Review of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode 2×14 – Love in the time of Hydra

So I don’t know if anyone else noticed but 2/14 is Valentine’s day which fits quite well with the episode. Whether it’s a coincidence or not, I’d like to think it isn’t. Not all Easter Eggs are to be found in Marvel comics I think.

The episode focuses on 3 fronts: Ward and Agent 33, The “Real” S.H.I.E.L.D., and dealing with Skye’s powers.

Let’s start with Bonnie and Clyde here. Well I say that but that’s not really what’s going on here. Although I will say this right away, we’re at episode 14 of the season and we still don’t know what drives Ward, whose side he’s on and what his purpose is. That he took on to help a helpless soul like Agent 33 is commendable but that can only take a story so far. As the poster suggests (if you look at who is drawn in blue) he’s still very much in love with Skye much as he tries to push it away. I feel like this is going to come back to the plot in a major way further down the line.

The quick summary of that plot line is, they kidnap (and subsequently kill, in case you thought these were decent people) a guy to fix the nanomask (I  can’t remember if that’s what they’re call but that’s what I’m gonna call it), presumably its inventor but all it does is it fixes the mask not the burns that Agent 33 sustained in her fight with May so she tries to find herself a new face and the whole episode has her struggle with some kind of identity crisis. Ward decides to go and get Bakshi from Talbot’s custody (how does he even know Talbot has him by the way?), almost destroys Talbot’s marriage in the process and finally it’s revealed that Bakshi is going to be made to comply. We also find out Agent 33’s name is Keira (or Kara I couldn’t quite make out which), at least that’s one part of her identity sorted out. I thought they were gonna get Bakshi to deprogram her (there has to be a way to do that somehow) but apparently not quite.

Moving on to the “real” S.H.I.E.L.D. so far I’m feeling a little underwhelmed by this. It looks like it’s basically a bunch of leftover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were fed up with Fury keeping so many secrets and so branched off to form their own version of S.H.I.E.L.D. Given that they’re not exactly advertising themselves on the high street, I find it rather ironic that their grudge is people like Fury and now Coulson keeping too many secrets. What have they been doing while Coulson and his team were off cutting off Hydra’s heads one by one other than infiltrate our team and brood on an aircraft carrier. Speaking of which I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was hoping for it to be an actual helicarrier but I suppose they’re not that “real”.

In any case it looks like things will come to a head to head next week as May and Coulson figure out that Mack and Bobbi are up to something. I’m actually glad Hunter didn’t just suck it up and agreed to just join up with them. It seems like Huntley was in with this “real” S.H.I.E.L.D. too and since Lucy Lawless is returning next week (I assume in a flashback) we’ll find out what her role was.

Finally quick word about Skye. Is it me or just the idea of dropping her in her lonesome in a cabin in the woods is a recipe for disaster? Moving on quickly to Fitz and Simmons the writers keep teasing their being back to their old selves one week and the next widening the rift between them. I have an increasing bad feeling about Simmons, if they were going to introduce an AIM cell looking to recruit talented scientists I have a feeling she’d join in a heartbeat, but AIM hasn’t been heard of since Iron Man 3 so who knows but I would not be surprised to see them becoming a new villain at some point.

And Coulson since the city disaster mission seem to be lost in what to do next. There hasn’t been much in terms of a real mission and the Playground seems awfully empty. For instance there are supposedly at least 2 Koenigs on his team yet we haven’t seen either of them for quite a few episodes. Even foot soldiers or lower grade scientists that were walking around anonymously early in the season seem to have disappeared. Where is everyone? I know the focus has been on Skye but the team looks pretty divided between Bobbi and Mack working for a rival organisation, Fitz and Simmons disagreeing on basic principles and hiding the truth from eachother and Coulson and May essentially giving up on Skye it’s like watching a building you’re desperately trying to rebuild crumble from the inside out.

And they don’t know about Ultron yet, that’s gonna be fun when that hits.

Quick review this week, I felt the episode was a little slower but I’m looking forward to next week and hopefully a bit more action.