Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 episodes 3-5 review

It's time to look and the next few episodes of Agents of SHIELD as it gains its new review spot of Friday nights

Episode 3 – Making friends and influencing people

2 inevitable things happened today.

1^st, we see what happened to Simmons, she’s under deep cover in HYDRA, yay…

2^nd, we see the fallout of something that happened in an episode from season 1, the S.H.I.E.L.D. universe iceman sort of

Ironically though it is, though we see Simmons move up the ranks as a deep cover agent, it’s Fitz who we see the development from. His attempts to deal with his own problems lead him to an uncomfortable confrontation with Ward. One which, despite any moral lows it pointed out, was crucial to the success of their mission, stopping HYDRA from acquiring their target.

It’s nice to see how Simmons got used to her role in HYDRA, she started off being fairly isolated, until Coulson told her she needs to make friends to up the ranks, and for all intents and purposes make friends she did. But there no illusions here, the danger is far greater for her now she’s upping ranks in HYDRA.

Seeing the reactions to those discovering what was going on was interesting. Skye understood but asked why May knew. While Fitz enquired as to whether it was her choice. It’s good that Fitz at least now knows that Simmons is on a mission, I think it would devastate him to find her in HYDRA.

Then we have Skye and Ward, he brings his revelations to the table today, now Skye is ready to listen, it’ll be interesting to see where that leads next week.

Rating 8/10

Episode 4 – Face my enemy

Covert ops become a lot more dangerous when backup’s limited and enemies are everywhere. S.H.I.E.L.D. are willing to do everything they can to steal a painting with the same mysterious text, but the mission gets complicated when HYDRA gets involved

It’s an episode that’s fairly standard ops, but it’s played well: I actually did believe that Talbot was there (and was equally disappointed about Talbot being HYDRA under those circumstances, thankfully they told out to be false)

We see a Fitz, Coulson and May get the bulk of the character development today, as Coulson and May try and find a way to concoct a contingency plan in case things go south for him. You know, I’m surprised neither of them seem to remember the fact that Skye too took the serum, and is fine, maybe she holds the answer to stabilising it, just a thought.

We also see Fitz’s journey trying to get socially involved with another team. The circumstances of fake May sabotaging the plane, turned to be excellent circumstances for this bonding session to happen, particularly between him and Hunter, another member of the team that only remembers him as he is now, rather than how he was.

It’s was quite obvious to me that May already had a contingency plan in her mind in case Coulson goes nuts, it was however sweet that it was not a lethal option, rather some passports and money for a 1-way trip to Australia (because he likes Kangaroos)

This episode is perhaps not the biggest in scale, we still don’t really know much coming out of it, although the ending hints next week’s story being a lot bigger.

This really is the first week we see the factions interacting with each other, as well as with S.H.I.E.L.D., we know that HYDRA must’ve interacted with Talbot to get the intel for the face mask, and we also know see HYDRA attacking Raina for the obelisk at the end.

S.H.I.E.L.D. is setting a firm groundwork early, and over the coming weeks the payoff is bound to coming, here’s hoping the payoff is as good as the build-up.

Rating 8/10

Episode 5 – A hen in a wolf house

So, Raina is caught in the battle between HYDRA, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Skye’s father as she tries to escape her unfortunate predicament, underestimating the resolve of pretty much everyone.

S.H.I.E.L.D. suffers from the exact opposite problem that Flash is suffering from. While Flash has a well-developed hero roster it has poorly developed villains, S.H.I.E.L.D. has an array of well-developed villain factions, but struggles to develop its roster of heroes.

In the Flash’s defence, we are only 3 episodes in at then stage of me writing this, and in the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s defence their array of characters is much bigger, but the revelation of Simmons being a HYDRA agent this early is a detriment to her character development.

But on the plus side we get an introduction of Bobby Morse, aka Mockingbird from the comics, and Hunter’s ex-wife. She proves to be a great undercover agent in HYDRA, even pretending to rat someone out, but is easily the most character on screen every time she appears.

Of course, we also have Skye discovering about Coulson’s problems, and possibly looking at the writing as a map. Her wanting to get close as everything goes down could prove problematic, especially when her father has turned out to be a complete psychopath.

Raina is very much the pawn of the episode, and that’s an unusual place to be, when you’re usually on top of everything. Coulson’s coldness and unwillingness to give Raina what she wanted in exchange for keeping Simmons’ cover was interesting, and would have worse had we not discovered that Bobby was an easy escape plan for them.

Simmons' return does make things interesting, Fitz is still having conversations with fake Simmons, but will that continue now she’s back, and will he eventually react to it all, he didn’t show that big a reaction during the initial meeting.

This show continues to deliver on its promises, and whilst Simmons’ undercover op was largely wasted potential, I’ll be willing to give it a pass if it delivers something for the Fitz-Simmons dynamic.

Rating 7.5/10

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