April 17, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Agents of SHIELD – S1E18 – Providence – Recap

It was interesting watching this episode to see how much posturing SHIELD agent turned traitor Grant Ward was doing. Was this just overacting on Brett Dalton’s part? Is Ward really as callous as he was acting here? Or is Ward overdoing it in front of Hydra on purpose, in order to sell his betrayal of SHIELD to them when he’s actually playing Hydra?

Part of me wants Ward’s betrayal to be a long con to infiltrate Centipede and Hydra set up by Coulson and Victoria Hand that would make Danny Ocean proud. But I just can’t figure out a way that makes logical sense for that to be the case.

Here’s why I think Ward might still be on the side of the angels. Rewatching last week’s episode, Turn, Turn, Turn, I noticed that Ward shoots Hand in the gut on his first shot. His second and third shots into her are while she’s on the ground off-camera. Could these have been non-fatal shots too? That, combined with how over the top he was trying to prove himself as not a nice guy this week, made me think that maybe he’s still SHIELD.

My Ward still being a good guy theory is completely blown apart by a few things. One, I’m pretty sure that before he shoots Victoria Hand, he shoots the two other agents of SHIELD on the plane in the face. And once inside the Fridge, Ward goes out of his way to unearth the hidden gravitonium, which even Garrett didn’t know was there.

It was interesting listening to Ward explain how deliberately he conned everyone. Pretty much everything he did this season he claims was to further infiltrate SHIELD and keep suspicion off himself, going back to his recruitment by Coulson. Even his sexual relationship with May was a way to keep May, who his considered the most dangerous member of the team (with good reason), from suspicious of him. Ward told people what they wanted to hear from him, whether they realized that’s what they wanted to hear or not. Clearly, thinking of Ward as just the guns and muscle of Coulson’s crew has been a mistake. He’s a serpent. And to drive it home, he even carries a new expression on his face now that he’s a villain.

Evil Ward, complete with bad guy scar.

The other most interesting part of this week’s episode for me was seeing Raina’s reaction to meeting The Clairvoyant and finding out that he wasn’t the mystic she thought he was. Garrett seemed to revel in having tricked her. Ward too. There was just something so classic movie villain about the way Garrett and Ward acted this episode that it slightly irked me. I half expected them to say “Mwa-ha-ha” after each of their lines.

agents of shield all the bad guys providence

Garrett gets the whole gang back together. This is the SHIELD equivalent of the Iron Sheikh, Nicholai Volkoff and Ted Dibiase teaming up.

I really liked seeing Patton Oswalt as Agent Eric Koenig, the head of Fury’s secret base, in this episode. As he was giving the tour of his very isolated base, I couldn’t help but think that he was the Desmond of Agents of SHIELD. I kind of wish his first scene showed him working out to the sweet sounds of Mama Cass’s “Make Your Kind of Music.”

“Lanyards for everyone!”

The past few episodes of Agents of SHIELD have been great. I’m really enjoying this series, and really like how the creators of the show intertwined it with the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I can’t wait to see how this season turns out, especially now that Ward is reunited with Coulson’s team, and they have no idea who they’re dealing with.

April 11, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Agents of SHIELD – S1E17 – Turn, Turn, Turn – Recap

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.

April 8, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Winter Soldier & Agents of SHIELD

MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. If you haven’t seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet, see it first and come back. And if you’re an Agents of SHIELD fan, make sure you watch Winter Soldier BEFORE you watch the tonight’s episode! But if you don’t plan on watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier before tonight’s episode, this post should catch you up with everything you need to know.

I feel more than it affects any of the other Marvel movies, Captain America: The Winter Soldier dramatically affects the Agents of SHIELD TV show. In the most recent episode of Agents of SHIELD, Coulson figures out that the villain The Clairvoyant is a SHIELD agent or has SHIELD agents in his employ. In Winter Soldier, it’s revealed that SHIELD is even more deeply compromised than Coulson suspected. Hydra has secretly taken over huge parts of SHIELD (and the government) from the top down, including the senator played by Garry Shandling in Iron Man 2 and long time SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell!

The Doctor and Rose reenact the pivotal scene between Senator Stern and Jasper Sitwell from Captain America: Winter Soldier.

