the best line in the episode - May backs up her team, and so does Coulson, after a bit of soul searching and a moment where he calls out Hand for her secrecy. It's like there's no honor between Level 8s! Coulson's dream team boards The Bus and makes for Mother Russia, rather impressively making the save for Ward and Fitz by hovering The Bus over the Russian soldiers about to shoot them and using the VTOL (Vertical Take off and Landing) engines to blow those Russian bad boys back. Our Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. never return to The Hub, never get yelled at for their actions. They just zoom off into the wild blue yonder, not looking back. Back at The Hub, Hand acts impressed or pleased or something, as if they're doing just what she expected them to. S.H.I.E.L.D. Who can figure these guys out?

Another thing that separates Skye from the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.: She's a hugger. If Skye ever ascends past Level 0 and someday becomes Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., I'll bet she turns it into a very huggy organization. Coulson promised Skye he would look into the redacted file about her past and true to his word, he did just that for his favorite troublemaking, follow-the-rules-and-trusting-the-system-notting hacktivist: He found out the woman who dropped off Skye at the orphanage, who may or may not be Skye's mother, was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. But also true himself being a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, he held information back. Only Coulson and May are aware that the woman who is a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent who may or may not be Skye's mother and dropped her off at the orphanage was brutally, bloodily murdered. Coulson vows to get answers, but first, something more pressing: answers about himself and Tahiti. A dismayed Coulson is told on the phone by S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ that despite his Level 8 access, he is not authorized to have information about himself. "Would you like us to make a formal request to Director Fury?" asks the voice on the phone. "No," Coulson replies. Well, maybe he'll see Fury in the movies again, some day.

And lastly, I agree with Chloe Bennet, who agrees with me. Just a couple of Level 0s.

@BackoftheHead I agree.
— Chloe Bennet (@ChloeBennet4) November 12, 2013

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x6 - "F.Z.Z.T."

"F.Z.Z.T." (besides upping the ante on making the recapper type even more capital letters with periods) introduces two welcome items into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: a Chitauri helmet left over from The Avengers and, more importantly, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. cast's acting shoes. They all wore their acting shoes this week, delivering a series' best-thus-far apex of dramatic performances and emotional gut punches. Perhaps recognizing, six episodes in, that the audience may not feel much more than a certain weary fondness for the brainy combo of Fitz-Simmons, "F.Z.Z.T." introduces the possibility of losing Simmons this early in the run. We don't lose her, of course, because Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't that kind of show about spies (like, say, Homeland is.) Even for a jet setting crew of young superspies facing unheard of dangers in a world were superpowers and aliens exist, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. maintains a level of safety, to the chagrin of some of us who want more risk. Risk! Risk is their business! But in exploring the steely core of heroism buried within the cheery, chatty Agent Jemma Simmons, we do end up liking her more, even as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. performs contortions of logic and believability to make it so.

The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. investigate a series of bizarre circumstances involving a dead scout leader floating in mid-air emitting tendrils of electricity. Skye and Fitz-Simmons are correct: this is kind of cool. The show introduces this in a spooky opening but then gradually abandons the horror angle as the Agents discover another floating body in a barn. Skye's investigative work reveals a connection: both victims are firefighters and were first responders after the Battle of New York. A trip to the fire house concludes the investigation upon meeting a nervous third firefighter also about to blow (what is it with this show and people who are going to explode - first Extremis and now this?) and learning the firefighters are in possession of a Chitauri helmet, a souvenir from New York. The helmet comes complete with an alien virus that infected the firefighters.

