TV Retrospective: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 1 episodes 17-19 review

I know, I know, it's barely been a week since the last retrospective on the series, but we're nearly at the end guys, let's look at these 3 episodes as the plot finally shifts into gear

Turn Turn Turn

Warning: Spoilers will follow on Captain America: The Winter Soldier

So, The Winter Soldier is what got me back into the show. The revelation that HYDRA had been growing from inside SHIELD and had revealed themselves in a plot to take control of the known world through fear…

Having HYDRA unleashed within SHIELD was the least of it, SHIELD's secrets were leaked, the organisation is finished. And now loose ends are being closed down. We’re not quite at that stage yet in this episode, as we deal with the more immediate consequences of the revelation of HYDRA.

So, with the plane headed toward the hub by force. May is quizzed and reveals that she had a direct line to Director Fury. Garrett comes under attack from some SHIELD drones and docs with the ship so they can take out the drones.

Here we have yet another version of the lying to protect bullsh*t that DC/CW shows tend to use, May lies to Coulson, keeping TAHITI and everything to do with it a secret from him in order to protect him. Well, at least it’s slightly more reasonable than the I’m lying about my secret identity in order to protect you from the someone that might come after me if they find out my secret identity, wait…

Hand believes that Coulson is a part of HYDRA, and that’s why she was prepared to take out everyone on the plane. She has a list of reasons why Coulson would be a part of which, at least a couple demonstrate that he isn’t part of HYDRA, like not reporting the crimes of his protégé shows compassion, not a common HYDRA trait.

So, with a hard-drive backing up the plane’s systems, essentially allowing it to serve as a mcguffin for the rest of the season, the crew split up to try and rescue Simmons and Tripp, whilst also freeing their plane. During the process Garrett reveals a small tit-bit that leads Coulson that the clairvoyant is among their ranks. Garrett. You know, they really could’ve introduced Garrett earlier, this revelation really didn’t have as much ground as it needed to, oh but we’re not even close to done with the revelations just yet.

So, with Victoria disillusioned thanks to microphones and Tripp rightly pissed off that his mentor was a HYDRA agent, a sub-plot they really didn’t do a lot with. Ward volunteers to help Hand lock up Garrett in a deep dark section of the fridge. In a surprise end scene, Ward murders Victoria Hand, he was the mole in the ranks the entire time. Surprise!

Yeah, this episode blew me away. Sure it took way too long to build up to this, but man was it glorious. And only big things come from here.

Rating 9/10

Providence

Ward’s a mass murdering psychopath, guys, there’s no two ways around it. He’s just as much the murderous psychopath as Garrett or anyone else in HYDRA.

We start pretty quickly with a SHIELD prison being taken by the Clairvoyant and Raina freed. Raina’s disappointed to see that Garrett was not the Clairvoyant he made out.

Meanwhile we have the Hub about to be taken over by Glen Talbot, played by Adrian Pasdar, my least favourite Iron Man voice actor, ever. Or it might just be the cr*ppy stories he was in. Doesn’t matter.

So, SHIELD has to head up but with limited supplies, limited fuel and limited resources, it’s not long before they can land again. Skye eliminates all records of their existences from the internet and confiscates their badges.

Before the badges can be locked away for good, Coulson gets a set of co-ordinates on his badge, making him suspect that Nick Fury is alive. The others worry it could be a HYDRA trap. Particularly May, who reveals that someone else is responsible for the TAHITI project who might well be HYDRA.

So, HYDRA raid the Fridge, revealing that the slingshot programme doesn’t really exist, all the weapons that were supposedly shot into space weren’t shot into space. Now they’re open goodies for HYDRA. And because Ward is among them, the gravitonium is also a goody for them (although they never do anything with it, so I’m not sure what the point was)

They reach the co-ordinates on the badge but can’t seem to find anything. Coulson finally breaks down, upset over the loss of something he’d cared for for so long. It’s not until he throws his badge into the air and a turret destroys it that they realise that we have a full on secret base. Providence, Manned by agent Koenig.

With the prisons open, naturally that means the unwelcome return of Ian Quinn, who is elated to see gravitonium

It’s a solid follow up episode, they’re being very deliberate with their pacing at this point, which means we’ll have a bit more to follow up on before we finish this.

Rating 8.5/10

The only light in the darkness

Once you let the darkness inside, it never comes out… wait, I’m talking about the wrong TV show, aren’t I? Find the light in the dark? Oops, wrong one again. This title is just one massive cliché isn’t it?

So, lots to talk about.

This episode was centred around Coulson and his relationships both past and present. A criminal named Marcus Daniels was amongst those broken out of The Fridge. He has a past history with Coulson and a shared love of a woman named Audrey Nathan. But whilst Coulson was the quiet romantic, Marcus was more the creepy psychopath, who also is able to control electrical impulses.

Turns out HYDRA has been working on ways to enhance the powers of certain prisoners in the fridge. Especially Marcus it would seem, who now seems to be able to blast darkness beams out of his hands. Because comic books.

The other relationship explored for Coulson is between him and May. He still doesn’t trust her after the revelations shown before. So she decides to leave providence base and hitch a ride to Maria Hill for some reason.

But it’s not just Coulson’s relationships that get the spotlight. As Ward moves on Skye to decrypt that hard-drive he needs revealing he reveals more details of his personal hardships of life. Skye then discovers that he killed agent Koenig as she needs to play along in order to survive.

There’s also a sort-of love triangle between Fitz, Simmons and Tripp, one which is all but forgotten about in season 2. Fitz is the one to be upset about it, hating change and is likely to be the one worst effected by what’s coming. It does astound me how SHIELD now has a grasp on the high-intensity situations that also tug at the heartstrings. Season 2 is full of these moments, and it’s better when you have a team of almost entirely new characters (Skye is an exception, sort of, more on that in season 2)

Koenig’s demise was unfortunate but Ward saw it as a necessity after Skye hacked NSA satellites to get him a view of the Fridge during the breakout.

Rating 8.5/10

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