Sitwell appeared briefly onscreen in Thor and Avengers, but has seen the majority of his screen time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the Agents of SHIELD TV series, including in last week’s episode, where he was still thought to be a loyal SHIELD agent. The revelation that Sitwell is in fact an agent of Hydra is a huge bombshell. Before Winter Soldier, there was no reason to think Sitwell was a traitor. Now, unless he’s revealed to be a triple-agent, Sitwell will be remembered as a traitor. I doubt he survived being thrown into oncoming traffic by the Winter Soldier on a busy DC highway. That said, he may be in part of tonight’s episode, as he was still alive in last week’s episode, and we don’t know yet how much of tonight’s episode takes before or during the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier.

We also don’t know how much of last week’s episode took place during or after Winter Soldier. Remember how hard a time Coulson was having trying to get in touch with Nick Fury last week? Could the reason for Coulson’s difficulty be the assassination attempt on Fury’s life in Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Coulson’s crew has been isolated and on their own recently. Unless they hear something from Victoria Hand or Agent Garrett (Bill Paxton), there’s a good chance they won’t hear it. And it was revealed last week that Hand has her own agenda counter to Coulson.

Could The Clarivoyant from Agents of SHIELD be part of Hydra? The tagline “Everything is Connected” that ABC has been running in their advertising for Agents of SHIELD certainly makes it seem so. In the most recent episode of SHIELD, Coulson deduces that the Clairvoyant isn’t actually a psychic, but it rather someone with deep access to information, who uses that information to predict the future.

Could the Clarvoyant be the now computerized Arnim Zola? It fits, as Zola was using everything from Facebook and Gmail to predict how people would act and who needed to be taken out. The main thorn in this theory is that I feel we’ve seen the Clairvoyant in silhouette already, unless that was just the man in the wheelchair who Ward killed in last week’s episode.

I’m guessing that one of Coulson’s team will be revealed as a Hydra agent. But I can’t think who I would want that traitor to be. I’ve grown to like every member of Coulson’s crew this season and will be devastated if any of them are traitors. Right now, I’m hoping it ends up being Garrett or Triplett if it has to be anyone. I do not think Agent May is a Hydra agent. I think her suspicious behavior is a red herring and that her secret phone line is a direct connection to Fury. And I don’t know what to make of Hand. Is she a Hydra agent? Or is she operating her own agenda?

Tonight’s episode of Agents of SHIELD is going to be huge! Do not miss this episode!

April 8, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Review

When it was announced that the follow up to Captain America: The First Avenger would be Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the comic book fanboy in me was beyond excited. The Winter Soldier is one of my favorite characters of the last 10 years, and as long as Marvel Studios didn’t drop the ball, this had the making of an awesome movie. They didn’t drop the ball. Captain America: The Winter Soldier rocks.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the Captain America movie we deserve. Captain America: The First Avenger was decent, but I would put it at the bottom of the list of Marvel Studios’s movies thus far. Winter Soldier, on the other hand, rockets to the top, with maybe Iron Man 1 and Avengers ahead of it.

I’m a huge fan of Ed Brubaker’s decade long run on Captain America. It was in this run that Brubaker debuted the mysterious Winter Soldier, whose identity remained hidden for awhile. Comic book fans are aware of the revolving door between death and resurrection among heroes and villains. Remember when Superman died, only to came back less than a year later? But there were two characters who seemed to be the exceptions to the revolving door rule: Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben and Captain America’s partner Bucky. Not only did Brubaker bring back Bucky, in the form of new Cap villain Winter Soldier, but he did it in a masterful story that seemed 100% plausible ( in a world inhabited by mutants and gods).

The movie is handled perfectly. Besides superhero fans, I’d recommend Captain America: The Winter Soldier to anyone who loves thrillers, espionage and movies like The Bourne Identity and Taken.

The opening hostage scene seemed to echo the opening of the PS2 video game Metal Gear Solid 2. The way Cap sneaks onto the boat, the ways he silently takes out the terrorists, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching what could have been the opening of Metal Gear Solid: The Movie. And I loved it. I like that this movie from the start was more Bourne and Bond and less Superman and Thor.

