Agents of SHIELD s2e1 Shadows
Spoiled on account of very longness of a recap.
After a brief recap of events and a preview of Agent Carter...
AoS picks up some time after the close of season one. SHIELD as an organization is still reeling from the aftermath of the events that took place during the Winter Soldier. Agent Coulson is now Director Coulson. His team rarely sees him anymore because when he's not holed up in his office he's flying coach around the country|world recruiting the best people (who aren't really good enough) he can find.
Thankfully the Coulson 4 aren't the only team trying to keep tabs on the nefarious ne'er do wells (mostly HYDRA) around the world. Agent Xena and her team of mercinaries are trying to buy up and ferret out both HYDRA agents and former SHIELD people who are trying to cash in on any and all secrets that ran off when things went to shizzle.
In a clandestine meeting that ties in with the preview opener, Xena and her team run into a big ol' problem: A bullet proof man who walks in and runs off with a picture of the macguffin. Team Mercinary is saved by the Coulson 4. After returning to HQ, the teams' debriefing is full of back biting and mistrust.
May and Coulson have a meeting of the minds. He talks about how tedious and time consuming being Director is and she complains about not getting to talk to him much. The funny-not-funny subtext for me was May is still operating on Fury's secret directives for her joining Team Coulson - how she was on the team to keep an eye on Coulson's sanity. Something she can't do because she's out on missions as ordered by the new Director of SHIELD. Just one of a few weird moments.
Oh, the macguffin of this week? It's an 084, an item of unknown origin. But it's not just any 084, it's the first 084. According to secret Fury files the only thing anyone knows about it is that it does a really good job of killing people.
Bulletproof guy from the secret buy gets into the back of a delivery truck. He connects with his HYDRA handler. Bad Guy is given a reward - some fancy diamond-like gem, very rare. "He believes," HYDRA says "that you'll find the structure quite... pleasurable." Bulletproof guy takes the gem in hand and then turns his hand into a gem-like structure. (Cue Marvel knowers pointing at the TV and gibbering excitedly.)
Commercial break
When we get back from commercials, Xena and Team Merc are enjoying some break time and witty banter when May tells them Coulson wants to see them. They act surprised because, as was stated earlier, Coulson doesn't see people. Or at least not very often. There's a nice casual joke where one guy says to another "Don't look [Coulson] in the eye when you get up there. He doesn't like that." You know, shorthand for we might be killers for hire but we also have a sense of humor.
May then confirms that Skye took a piece of [something] that was recovered from the encounter with Bulletproof Guy to the lab. "Yeah," Skye sighs "but I don't know what it will get us." Prompting May to ask how the mood is down there, and really there are no good answers for us.
Down there in the lab, Simmons is encouraging Fitz to continue his tests on the [something] that was recovered. Fitz's brain, if you don't remember, was deprived of oxygen for longer than a brain should be deprived of oxygen when last we saw him. Though he is ambulatory and has almost all of his faculties, he's not all there. It looks like he's able to do all the science things but he has trouble talking about all the science things.
In the meeting between Coulson and Team Merc, they're talking about Bulletproof Guy as well as their motivation for being a SHIELD team. Since they're mercinaries (except for Agent Xena), obviously they're talking about money. May interrupts the brain trust with news about Bulletproof Guy. Turns out his real name is Carl Creel, a former boxer who went by the name of "The Crusher." Oh, and he was supposed to be dead. The person who had crossed Creel's name of the Index? John Garret. (Also: More Marvel fans squeeing because ABSORBING MAN.)
Skye and Triplett are trying to figure out what the deal is with the other Agent Koenig. How many brothers can one man have anyway? And we're also given some tease about the glyphs from last season, which is to say, we're not given any information at all. Skye was tasked with figuring out what they are and not only is she stumped but so is google. Coulson interrupts their reverie with a new task for Skye: She gets to ask Woodbored what he knows. Because, as Coulson says, she's the only one who can.
Down in the depths of new SHIELD HQ, Vault D houses the dangerous but still mystifyingly useful liar and murderer. Because Agents of SHIELD is a tech-tech show, of course he's not imprisoned in a regular jail cell - because he might use it to kill himself. (Ward tried to use a metal button from his prison uniform to slash at his wrists. He's also tried running at the wall.) And I guess building a Lecter-like plexiglass cell was too expensive - (even though you'll see one later in this very episode). He's caged on three sides by regular walls, the fourth wall is an "inertial confinement laser construct" to keep him in place. The actual interrogation between Skye and Ward is as dull as you can imagine, even though Dalton's creepy Ward impersonation is the best thing he's allowed to do. He promises to always tell the truth and she is having none of his nonsense. The interview closes before Woodbored gets to tempt Skye with what he knows about Skye's father. (JUST. ALL OF MY VOMITS, OKAY.)