Coulson has S.H.I.E.L.D quarantine the helmet and The Bus flies it back to The Sandbox, a S.H.I.E.L.D biohazard containment facility in West Africa, but they soon learn that Simmons has contracted the alien virus when things start floating in their lab. She has two hours to live. Also, when she explodes in two hours, she'll destroy The Bus and kill everyone on board. So of course, much of that time is wasted with her sitting forlornly against the glass of the containment wall back to back with Fitz. But this is all right, she's young and only human dealing with her circumstances. It's drama. But what is not all right is how, in a circumstance where your best friend is dying, Fitz did not at any point press his palm against the glass so Simmons can match it, nor did Fitz-Simmons have The Conversation You Absolutely Must Have When Your Best Friend Is Sealed Off From You In A Biohazard Quarantine And About To Sacrifice His/Her Life. That conversation begins with, "Ship... out of danger?" Fitz-Simmons' running joke of his saying "vaccine" and her correcting him with "antigen" probably won't be aped in a J.J. Abrams movie in reverse thirty years from now.

As the other Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. cope with the possibility of losing Simmons and dying themselves, and the terrible option of preventing the second thing from happening, Coulson video conferences with a new bigwig from S.H.I.E.L.D. we meet for the first  time: Agent Blake (please let his first name be Donald) played by Titus Welliver! Awesome to see Titus Welliver, although, while S.H.I.E.L.D. certainly is a giant organization, between Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Agent Blake, and whomever Robert Redford plays in the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a little clarification on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top brass and who outranks whom would be welcome at some point. Agent Blake informs Coulson of orders: if Simmons' is about to blow, he's to dump her in the ocean and save The Bus. Logical. Coulson pretends the equipment doesn't work, a move straight from Spock's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country playbook, and ignores orders in a completely irrational move that justifiably earns a frown and glare from Melinda May.

Meanwhile, Fitz-Simmons realize the obvious solution: that the Chitauri who wore the helmet is immune from the virus and a vaccine/antigen can be manufactured - in minutes! - from its DNA residue. Fitz risks his own life by entering the quarantined lab and helping create the vaccine/antigen. When it doesn't work and the lab mice keep floating, hope seems lost. So Simmons does the noble thing: she bonks Fitz on the back of the head with a fire hydrant. What? And then she opens the landing bay doors and jumps. What? Also, physics? First the rubber raft and now this: what is it with the physics on The Bus where air pressure doesn't work right and creating a hole a plane in mid-air doesn't cause everything and everyone to be sucked out? Upon realizing Simmons has de-planed, Fitz grabs a parachute to make a rescue, but Ward does it instead and pulls off a highly unlikely, perhaps impossible by the laws of physics, James Bond in Moonraker (referenced by Fitz) rescue of Simmons. Who, by the way, is cured. The antigen did work, it was just a little slow. Crisis solved. Our team is still intact and remarkably no worse for wear. ("She's resilient," is how Coulson writes off Simmons, someone who should be undergoing weeks of S.H.I.E.L.D. counseling.) Finally, the deep, true, yet bizarrely unspoken of sexless friendship between Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons is reaffirmed, with the series basically stating "We are not dealing with that yet, if ever." But I am glad Simmons is okay. I mean, killing her would have been a ballsy move, but okay, don't. That's fine too.

There's more drama going on with the other Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. After being revealed as a traitor in the previous episode, it's bluntly explained Skye made the requisite rounds of apologies and is pretty much okay with her fellow Bus-mates, except Ward. (And possibly Melinda, but Skye's not as worried if Melinda doesn't like her. It doesn't seem like she likes anyone.) Skye chafes under Ward's coldness, his willful ignoring of her when she's being cute, and his passive-aggressive digs at her. His meanest one, "Everyone checks out on the first pass" made her cry and yeah, it really was pretty mean. Skye is also chafing from the bracelet she's forced to wear that monitors her "every keystroke... and cholesterol." Plus Ward totally didn't laugh at her Captain America joke. Also mean. But when Simmons was dying and their lives were all in danger, Ward softened a bit and let Skye stay in the room with him while he broods about how he can't protect them from things like alien viruses, revealing that Ward sees himself as the team's protector.