The action scenes in Winter Soldier were fantastic all around. I really felt like I was on the edge of my seat as I watched the movie, or at least as close to being on the edge of your seat you can be in one of big recliners at the AMC on 86th and Broadway. The fight between Winter Soldier and Cap on the Helicarrier seemed reminiscent of Cap’s scenes on the mothership in The Avengers, but it didn’t seem repetitive at all. That’s a nice balance to strike.

I thought Marvel did a great job with keeping the identity of the Winter Soldier a mystery leading up to the debut of this movie. Yes, if you read the comic books, you knew it was Bucky, but for anyone new to the story, Marvel did a good job of keeping the cat inside the bag.

The big stand out in the movie for me is Anthony Mackie as The Falcon. Mackie is just perfect in this role. He makes The Falcon so likable and cool that I hope we see Falcon in Avengers: Age of Ultron and don’t have to wait for Captain America 3 for his return.

If you saw the movie, hopefully you stayed for both end credits scenes. How many Marvel movies have to come out before everyone realizes that you do not get up until the very end of the credits? I’ve already talked to a few people who missed one or both of the end credits scenes. Stay in your seats!

The first end credits scene involved Baron Von Strucker, a compatriot of the Red Skull. The two twins he has imprisoned are Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Flash Fact: They’re Magneto’s kids. Though you probably won’t hear that mentioned in any Marvel Studios movie until the X-Men franchise rights return to Marvel. In the comics, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch started out as X-Men villains, but reformed and became early members of the Avengers. Because of this, they’re in the interesting place of being used by both Marvel Studios for their Avengers franchise and Fox for their X-Men franchise. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch will both appear in the upcoming X-Men: Days of Futures Past, but played by different actors than they’re played by in Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Also in that scene, Baron Von Strucker is in possession of Loki’s staff, which is powered by a glowing blue ball of energy. Like the Tesseract and the Aether, I believe this ball of energy is another of Marvel’s Infinity Gems. I’m guessing this one is the Mind Gem, since Loki used that staff to control people’s minds in Avengers. In the excellent comic book series, Infinity Gauntlet, villan Thanos (purple dude from the end of The Avengers movie) gathers the 6 Infinity Gems and gains power over pretty much everything. I think Avengers 3 will be based on Infinity Gauntlet. You should give it a read. It’s a great series.

In the second scene after the credits, Bucky is reading about himself at the Captain America Smithsonian exhibit. I’m already excited for Captain America 3, and more Cap/Black Widow/Agent 13/Falcon action. I’m guessing the four of them will team up to track down Bucky and rehabilitate him, with Crossbones and someone else as the big bad guys.

More Comic Book Connections:

Brock Rumlow, played by Frank Grillo, is the Hydra agent in charge of taking down Captain America. At the end of the movie, he’s recovered from the Helicarrier crash, badly burned and barely alive, and put into the back of an ambulance. Brock Rumlow is the alter ego of longtime Captain America villain Crossbones. In the comics, Crossbones was the Red Skull’s right hand man and later was involved with the Skull’s daughter, Sin. I expect we’ll see Grillo return as Crossbones in Captain America 3.

Agent 13, played by Emily VanCamp, is a huge part of Captain America’s life. She’s been his partner in the field and his lover. She is Captain America’s Lois Lane; if he ends up with one woman, you can expect it to be her. She’s also the grandniece of Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers’s best gal from the 1940s, the old woman Stever Rogers visits in the hospital in Captain America: Winter Soldier.

Sam Wilson/Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie, is another huge part of Captain America’s life. Falcon even shared the title on the cover of Captain America’s comic in the 1970s, when it was rebranded Captain America and the Falcon. Like many of the heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Falcon in this movie derives his costume and origin more from Falcon in The Ultimates than from the main Marvel Universe.

Overall, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the best, if the not the best, movies to come out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and one of the best superhero movies of all time. I cannot recommend seeing this movie enough.

For more on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, be sure to listen to this week’s episode of the Tuesday Night Comics podcast, where Dave and I discuss the movie in depth.

April 8, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Comics Podcast Episode 14 – New Comics, DC Deities, and Winter Soldier

Episode #14 of the Tuesday Night Comics podcast is packed!