Woodbored does tell Team Coulson that HYDRA could be communicating by using "white noise between the quantum blah blah between the tech-tech," because that's how they were doing it when SHIELD was still running. As it turns out HYDRA as an beauracratic entity is just as bad as any other government or corporation what with their lack security protocols and everything. They're still using that method to inform and direct their operatives around the world. A quick signal ping also reveals that there are a lot of HYDRA in the world that SHIELD has to shut down. Like. A lot.
Cut to: General Talbot in Washington DC. He's walking around with his fambly when Triplett a complete stranger accidentally bumps into him. Hint: It wasn't an accident. A moment later Talbot's phone is ringing. (Hint: It isn't his phone, rather it's the one Triplett a complete stranger just dropped into his pocket.) Coulson calls to warn Talbot that his life and possibly his family's life is in danger. Talbot doesn't take this news very well. And since he's the Head Guy in Charge of hunting down SHIELD and HYDRA (which in his mind is the same thing) he hangs up on Coulson and calls in his own squad of highly trained and well armed soldiers.
It only takes seconds for them to arrive, but before they do Talbot is under attack from ABSORBING MAN. Talbot takes a few swings at him, but he gets knocked down and then May comes flying in with a well timed kick. Before ABSORBING MAN can build up any momentum Skye is on the spot with a shotgun fired taser. Carl Creel goes down. Slowly. But he goes down. May and Skye take advantage of the chaos to run off. General Talbot orders someone to "SECURE THAT BASTARD," before being escorted from the scene (by two cleverly disguised SHIELD agents).
The USAF takes Absorbing Man into custody and is placed in a plexiglass cell. I don't know why they put him in there. There's no mention of any protocol with regards to cell type when dealing with abby-normals. No one gives any indication of being aware of his unique morphing abilities. And even knowing that, there's no reason to believe that if he could use the cement, glass, plastic or metal of a conventional cell to escape. Stay tuned as this part of the story develops.
General Talbot finds himself strapped to a chair in the special interrogation room that SHIELD loves. (A "honeycomb kill room" is what Talbot calls it. I'm keeping it.) Coulson and Talbot trade barbs with Coulson getting the better of the situation by mentioning Talbot's family in a roundabout threatening way. The SHIELD team uses some special tech-tech in the chair to scan Talbot's fingerprints.
Coulson reveals that Creel's attack on Talbot may have been a false flag. That he was just using it so that he could be captured and transported to the central facility where all things SHIELD/HYDRA and TECH-TECH from both are being stored. Talbot responds with the stereotypical USA bravado and threatens Coulson to let him go or he's going to kill him. Coulson responds by shooting Talbot...
... with a Nite-Nite of course.
There's an emotional scene between FItz and Simmons running parallel to Talbot's interview. Fitz thinks that he's the one who should be running the fingerprint analysis and some of the other things he sees Koening doing. Fitz talks about his progress since the accident, and how he only really feels whole or has any hope is when he's talking with Simmons. He thinks he's getting better but he doesn't have the confidence because he can't express himself with anyone else except her.
Talbot wakes up in a car somewhere. He immediately calls in his position using his personalized access code. So, you know what that means. The whole capture the guy and make him think he's being interrogated so you can release him and he can lead you to where you really wanted to go with all the information you need to break in. Koening is on the other end of the line promising (falsely) to do all the things that the General is demanding. (Double the detail on The prisoner and having the walls crawling with autos and dispatching a car to his location.)
Back at HQ, Team Mercinary is debating the intelligence of storming a US military installation that's crawling with soldiers whose job it is to hunt down SHIELD agents and mercinaries just to save them from some Absorbing Man (Agent Xena is the first to call him that, fyi) and recover a box of [macguffin]. Agent Xena floats the balloon that the USA isn't one of the really bad guys and Talbot is all right, she guesses, even if he's tried to kill them a couple of times. The rest of Team Merc feels about the same, but if this is what SHIELD wants to pay them to do who are they to really argue the morality of it all.
Coulson arrives to finish their briefing to tell them that this is a make or break moment for SHIELD. He's sending what he has left|available to recover [macguffin] to keep it out of the hands of the ignorant and the evil. If it succeeds, SHIELD has a better chance of being better and if it fails, it's all over but the arrests and the torture and special rooms at Gitmo for the lot of them. Oh, and he cryptically hints that [macguffin] isn't all they're trying to recover.
At the facility two guards are talking about nothing. One turns around to check on The prisoner and *gasp!* he's completely disappeared. Rather than lock the door to the room that the locked special plexicell is in and call for reinforcements or alert anyone in particular that there may be a situation, they both go investigate. Complete with opening the completely clear plexiglass cell that doesn't look tampered with in any way that might indicate an actual escape. Then and only then do we get to see the refractive outline of the Aborbing Man who just absorbed himself invisible or at least see through.