As for Coulson, he ordered a total physical workup on himself, inviting a different set of suspicious glares from Melinda (who also may have died and come back in the past the way Coulson did. Did she also go to Tahiti?) S.H.I.E.L.D.'s physical reports say there's nothing wrong, besides his iron being a little high (cue Iron Man joke), but Coulson feels different. Also, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s medical report could be lying. That has to be taken under consideration. Melinda makes him open up his shirt and for the first time we see what's behind Coulson's suit: a pretty gnarly scar from Loki's scepter. Whatever may or may not be wrong with Coulson, bottom line is that he did die (he even told the fire fighter with the Chitauri helmet what it's like when you die) and now he is back. That, by definition, makes Coulson a different person, as Agent Blake found out when Coulson told him off Wild West-style after Blake threatened to take his "dream team" away. Phil Coulson will ignore any order he damn well chooses to. It's really no different from Nick Fury ignoring the Jedi Council and firing rockets at his own plane when they told him to nuke Chitauri-invaded New York and he balked. Ignoring S.H.I.E.L.D.'s orders seems to be the mandate of an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, to Skye's delight, we learn that Fitz and Simmons both do impressions of Ward. And so does Ward, for that matter. Ward impressions are Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s version of the Bluth family each having a chicken dance on Arrested Development. I bet Melinda May's Ward impression would bring The Bus down.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x5 - "Girl In The Flower Dress"

 

Skye. Scorch. Skye. Scorch. Those are the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s two big problems this week. One's a liar, the other's on fire. Let's start with Scorch, if that is his real name. It isn't. Scorch is Chan Ho Yin, a Hong Kong street magician gifted with the very real power of pyrokinesis. He can make fire, but he can't ignite his dreamed of career as a world famous illusionist like Criss Angel or David Copperfield. Chan wants to be famous, but S.H.I.E.L.D. caught wind of his firepower and put a kibosh on his dreams, forcing him to not be all he can be. Resentful, Chan falls under the thrall of the episode's title character, the girl in the flower dress, whose name is Raina. Raina is a smooth talker with a silky voice and even after she has a couple of guys in fireproof suits black bag Chan, she still manages to sweet talk him into agreeing to experiments to enhance his pyro powers. Chan's reaction to her new name for him - Scorch - was "Are you joking?" It is kind of a lousy codename. Why not The Human Torch or Firestorm or Sunfire? Oh, we know why. But citing how no one knows who Steve Rogers is but everyone's heard of Captain America, it doesn't take much for Raina to sell Chan on calling himself Scorch. It does kind of grow on you quickly.

Meanwhile, just as Skye has grown comfortable in S.H.I.E.L.D. and a lot closer to Ward - you sank my Battleship closer - her secret life as a Rising Tide hacker blows it all up in their faces. The kidnapping of Chan has the Hong Kong wing of S.H.I.E.L.D. bamboozled until they determined a member of the Rising Tide hacked S.H.I.E.L.D. and sold the information about Chan to the mysterious, villainous Centipede. The very Centipede who is creating unstable Extremis fire soldiers like Mike Peterson in the pilot and now has a pyrokinetic to experiment on. (Chan's very ability to be fireproof is what Centipede needed to fix what was wrong with their Extremis tech.) Naturally, all suspicion fell on Skye, who claimed she didn't hack S.H.I.E.L.D. China. But she quickly fingers who did, a famous Rising Tider named Miles, and we quickly learn Miles has been doing more than fingering Skye. They're ex-lovers. All that suspicion that fell on Skye? Coulson acted on it by sending Melinda to tail her. Thank you, Melinda, for not exposing Skye as a traitor until after Skye was exposed in her underpants. Soon, Coulson has Miles and Skye brought into The Bus in irons, and everyone feels real lousy for different reasons about Skye, including Skye herself. (Meanwhile, Fitz needs Simmons to explain to him how human behavior works, literally needing it spelled out for him why Skye tried to protect her ex-boyfriend from her current work friends. Fitz is either a robot or a six year old boy. Split the difference - he's a six year old robot.)