First, Billy and Dave preview new comics being released on Wednesday, April 9, 2014. Then Dave and Billy review last week’s books, including Copra #13, She-Hulk #3, Detective Comics #30, Earth 2 # 22, Aquaman & The Others #1 and Stormwatch #30. Dave then explains deities and dimensions in the DC New 52.

To end the show, Billy and Dave go in-depth on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and its effects on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD!

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April 4, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Agents of SHIELD – S1E16 – The End of the Beginning – Recap

Big episode this week as Coulson and his team hunt down The Clairvoyant!

Bill ~~Pullman~~ Paxton and Ward 2.0 return at the very start of the episode. They’re checking into a hotel and are ambushed by Deathlok. Deathlok shrugs off gunfire and electric shots. Garrett and Ward 2.0 are quickly overpowered by Deathlok and it looks like this is the end for them. Until Deathlok decides to jump through the room’s ceiling and flee instead of taking them out. Okay, that was weird.

OG Ward and Ward 2.0

Coulson’s crew hooks up with Paxton and Ward 2.0. They’ve narrowed down The Clairvoyant’s ID to three likely suspects. In order to not get the mission compromised by a potential leak, Skye randomly assigns the agents into three teams of two, one agent knowing where they’re going and the other knowing who they’re going after.

May and Blake (The Good Wife’s Titus Welliver) seemingly strike pay dirt attempting to question a catatonic guy in a nursing home. They never reach him, but Deathlok ambushes them, sending Blake to the hospital, but suspiciously not harming May, despite having the drop on her. I don’t know if this was an intentional piece of fan service or not, but Blake asks May if she’s a Scorpio, joking that he guessed they were paired up by their astrological signs. In the comics, Scorpio is the name of a classic SHIELD villain. The original Scorpio was Nick Fury’s brother, Jacob. I wonder if we’ll be seeing Scorpio, either as an individual or as a new villainous group, in Agents of SHIELD. Or maybe this Scorpio line was just a red herring.

Scorpio

The team manages to find a warehouse where they believe the not-quite-comatose dude is hiding out. Garrett leads the charge with one of the best lines of the episode. Ward (1.0) asks him if he’s going to ring the bell or knock. Garrett says he’s going to knock and then blows the door open with a grenade launcher. F-yeah, Bill Paxton!

Skye is monitoring things remotely and spots Deathlok on a camera. I really do not like the way Michael Peterson looks as Deathlok on the show. It’s just a little too boring of a costume right now. I want the classic Luther Manning look with the half-metal head. Those who fall into the same boat as me were given a nice piece of fan service this week when Skye scanned Deathlok, revealing the classic Deathlok look hiding just under skin deep. I hope something happens to Peterson to expose this half-metal head permanently soon.

Garrett, Ward, May and Coulson find The Clairvoyant, who is revealed to be a Stephen Hawking type guy trapped in a wheelchair who communicates through his computer. The robotic voice of The Clairvoyant’s computer mocks Coulson and threatens to kill Skye. Ward snaps and shoots the The Clairvoyant in the heart, killing him. My immediate thought: “This isn’t the real Clairvoyant.” Coulson comes to the same conclusion, noting that The Clairvoyant never actually spoke, his words always coming from the computer. Someone else could have been saying those words and this now dead psuedo-Clairvoyant could have really just been a catatonic patsy.

Coulson comes to the conclusion that The Clairvoyant isn’t psychic, but rather has high-level SHIELD clearance. They’re being taken down from the inside!

Back on the Bus, Coulson interrogates Ward, questioning if Ward shot the man in the wheelchair on his own accord, or if Ward was taking orders from someone else.

While Coulson is interogating Ward, Fitz finds out that May has a private communications line in her cockpit that she’s not supposed to have. From Fitz’s explanation, it sounds like a two-way line that only communicates with one other. Fitz disables it, and it then hunted by a very determined May. In what was the scariest part of the episode for me, May fires at Fitz. Thankfully, he was standing behind bulletproof glass. But knowing Joss Whedon, I really thought Fitz might not have made it out of this episode. Thankfully, Fitz is saved by Coulson who points a gun at May. May explains her gun was loaded with Fitz’s stun bullets. Coulson says his are real. Skye enters with a gun drawn on May, saying May can’t take them both out. May surrenders. As she surrenders, the Bus changes course mid-air. Coulson demands to know what May did to their plane. May claims she did nothing. A cut away from this scene reveals the plane to be in control of Victoria Hand, who sounds ready to take out Coulson and his entire team once the Bus lands.

