TV Retrospective: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 episodes 10-13 review

I know it's been a while, but we are back with some more of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Magical Place

We start with the SHIELD team interrupting a black market purchase of Chitauri metal. Victoria Hand’s in charge of the sting and it’s successful. They’re hoping the guy is a supplier to Centipede and they can use him to find them.

Skye wants to track the money but Hand doesn’t trust her. May advises that she won’t be of use inside the plane. Fitz, Simmons and Ward get Skye off the plane with a satellite phone before she’s picked up for debrief.

Coulson meanwhile is erm, is erm… In a memory machine. The Clairvoyant wants to know how he came back from the dead and the interrogator is not happy about it. Skye finds a trail but with her security bracelet restricting her access to computers she’s not getting far

Ward manages to make the guy talk by opening up the hatch of the prison cell while they’re air, wouldn’t that also suck out the air, suffocating them both? So Coulson's interrogator, Doctor Po is completely insane, his facility comes complete with lots of manikins

Skye uses her abilities to confront someone providing funds for Centipede, convincing him he’ll see immunity if he helps her. Ward confronts May who says that Skye is better outside the system. Raina takes over as the interrogator. Mr Po is murdered by the Clairvoyant. Raina reveals they want the secret as to how Coulson returned to use it for their army. Raina persuades him to not resist, revealing details about his past that pull his heartstrings.

Fitz and Simmons have created a watch thing to neutralise the centipede soldiers, and they get intel from Skye regarding where Coulson is. Couslson’s memories begin to restore and he sees being operated on his brain, screaming ‘let me die’. You’d figure dying would be one of the things you’d leave out of his memory, if they were wiping it.

Skye knocks Raina out and rescues Coulson, Raina’s sent to prison and Hand is off the plane ready to show up in a few episodes time. Coulson finally removes that damned bracelet, and Coulson lies not very convincingly that he feels that he’s ok.

He confronts one of the doctors from TAHITI, who reveals mostly what we already knew. Following his revival, he had lost his will to live and they wiped his brain to give it back. Oh and Mike Peterson is still alive, only now he has a stupid eye implant and a missing leg.

This episode is kinda slow paced, we get a bit more info on Coulson but we’re no closer to anything with Centipede despite obvious progress with S.H.I.E.L.D. raids and Raina’s arrest. Still, it’s a strong start to the back half of the season.

Rating 7.5/10

Seeds

Trouble at the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy

Indoor swimming pools open at night and freezing at the seams, with the help of a quiet student sticking the end of a net in, one of them wouldn’t be getting his legs. The device was planted days prior and was invented by Fitz and Simmons

May and Coulson will be attending to another mission whilst the others investigate the academy. They’re greeted by Agent Weaver, who will ultimately be part of new S.H.I.E.L.D. Ward takes Skye to a memorial, and unlike Cap in Ultimate Spider-man, it isn’t to ultimately be a douche about it.

May has tracked down ‘Richard Lumley’ who might know something about Skye’s heritage. Fitz and Simmons give their speech about how with great power comes great responsibility and bla, bla, bla. Ward tries to narrow down his list of suspects, particular attention comes to Donnie Gill, a guy who struggles to communicate (there’s one in every school of scientists)

Donnie begins to freeze solid in the lecture room, Fitz and Simmons with a little help from Skye and Ward manage to save him. Coulson and May prepare for a stakeout whilst Simmons and Skye head to the secret party lounge and Fitz talks with Donnie

They catch up with Richard and he tells them that Skye was a survivor in a village that was massacred, some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents took her but they were crossed off one by one. Wherever she goes, death follows.

Fitz talks shop with Donnie, offering advice but soon Skye and Ward find out that the attacks were staged to get their attention. Fitz runs back, realising he’s helped stabilise a power source for a bigger version of the ice machine.

They’re working with Ian Quinn but for him to land now S.H.I.E.L.D. is searching for them, he requires a demonstration. Coulson reveals the truth to Skye, realising from his own experiences that he has no right to keep it from her.

The device works creating a super-storm, which they’ll have to disarm the device in order to stop, but his partner is struck by a lightning blast and eventually dies; Donnie carries the guilt over his death and a few icy powers to match

Coulson’s call with Ian Quinn confirms his allegiance with the clairvoyant. This episode was entitled seeds and rightly so, it didn’t really progress the plot so much as it planted a few seeds to be used later on. Donnie Gill is a tragic character so I hope he survives his unfortunate fate in season 2

Rating 7.5/10

T.R.A.C.K.S.

I’m glad season 2 did not use these initial-style titles, they’re not funny or clever

So, the Hunt has begun from Ian Quinn. His company made a purchase from Cybertek and it’s on a train heading through Italy. They’re about to head undercover on the train to tag the package and let it lead them to Quinn.

So hijinks ensue, with Simmons obsessing over details, Skye kissing and Fitz and May and Ward acting pretty much as normal. You know Simmons: you’re so well prepared it’s more than a little obvious that it’s a persona.

Oh, Stan Lee Cameo. That makes him how many different characters in the MCU now? Coms go down and Coulson and Ward head to investigate, they jump off the train and it disappears apparently.

Ward finds May’s goggles informing him that she isn’t on the train (somehow) they find a hotwired truck and head back to the plane. The Italian authorities were apparently ambushed at the station, the leader agrees to meet Coulson to find the missing train. But when he arrives, May kills him.

Turns out May found Coulson and Ward both unconscious. She was the one who hotwired the truck for them but was captured by Italian authorities. Cybertek paid off the chief to make sure the products go through safely. They try and torture her by May escapes, hot in pursuit of the Chief.

They find the train in the countryside, with no sign of the others. They take a closer look, Simmons is found alive, wondering where Fitz and Skye are. Turns out when she found Skye and Fitz she was taken out by a dendro-toxin grenade (same as Coulson and Ward) the train comes to a halt and the device is loaded onto a truck, which Skye and Fitz follow.

Skye wants to go in and Fitz hands her a night-night gun while he goes to disable their vehicles. Skye finds her way in and discovers Mike Peterson, alive in the basement. We’d been hinted about him being alive before, so not a major twist but the episode’s not over yet.

Skye is caught by Ian Quinn who reveals that they have Cybertek’s artificial leg, which they implant onto Mike. Quinn then shoots Skye in the stomach and then in the back. And because the plot demands it this doesn’t kill her instantly. As Deathlok kills the cybertek guys. S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives and Coulson finds her, bleeding out. They put her in the machine Mike was in to buy them some time

The team is left reeling from this

Oh my god, this is where things start to get back on the track, if you forgive the pun. This was an episode the show sorely needed, the stakes are high and it’s personal for them.

Rating 9/10

For more reviews click here

Images used in this review are from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.