Skye really blew it. Ward was pissed as her S.O. and for someone starting to like and trust her. Coulson vouched for her up and down the line and now questions his own judgment, along with all the other little weird things he questions about himself lately. And Skye herself finds out Miles isn't quite the high-minded, incorruptible hacktivist he styles himself to be when Ward reveals that Miles hacked Chan for Centipede for a cool million bucks. Miles is a guy who can justify anything he does via the distance he maintains from the damage he's doing via his keyboard, i.e. just like 99.9% of the people on the Internet. Skye has some choices to make about who she wants her friends to be and who she herself wants to be, but that'll have to wait until the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. rescue Chan in China. When the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. penetrate the Centipede base, unfortunately, they don't meet the helpless Mr. Chan, they meet Scorch, the Extremis-deranged supervillain who wants to "burn bright." ("They gave him a name," rues Coulson.)

They may be prisoners, but Coulson's team is still lucky to have two world-class Rising Tide hackers currently on their plane. As Scorch terrorizes May and Coulson, and roasts the evil Centipede doctor who removed the fireproof platelets from his bones, Ward unshackles Skye and Miles long enough for them to use The Power of Hacking to help save the day. Ward Seal Team Sixes Skye into the Centipede base so she can unlock the doors and hack Centipede for some intel with lickety-quick speed, while Miles uses his hacking powers to reroute a detonating Scorch's fire into the vents and through the roof, saving Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. from having to pay the extra expense of showing a building explode. The pyro budget of this episode was already maxed out. 

As Raina confers with a Mysterious Centipede Man in Prison about going to stage two with Extremis and contacting The Clairvoyant, Coulson must set his own Bus in order regarding Skye. Miles? Not an issue. S.H.I.E.L.D. takes all his money, straps a metal cuff around his wrist keeping him from operating any electronic devices, and kicks him off the Bus in Hong Kong. Get back to Austin, Texas who cares how. But Skye, she's one of the stars of the show. No kicking her off the Bus. What to do about Skye. May and Ward are back to pilot-level coldness towards her, but the person Skye needs to make good with is Coulson, her mentor. Finally, Skye tearfully comes clean about what she's really doing as part of S.H.I.E.L.D. It's all on her Boob Chip. Skye's precious Boob Chip. It has everything, which isn't much -- Skye is looking for her birth parents. Her entire lifetime of searching is summed up in a redacted S.H.I.E.L.D. document. Skye stays on the Bus, as she must, but with the no-electronics cuff on her wrist. Thus ends the best episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. yet.

I really like the lighting here. Ward is cold towards Skye again. @ChloeBennet4 @IMBrettDalton #AgentsofSHIELD pic.twitter.com/TID46lyyRq
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) October 23, 2013

As a Watcher, I am forbidden to interfere. But about 25 years ago, I got drunk and... Not saying Skye's my kid, but... #AgentsofSHIELD
— Uatu  (@UatuWatchingYou) October 23, 2013

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1x4 - "Eye Spy"

Eye Spy a show starting to hit its stride. Also, "Eye Spy" second chances. Everyone gets one, according to A.C. Well, not everyone, but people A.C. thinks deserves one. And A.C.'s a good judge of character. All right, enough of "A.C." It's too cool for me to use; best to leave it as Skye's nickname for Phil. Just stick to Agent Coulson from now on. "Eye Spy" is literally about a spy with a robot eye, after Coulson and May make a big deal about shooting down the existence of telepathy or ESP in the Marvel Studios Universe. (Skye understandably doesn't get why when aliens and wormholes and all those other crazy things exist.) But it should be noted that outside of Thor, a "god", and his "magic" - and Thor himself explained to Natalie Portman that he comes from a place where magic and science are one and the same - Marvel Studios and now Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. go to lengths to explain how the superpowers appearing in this universe are science-based. Even, it looks like, the flaming throwing Asian man who pops up next week. Is that Sunfire??

