- Title: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – 0-8-4
- wiki: link
that’s sitting in our cargo hold?”
Coulson‘s (Clark Gregg) newly formed team starts out on their first mission, to investigate a mysterious happening in an Incan temple in Peru that as yet no one can identify or classify, with dissension in the ranks as both Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) and Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) show concern with Skye‘s (Chloe Bennet) inclusion on the team as a consultant.
The discovery of a functioning artifact buried in the wall of a temple is complicated by the arrival of rebels and the Peruvian military police force, led by Coulson’s old friend Comandante Camilla Reyes (Leonor Varela), each of whom have their own plans for the weapon that Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) believes was created using Tesseract technology and is emitting trace levels of Gamma radiation. When Coulson’s old friends take over the team’s plane and hold new friends hostage the dysfunctional team has to work quickly to put aside their differences at stop the HYDRA weapon from falling into the wrong hands.
Although the team does blow a sizable hole in their plane, they are able to come together and save the day. Although somewhat corny, the second episode does what is needed to begin to forge the individuals into a team. The epilogue also shows us that May and Ward were right to question Skye’s motivations, gives us a cameo from an irate Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) over the state of his plane, and shows audiences what S.H.I.E.L.D. does with alien technology deemed too dangerous for anyone on the planet to ever control.
For me, this was certainly a step up from the pilot (though I thoroughly enjoyed the pilot also). I thought the writing was well done, weaving the idea of each person only needing to do a piece of the puzzle throughout. The pacing of the action was good (not great, but decent).
One trend I’m noticing that I *don’t* like is how they seem to have Fitz and Simmons talk at the same time. I realize they’re sort of ‘joined at the hip’ but having them both talk at the same time, combined with their british accents, and the fact that much of what they say is techno-babble (and fictional sci-fi techno-babble at that), is a bit annoying. I hope they don’t keep that up too much.
Also, I don’t think Ming-Na Wen does “brooding” very well. But I’ll take it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the fanboy-laced references in the dialog, such as the mention of Stark, Loki stabbing Coulson, and the last 084 being Thor’s hammer. Some I’ve talked to find it annoying, but it just makes me giggle.
While I enjoyed Fury’s cameo at the end, Whedon has said he didn’t want this to become “cameo of the week” as the show really needs to stand on its own. So while I love seeing Fury (and would absolutely cry joyful tears if they got Ruffalo involved) I’m hoping they don’t start relying on that.
Honestly, I would have been okay if both the science geeks had been sucked out of the giant hole in the plane. The rest of the team works for me (although Ward is still pretty bland), but I’ve already grown tired of these two.
“Her name is Lola.”