The marketing push was in full force this week heading into Agents of SHIELD’s mid-season finale. The Agents of SHIELD Facebook, Twitter and TV commercials all announced that in this episode, “Everything comes together!” I think there was a conscious effort in the advertising to engage the fans who may have fallen off the bus and bring them back into the fold with this episode, The Bridge.
Sorry Rob Liefeld fans. If you saw the title of the episode and thought X-Force side-character G.W. Bridge was making his Agents of SHIELD debut, you’d be disappointed.
Neither GW Bridge nor his thigh pouches made it into “The Bridge.”
If the last episode you watched of Agents of SHIELD was The Girl in the Flower Dress, you could jump right in this episode without a problem. Well, you’d have one problem, which is missing the FitzSimmons awesomeness in F.Z.Z.T. Not to mention seeing SHIELD deal with Dr. Janoch Pohaaa in The Well.
The Bridge does bring everything together. Centipede? Yup. The girl in the flower dress? She’s here. The creepy dude stewing in prison? Him too.
“Why do you only wear floral prints? WHY?!?”
The Bridge also brought back Mike Peterson, the super strong freak of the week from the pilot. Mike is now working with SHIELD. Centipede is surprised to see that Extremis didn’t burn his system out and now wants Mike so that they can dissect him to reverse-engineer his powers stabilizing.
Anyone else think that Mike Peterson is the Lando of Agents of SHIELD? He signs on to help Coulson’s team and then betrays them when the villain gains the upper hand. Coulson is Han Solo in this example. The helicopter is the carbon freezing chamber. Work with me here, people. Mike makes the complete Lando turn when he then tries to save the person he screwed over from the very same people he gave that person to. I’m really hoping that Episode 12 of Agents of SHIELD opens with Mike in disguise working as a guard on the Clairvoyant’s skiff.
Mike?
I really don’t get the Mike’s son for Coulson trade. Centipede needed Mike for a specific reason, namely figuring out how to stabilize Extremis. Why would they take Coulson over him? Yes, Coulson’s crew has been a thorn in their side since the series began, but a stable Extremis can’t be overlooked! Stabilize Extremis and shoot your three Extremis soldiers at SHIELD HQ like missiles. Or take both Coulson and Mike. Double-win! Was there not enough room in the helicopter for both of them?
Coulson: “Is it okay if I call you Lando?”
My favorite characters, FitzSimmons, did not shine this episode. I was watching The Bridge with someone who had never seen the show before, and the reaction FitzSimmons received was along the line of “Really? These two are your favorites?” FitzSimmonsjust came across so bumbling in The Bridge, as opposed to how awesome they were in F.Z.Z.T and The Hub.
What was up with Ward during the climatic bridge scene? Really, Ward, that’s where you set up? You couldn’t haven taken that high-powered sniper rifle to a different vantage point? You did notice those big gasoline tankers on the bridge when you picked that spot, right? You had the prep time. I’m starting to think you’re a Centipede double-agent. Not true, I actually think schtupping May has turned the boy stupid.
“Okay Ward, now you make sure you set yourself up in a spot where you can see nothing. Got it?”
Well, that’s it. We’re halfway through season one of Agents of SHIELD. The preview for the second half looks like we will be getting more clues about, if not a flat out answer to, what happened to Coulson after The Avengers and before the first episode of Agents of SHIELD. New episodes of Agents of SHIELD return on January 7 to ABC. New reviews of Agents of SHIELD return January 8 to Tuesday Night Movies!
*spoilers*
I try to avoid this line of thinking, because I know what the show is supposed to be, but it was unavoidable this time: you’re fighting against some super-powered soldiers, the kind that can push bulldozers the length of a football field, and you think going against who-knows-how-many of them with one equally-matched dude, two (unarmed?) normals, and a suit is going to work? This seems like the perfect time to call in Cap, or at least War Machine or Hawkeye, for some backup. Or, I don’t know, bring some guns? Why is Coulson the only one with a tranq gun?
Seriously, Agent Sixpack vs. a super-hero in hand-to-hand? How is he not dead?
Aside from that, it was a pretty decent episode, but I’m still waiting for that spark that other Whedon shows have. I have a feeling this show doesn’t have the balls to let Ward be dead, but he’s such a wooden character (or maybe actor, but either way) that it wouldn’t hurt to reboot a little with some new blood.
And I’ll forgive him for what looked like setting up in such a bad position. It’s pretty clear that the bad guys just out-planned the good guys here; knew that was the only position he had (it’s not like bridges have a ton of concealed spaces above them); and set up their booby-traps to block his view and then conceal their exit. If you’re going to blame Ward for setting up in a bad spot, blame the whole team for a piss-poor plan. Or, really, not much of a plan at all. You’re just going to trust the evil organization to stick to the deal?
FOOLED YOU.