At the front gate, Trip dressed as a visting General, attempt to infiltrate using the tech-tech they lifted from Talbot. This requires Skye to hack into the facility to place "General" Trip and his entourage onto Talbot's schedule. It also requires a phone call from Coulson who uses tech-tech to sound like Talbot to give the poor Private a dressing down for just doing his job. It takes a stupid amount of time to hack and call but eventually they are allowed to pass.
At the Ordinance Depot, where the [macguffins] are kept, May uses Talbot's fingerprint scan to access the storage facility. The teams split up to look for the 084. It's Agent Xena who's lucky enough to find it but not before she blithely walks right by a human shaped section of gray wall. It's the Absorbing Man! Who somehow was able to get inside a fingerprint code locked and alarmed building who knows how many minutes after he escaped from another locked and patrolled holding facility that apparently only had a couple of guards.
Now, the smart thing to do right now is to grab the box the 084 is in tell everyone you found it and get in your vehicles and gtfo. But for some reason, Agent Xena says that she found it and then proceeds to open it. Absorbing Man makes his move but you don't get to be long-term undercover Agent Xena of SHIELD without learning some skills. She tries to cut him open but Creel has turned part of himself metal. Agent Xena decides now is a perfect time to see what this 084 can do.
Well, it starts attacking her hand. The rest of the team converge on Xena's location and Absorbing Man doesn't like his odds and figures running away is a good option. Xena can't let go of the 084 and it's steadily infecting its way up her arm. The team is divided on what they should do: Abort and seek medical aid or continue the mission. Coulson tells them to finish the job. The team splits up anyway. Team Merc takes Agent Xena and Team SHIELD does that other thing that Coulson told them to do.
Team Merc effects emergency egress post haste. They blow through the front gate without issue. No one is following them and no one really tries to stop them. (It's a really bad day for poor Private Tillman.) Agent Xena's condition worsens by the second. She says that she can feel the [macguffin] killing her. She turns to one of her mercs and tells him to cut it off of her. There's an abrupt emotional debate about the pros and cons of the decision, but he quickly aquieces.
Parallel to the Team Merc's escape, Team Coulson is in a running firefight with security forces. They're fighting their way onto the flightline. That's where we see Quinn jets parked. Because it's a bad day for US military security, Skye and Tripp succeed in absconding with one of the cloak equipped aircraft and additionally May gets to ride off on a conveniently parked motorcycle.
All while Coulson narrates and exposits. Here it's revealed that Fitz is more far gone than we've been lead to believe. See, a few months previos Gemma thought her presence at HQ wasn't helping, but in her absence Fitz's condition was only getting worse. There's a brief and heart wrenching scene of FItz talking to himself thinking she's there.
As Team Merc is making good their escape, the evil counterpart to serendipity gives them the middle finger. They just happen to be driving on the very road where Absorbing Man is walking. Absorbing Man is no dummy or has magical knowledge or something. He absorbs himself some asphalt and makes a human speed bump causing the SUV to crash and flip. And by some evil doppleganger of fortune he's able to retrieve the [macguffin]. (Detailed aside: When the [macguffin] is touched, familiar glyphs appear on its surface. The glyphs appear to be similar to the ones Ward saw in that lab and that both Garret and Coulson drew on whatever surface was handy.)
The last minute stinger reveals that is Daniel Whitehall, the Kraken, who running HYDRA operations now. This neatly bookends this episode as it is Whitehall who Peggy Carter foils and captures in the beginning.
And those are the events as I witnessed them. Overall, not a bad episode. Though if you weren't in favor of it for the first season there's nothing new for you here. If you're curious the best I can recommend is to read recaps on your favorite geek site. I think Comics Alliance's recap was the best this week. It gave a good rundown on the events with little editorializing.
The show is still commiting the sin of over-zealousness. Too much reliance on tech-tech to magic up solutions instead of stronger writing. And they've really, really done a disservice with splitting Fitz-Simmons. As a pair they were the best source for lightening the mood. Iaian and Elizabeth have the best chemistry of any other set of characters on the show.
My single least favorite part was how Team Merc stumbled onto Absorbing Man at the end. It simply makes no logistical sense. An escaping prisoner wouldn't be walking down the middle of the street in the middle of the day. And I do mean
walking. And somehow this multi-lane road near a military installation somewhere in Virginia was empty except for Absorbing Man and Team Merc.
They were all so close to a pretty good episode and that just upset it all for me. But, okay, here's the good: High profile, very powerful and seemingly long term enemies: Absorbing Man and Kraken.