Unlike The Well, which dealt with the fallout of Thor: The Dark World in a very ancillary way, Turn, Turn, Turn is directly impacted by the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW for Agents of SHIELD and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If you haven’t seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet, you might want to see that first. But if you’d like to just read about how Captain America: The Winter Soldier affected Agents of SHIELD heading into this episode, I wrote up a handy guide here. But seriously, SPOILERS start after this Hydra logo.
Hydra really is everywhere. They’ve even taken over the SHIELD Academy, which I lovingly refer to as SHIELDwarts. I’m hoping we get a special Red Dawn-esque webisode of the loyal SHIELDwarts students and staff standing off against the Hydra students and staff.
Before the real traitor was revealed, I was convinced it would be Triplett (aka Ward 2.0). I thought his flirting with Simmons might have been a ploy for getting info on her research into the drug that helped resurrect Coulson. Plus, he’s the agent we knew the least about. When he took out his knife and flashed it at Simmons, I was completely fooled. But Ward 2.0 is on the up and up, or so it seems. I hope he’s not a traitor. After this episode, he seems pretty cool.
I also liked Victoria Hand’s reverse psychology for trying to figure out if Triplett and Simmons were Hydra agents. Besides being a nice swerve about Hand’s allegiance, it was a great, tension filled stand-off and cool action sequence.
Now, onto the real traitor…
WARD!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO! On the one hand, I can’t believe that Ward is Hydra. On the other hand, I have to hand it to the writers of Agents of SHIELD, and Brett Dalton (who plays Grant Ward) for making me care about Ward. After watching the pilot, he was my least favorite character on the show. I felt that way for a few episodes, but then slowly started caring about him. It got to the point, where as of last week, I didn’t want any of Coulson’s crew to be a traitor. But man, now I’m totally back to hating Ward.
Marvel.com has a really good interview with Brett Dalton about Ward’s turn to the dark side.
BILL PAXTON!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Paxton is just so cool as Agent Garrett. But now…he’s not only a traitor, HE’S THE ACTUAL CLAIRVOYANT! WTF?!? Paxton’s been pulling the strings all along! You know what, Paxton? It’s stuff like this that makes everyone like Bill Pullman more than they like you!
You know who would never betray SHIELD?
President Thomas. J. Whitmore, that’s who.
I’m really interested to see where Agents of SHIELD goes from here. Ward revealed his true allegiance mid-air, so his betrayal won’t be immediately known to his team. Other than Agent Garrett, there were other people on that flight who Coulson might think freed Garrett. Or maybe Coulson’s team will think Garrett’s plane was rerouted remotely, the way The Bus was last episode. They might think they’re headed on a rescue and recovery mission, only to find themselves trapped in a den of vipers…or Hydras as the case may be.
Marvel is releasing a series of limited edition prints called “The Art of Level 7.” The different prints will each be based on an episode of Agents of SHIELD between now and the end of the season, and each one will be released a few days before that episode’s air date. If you’re interested in purchasing the prints, you can find them here: Art of Level 7. The first in the series, pictured above, was for this week’s episode, with art by Mike Del Mundo. I love this image. It’s very Steranko.
Looking at this print, I feel like I should have noticed a rather major clue into the identity of The Clairvoyant based on who is listed in this in the description for the print: Agent Phil Coulson, Agent Melinda May, Skye, Agent Grant Ward, Agent Jemma Simmons, Agent Leo Fitz, Agent Antoine Triplett. Who’s missing? That’s right? Bill Paxton’s Agent Garrett. Then again, so is Victoria Hand. And that traitor, Ward, did make it on the print, so maybe it’s not the best clue after all…
Marvel has also put on sale the print for next week’s episode, Providence, with art by Paolo Rivera.
Such a cool image. I’m tempted to buy it.
Both Samuel L. Jackson and Colbie Smulders are confirmed for upcoming Agents of SHIELD episodes. It will be great to have a face to face confrontation between Fury and Coulson regarding Coulson’s death and resurrection. It will be interesting to see where in the timeline of the Winter Soldier movie these episodes take place. Will Hill already be at Stark when she sees Coulson again? Or will it be before SHIELD’s official disbandment? I like the idea of SHIELD shrinking in size and going deep cover, if that’s an option going forward.
I’m catching up…watched S1E17 “Turn, Turn, Turn” a few days ago…two months after seeing Captain America 2: Winter Soldier…and I am still trying to wrap my mind around Garrett being the Clairvoyant. I’m looking for an article or blog that talks about him more. (I feel the need to rewatch older episodes. How on earth could he have known all that “The Clairvoyant” knew earlier in the season??) Anyhow…great recap. I’m going to watch S1E18 “Providence” and S1E19 “Only Light In The Darkness” later tonight. Thanks for writing about it!
When Garrett was first revealed as the Clairvoyant, I had a similar issue of trying to wrap my head around how he could possibly know the things that the Clairvoyant did. I think they do a good job of explaining Garrett as the Clairvoyant, if not in this episode then in one of the follow-ups. It’s a quick scene, but the gist of it is that Garrett doesn’t have any psychic powers, but he does have an excellent intelligence network. After watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier and seeing just how deep Hydra had infected all levels of government, I can see how Garrett could use Hydra’s intelligence network to fuel building this guise of an omniscient psychic.
Oh–and thanks for sharing the info about those prints! Those are awesome.