Coulson picks this week's op for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to tackle after a million red masked man march in Stockholm ends with a subway car of dead masked bodies and a stolen briefcase containing $30-million in diamonds. Boy, were their faces red. Coulson's investigation points to his former protege Akela Amador, a former Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. herself once thought dead after an op years ago went sideways. She's reappeared as a super spy/thief/assassin under the thrall of a shadowy organization that shall as of yet remain nameless. She was given a night vision-equipped robotic eye that lets her handler, a stout, mysterious British man, see through her eye and levy instructions. May and Ward directly challenge Coulson on his belief that Amador must be brought in alive and even helped instead of taken out, but when they discover Amador is merely a puppet being used, even they relent and allow Coulson his will. Skye is on Phil's side; she has some sweet moments with A.C. about how much he values her and how cool he is. Plus Coulson "lives outside the box". Although Skye lives on The Bus. So. Uh. Carry on?

May, having volunteered for combat last week, finally gets unleashed. When she is able to identify Amador's location, May sends in The Cavalry to Amador's hotel room for a bad ass girl fight. When the lights go out, Coulson makes the save and drops Amador with Fitz's new invention, the Night Night Gun (which really shouldn't be its name, according to Ward. Ward in turn names the S.H.I.E.L.D. van the Short Bus, and Coulson doesn't like that either.) For Coulson and Ward, it's probably a little dismaying to learn they can't leave Skye and Fitz-Simmons alone in the Short Bus and trust them not to break radio silence asking for restroom breaks or snacks or not to have the Short Bus rammed off a cliff by Amador so that they are all nearly killed (but no, miraculously, they're all perfectly fine).

The final gambit is for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to send Ward, with Skye as his extra eyes, off to fulfill Amador's original mission to penetrate a Russian stronghold and photograph a mysterious set of blueprints to what could be an alien weapon of some sort. The Ward and Skye Marvel Team Up generates plenty of laughs, especially when Ward is ordered by Amador's handler to "seduce" a burly Russian guard. The weakness of this entire enterprise is how Amador's handler didn't know it wasn't Amador. Ward is probably a foot taller than Amador and surely that would have been noticeable long before Ward accidentally saw his own reflection in a mirror. Meanwhile, Fitz and Simmons perform ocular surgery, complete with squishy sounds, on Amador, mostly with Amador's help. They do manage to remove the robot eye and drop it into one of those containers the Ghostbusters use for ghosts like Slimer before it exploded or whatever happened to it.

Skye is beyond useful this week with her hacktivism - without her, pretty much none of this op could have been pulled off. Hacking is her strong suit; using a gun without dropping the magazine is not. (She also yells "BANG!" when shooting a gun, but Ward, "BANG!" has authority. At least she doesn't say "Ptew! Ptew!") Professionalism is also not Skye's strong suit, when it comes to having X-ray specs and not using them to look at Ward naked after a poker game with Fitz. Finally, we learn despite her bunk on The Bus, Skye likes to camp out for her Me Time in the big black ground transport because it reminds her of her van. As for Amador, she gets turned over to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a promised "fair trial", after becoming the second African American on this show to need an eye patch. However, Amador, who can't help but compare the Coulson she knew to the A.C. who rescued her, knows Coulson is different. "What did they do to him?" she asks a bewildered May. More importantly, what Vision (hmm?) did Amador's robot eye see in Coulson? She's not telling.

What I think I liked best about "Eye Spy" - besides when Amador turned golfballs into diamonds, which kind of one ups when Superman turned coal into diamonds with his bare hand - is the ending where Amador finally got to get some sleep. Sleep is important. Sleep is good. We should all get more sleep. 

Last night, I tried to get some sleep and was awoken by this awesome, awesome tweet.

Guh... Brain totally melted. @ChloeBennet4 pic.twitter.com/3TPcXDV76n
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) October 15, 2013

Chloe Bennet is the coolest. Hope her swollen cheeks unswell soon.

Finally:

Will #AgentsofSHIELD someday comment on the lyrical perfection that by living on a plane, Skye lives in the sky? @ChloeBennet4
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) October 15, 2013