- Title: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – The Dirty Half Dozen
- wiki: link
The final episode leading up the Avengers: Age of Ultron is only peripherally connected to opening scenes of the film but it does (finally) wind down the S.H.I.E.L.D. vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. storyline (hopefully for good), and, if only for a single episode, reunites Coulson‘s (Clark Gregg) entire team for a suicide mission against HYDRA. Exchanging Fury’s box of secrets to Gonzales (Edward James Olmos) for the chance to lead his team to rescue Deathlok (J. August Richards) and cripple HYDRA’s enhanced soldier program, Coulson gathers together his former team including Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) and Skye (Chloe Bennet) who shows up to help save Lincoln (Luke Mitchell) based on the intelligence offered by Raina‘s (Ruth Negga) visions.
The episode’s final scenes suggests things getting back to normal although it doesn’t really address how the two versions of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be folded back in together under one cohesive unit without some struggle. HYDRA’s defeat should open the way for a wider variety of storylines while the show continues to develop the Inhumans arc. And of course there will be plenty of relationships to mend including Coulson and May (Ming-Na Wen) and also Hunter (Nick Blood) and Bobbi (Adrianne Palicki). And I am looking forward to (hopefully) seeing Agent 33 (Maya Stojan) earn a role on the team going forward.
I was correct is guessing that Skye would just magically show up one week in full control of her powers and “The Dirty Half Dozen” certainly delivers with one of the episode’s best action scenes and examples of the agent using her powers to knock out enemies and deftly restart the heart of a friend. She’s certainly come an awfully long way from the woman he almost ripped apart S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with all of her friends inside. As we’ve learned, the show tends to rise and fall based on Marvel’s movie release schedule and in this instance Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. delivers its first really strong episode since last October. It’s too bad history tells us it won’t last.