Takeaways:

Is May working for The Clairvoyant? My theory is no.

Who is on the other end of May’s phone? I think it’s Nick Fury.

Is Victoria Hand The Clairvoyant? She might be. Or maybe she’s The Clairvoyant’s right hand woman.

March 17, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Agents of SHIELD – S1E15 – Yes Men – Recap

Thor: The Dark World once again crosses over with the TV show Agents of SHIELD this week. Like, The Well, Yes Men also deals with the aftermath of Thor: The Dark World. While Lorelei was not in Thor 2, it’s revealed in this episode that she was freed from her Asgardian prison during Malekith’s assault on Asgard. Unlike The Well, sadly, there’s no Dr. Janoch Pohaa. But we do get Lady Sif in this episode! Can we please have a Zachary Levi as Fandral appearance next?

It’s a battle of the sexes this episode as Lorelei as every male character in this episode with the exception of Coulson falls under Lorelei’s spell. Coulson not being under Lorelei’s command leads to my favorite scene in the episode. A spellbound Fitz locks Skye and Simmons in Skye’s recovery room. Coulson plays along with Fitz’s love of Lorelei (lorelove?) just long enough to deck Fitz unconscious.

Ward and May’s sexual relationship ends soon after Lorelei reveals to May that Ward has deep feelings for someone on the team…and it isn’t May. Once Ward is free of Lorelei’s spell, May dumps him. The writing was on the wall for this in the “Previously on Agents of SHIELD” opening sequence. Why include the clip of May telling Coulson that she had no problem dumping Ward unless it was going to happen in this episode? All in all, it’s an up and down day for Ward. On the one hand, he was dumped by May. On the other hand, he had wild sex with a god.

Questions: Can humans impregnate Norse gods? Do Norse gods even bother with protection? Norse herpes has be at least 1,000 times worse than regular herpes, right?

I liked that Lorelei picked her man-slaves in ascending order of toughness. Biker gang? Tougher than the yuppie newlywed. Ward? Tougher than a biker bang. Fitz? Yeah, I said it, tougher than Ward! I’m completely assuming Lorelei made time to have her way with Fitz off screen before Coulson happened upon a spellbound Fitz. You go, Fitz. Get yo’ Asgard on.

Parting thought: Never bring a gun to a god fight.

The episode ends with Coulson apologizing to Skye for her being injected with alien blood on his orders, but Skye brushes it aside because, you know, it did save her life. Coulson then wants to team up with Skye to confront whomever was responsible for Tahiti. I really wanted Coulson to hold his hand up, Skye grip it and they rev Lola out the back of the bus midair Thelma and Louise style. It’s cool, the car flies.

March 11, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Agents of SHIELD – S1E14 – Tahiti – Recap

It’s been almost a month since we had a new episode, but Agents of SHIELD is finally back! The last episode ended with the team in disarray. Skye’s been shot and is comatose in critical condition. And after finding out the truth about his resurrection, Coulson doesn’t know who he can trust.

At the start of Tahiti, Coulson’s crew is airborne, desperately trying to find somewhere they can bring Skye. Coulson instructs the team to bring him to the SHIELD facility that treated him after the battle of New York. One problem: that SHIELD facility doesn’t exist and the main doctor who operated on Coulson seems to have disappeared. Coulson tries getting Fury on the line, which sadly does not lead to Samuel L. Jackson making a cameo.

Fitz, being awesome, figures out what the secret facility actually is, and in an audience-disbelief defying maneuver, manages to figure out that the 3D file he’s looking at isn’t actually encrypted, but rather an inside-out topographical map. In Fitz’s defense, this scene looked awesome, especially when the 3D map dissolved into the real mountain on screen.

A hamper in Coulson’s plan to save Skye occurs when the bus is boarded by Ward’s old SO, Agent John Garrett (Bill Paxton!!), and Garrett’s new Ward, whose name I forget, so I’m calling him Ward 2.0. Ward 2.0 has a thing for Simmons. Can’t blame him. Garrett and Ward 2.0 want Ian Quinn. Quinn was responsible for some of Garrett’s team dying and Garrett wants him for questioning. I was super-convinced during this episode that Garrett and Ward 2.0 were going to be double agents working to free Quinn. I kept waiting for them to turn on Coulson’s team. And it never happened. Sorry for not trusting you more, Mr. Paxton.

We’re given a question along with some answers in regards to Coulson’s resurrection. It’s not Tahiti. It’s T.A.H.I.T.I. What’s T.A.H.I.T.I. stand for? No clue. But we do find out what’s in this week’s McGuffin, the mysterious drug that was used during Coulson’s operation that could also save Skye. It’s alien blood. As least I hope it’s alien blood. The alien on ice that it’s coming from in T.A.H.I.T.I. is bisected at the waist. I hope that tube isn’t coming from its small intestine. “Here, Skye, take this alien juice. What is it? It’s not alien diarrhea. We promise you that. Definitely not alien diarrhea! Okay, we’ll be going now.” Coulson possibly had the same thought, because a very shaken Coulson is screaming for the team not to inject Skye…only it was too late. Skye’s got alien juice in her…and she’s saved! For now. I’m not saying she’s going to go all Jeff Goldblum in The Fly after that injection, but there’s got to be at least one unintended consequence that comes from it, right?

The final scene leads directly into next week’s episode. A red-headed Asgardian arrives by way of the bi-frost in Death Valley. She quickly hypnotizes a newlywed dude to ditch his wife and drive her away. I immediately thought we were seeing the Marvel Cinematic Universe debut of the Enchantress! But then she says her name…Lorelei, aka the Enchantress’s lesser known sister. We’ll get more Asgardian fun next week, as Sif arrives on the scene to take down Lorelei.

Comic Book Tie-Ins

John Garrett is an Agent of SHIELD that made his first appearance in the hit 1980s miniseries, Elektra: Assassin. I wish they let him keep his bitchin’ mustache on the show.

Lorelei can be easily confused with her more popular sister, Amora The Enchantress. Both are Norse gods with the power to bend men’s will to their whims. Lorelei first appeared during Walt Simonson’s run of Thor, in Thor #382. As a side note, Walt Simonson’s Thor run also saw the debut of Malekith, the main bad guy in Thor: The Dark World.

February 10, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Agents of SHIELD S1E13 – T.R.A.C.K.S. – Recap

Agents of SHIELD Episode 13, T.R.A.C.K.S., has Coulson’s entire team going undercover on a train travelling through the Italian countryside in order to intercept a package on its way to Ian Quinn.

This episode uses a fun storytelling device. The episode goes along linearly until a certain point, then it divides into four non-linear stories before becoming linear at the end. The four stories are set around the four teams of SHIELD agents on the train: 1. Coulson & Simmons, 2. May, 3. Fitz & Skye, and 4. Ward. Each story starts at the same place, just as the train is passing through a scenic mountain range, which coincides with the moment when Coulson’s plan goes to crap.

Stan Lee makes a great cameo. He’s flanked by two hot women and calls Coulson out for being a terrible “father” after hearing his “daughter” Simmons go on a long and detailed rant as part of her getting into her undercover character. Like many of Stan’s scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this scene provides the episode with a bit of lighthearted fun.

Coulson’s team gets made, forcing Coulson and Ward to exit the train promptly while it’s still in motion. An enemy agent hurls a grenade that lets out a blue gas that seems to do nothing to Coulson and Ward, but the train immediately disappears at the same time. As we find out in May’s scene, the grenade paralyzed Coulson and Ward, and they weren’t even aware that any time had passed when they came to. This time-lapse grenade is what necessitated the non-linear story-telling in the episode, as it kept the nature of the blue smoke a mystery from not only the characters, but the viewers too.

The McGuffin that Coulson and company are after turns out to be a machine that when attached to Michael Peterson’s leg-stump transforms into a fully functional robotic leg. Ladies and gentlemen…say hello to Deathlok.

For those of you unfamiliar with the character, Deathlok is a cybernetic soldier that is half man-half machine. The original Deathlok came from a dystopian future, but in the 1990s, Marvel introduced a present day Deathlok. This Deathlok was a man that had his brain put into the body of prototype Deathlok soldier, which was half-machine, half-reanimated corpse. Think Cyborg from Teen Titans: Go meet Warm Bodies. The machine and human parts of Deathlok’s brain often came into conflict with each other, the machine lacking the soul and emotion of the human part. Deathlok was recently reintroduced to Marvel Comics in Rick Remender’s excellent Uncanny X-Force.

The original Deathlok.

This episode does not go well for Skye. She is the only member of Coulson’s team who manages to infiltrate Quinn’s mansion. She’s rewarded with a bullet to the gut for her effort. By the time the rest of the team finds her, she’s bled out a lot. The team places her in a stasis chamber to keep her alive, so Skye is basically in a coma right now. This is the most danger a member of Coulson’s team has faced since Simmons almost died in F.Z.Z.T. I wasn’t a fan of Skye during the first couple of episodes, but she has definitely grown on me. I don’t expect her to die, and it would be a real bummer if she did.

At the very end of the episode, we get Ward’s reaction to Skye’s near-death experience. Ward is pissed, and not at himself. He blames someone else. He doesn’t say who, but he doesn’t have to. It’s fairly clear that Coulson is the target of his rage. Expect things to come to a head between Ward and Coulson soon.

January 20, 2014 by Billy Henehan

Agents of SHIELD – S1E12 – “Seeds” – Recap

Last week was Coulson’s turn to find out the truth. This week was Skye’s. While Ward, Skye and FitzSimmons take a trip to SHIELD’s Science Academy, Coulson and May hopped in Lola to track down a major lead regarding Skye’s past. After a fun chase sequence through some South American streets and alleyways that culminates with Coulson levitating in Lola to come face to face with the former agent, who is trying to escape up a fire escape.

Like a good Joss Whedon reveal, the answers this former agent provided about Skye’s origin bring up more questions. This agent’s team was sent to a small Chinese village about 20 years ago to investigate an 0-8-4, which you may remember from episode 2 as being an object of mysterious origin. The 0-8-4 in this mission turns out to be baby Skye. Everyone in the village died to protect her. She’s the lone survivor when SHIELD arrives. Things get weirder as every member of that SHIELD team is slowly picked off one at a time over the years. SHIELD shuffles Skye from foster family to foster family in order to protect her. Once May and Coulson hear this story, May advises Coulson that they keep this information from Skye.

Coulson initially agrees with May, but ends up telling Skye the truth when they reconvene with her and the rest of Coulson’s team. Telling Skye the truth is no doubt a direct result of Coulson finding out very recently that he’s been lied to by his superiors, people whom he trusted. I think that if Coulson heard this story before “The Magical Place,” he would not have told Skye. Pre-“Magical Place” Coulson was much more by the book than post-“Magical Place” Coulson.

Keeping with the theme of truth telling, May tells Coulson that’s she been having sex with Ward. She actually tells him twice, as Coulson didn’t even react the first time May told him. But as it turns out, he heard her the first time, and trusts her to know what she’s doing and be professional. Phil Coulson: Manager of the Year.

Cutting over to the other story, we’re introduced to the SHIELD Science Institute, aka SHIELD Hogwarts. Replace the wands with soldering irons and magical tomes with C++ programming guides and you have the SHIELD Science Institute. I’ve said before that FitzSimmons are the Ron and Hermione of SHIELD and this trip to their alma mater helped drive the point home. FitzSimmons are the youngest graduates of SHIELDwarts, but this new kid, Donnie (no, not that New Kid Donnie) might graduate even earlier. He’s wicked smart, but a bit of an introvert.

The mystery of the week is the agents trying to find out who is trying to knock off students with a freeze bomb. The special effects used for this freezing looked awesome, it should be noted. The special effects in these last two episodes have been top notch all-around.

Like a good Scooby Doo mystery, the two victims were actually the people behind it. And they would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling ~~kids~~ FitzSimmons! Donnie and buddy, motivated by greed, test drive a giant version of the freeze bomb, that basically drops a super storm on top of SHIELDwarts.

Marvel Trivia: Donald “Donnie” Gill is the name of Iron Man ice-villain, Blizzard. This episode marks this comic book character’s first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Blizzard.

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Tag Archives: Agents of SHIELD

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