Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Debrief: Episode 1.22, "Beginning of the End"

Finally, we are at the end of the first season of Agents of SHIELD. AoS was a show that started off with a bang and slowly trailed off into undirected boredom. It then proceeded to right itself once it hard connected to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and got a creative boost and some more fan appreciation as the show has sprinted toward its first endpoint. Now I’m not going to lie, I had to sit on this episode for a little bit. Most of the reaction I saw from people was very good, but for me, I felt underwhelmed. Everything seemed to wrap up a bit too easy and in a very short period of time. So let’s run through what happened here in this finale.

The show opens cold with a guy getting his orientation to Cybertek and his new role as a Deathlok controller. This cuts us directly to where we saw Team Coulson last week and in short order Coulson, May, Triplett, and Skye take out these cyborg super soldiers with ease. Skye runs off to put her little hack into HYDRA’s computer network with Triplett getting knocked down a little as Coulson takes out some of these guys with pistols (really tho?) and May straight jacks the Berserker staff and proceeds to beat up fools and then collapses the whole room by knocking out pillars as the team escapes.

Ward is all antsy, not really sure of his place, as Garrett has become a complete cartoon supervillain lunatic (but I must say Bill Paxton seemed to be having a great time in this role). Reina continues her thing about not caring about any of this and just about potential, and Garrett now with what he feels is his new understanding gets what she is after and lets her and Quinn’s people take the gravitonium. Garrett starts to scratch into some glass a bunch of symbols as he continues to blab on about what he now knows. Ward is there clueless but is told he just cares about Skye and that they need Skye soon, "that is your new mission." Now at the same time what’s left of Team Coulson is now plotting on hitting Cybertek hard to stop Garrett and HYDRA.

Now remember that giant cube FitzSimmons was stuck in? Well, it sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Fitz protected Simmons from the fall and broke his arm but at the same time was trying to figure out a way to get the cube up. They figure out a way to break the glass so that they can escape and get to the surface along with making a makeshift beacon. Being that there isn’t enough air and Simmons is a better swimmer, Fitz decides to do the heroic sacrifice while also admitting his feelings to Simmons. She refuses to let him die and she carries him up to the surface where they are picked up by Nick Fury. Nick Fury gives them a rundown of things, along with wanting to know where Coulson is and people him is after for some payback.

So Ian Quinn is doing the big sell to those US military officials and things are going well until Garrett comes in all crazy talking nonsense as Quinn looks on beyond frustrated. When Team Coulson attacks Garrett flips out and kills one of the high-ranking military officials by ripping out a rib. I don’t know why one rib, but I guess that’s all the gore they could have on ABC at the beginning of prime time. With Triplett handling things outside, Coulson gets in to find Garrett at the same time May and Skye gets into Cybertek offices to stop all the Deathlok soldiers. We also learn about Cybertek’s incentive program, which is that they hold on to people’s loved ones to make them work for them. While Skye is finding out information and hacking the Deathloks, Ward finds her and they have an exchange and what happens next is that May comes in and proceeds to H.A.M. on Ward.

When Coulson finds Garrett in his full crazy, he learns firsthand what the new Garrett can do as he is smacked across the room. Next Garrett gives a bad guy speech as more goons appear and as Mike real deal Deathlok unhappily looks on ready to body Coulson with the quickness. Well as Coulson gets up he see Nick Fury and they have a few words and he gives Coulson his Destroyer cannon from Avengers. From that point, Coulson blasts the goons away and Fury unloads into Garrett. Garrett laughs and makes some dumb tag-team comments and reveals his whole plan was based off not really listening to Fury’s initiation speech. As May beats the tar out of Ward, Skye goes in and starts freeing the captured family members of people and finds Deathlok’s son Ace. The whole time Deathlok has been free of control because of Skye but was waiting until Skye could find and save Ace. Once he knows that Ace is safe with Skye, Deathlok turns his arm missiles on Garrett, blowing him up.

Even though Garrett got that new juice he is still that Betamax tech compared with Deathlok’s new PS4 tech (pardon my set top box examples). When Garrett asks for mercy, Deathlok proceeds to stomp him out like fire. Now with the day saved and bad guys captured and families safe, Ward gets a stern talking to while Deathlok decides to wander around making up for all the wrong he has done under the control of Garrett. The team reunites with Simmons and they learn that Fitz is alive but won’t be the same again. Coulson gets to finally get off his chest everything to Fury, with Fury responding that May had his back and that Coulson is important and that agents like him are the heart of SHIELD. He then makes Coulson the new Director of SHIELD and asks him to rebuild it better than it ever was.

The episode ends with Reina the girl with the flower dress walking into a dilapidated house and talking to a person who all we see as a scarred, maybe bloody arm; she shows them Skye’s picture and tell them that she has found their daughter. The final scene is Coulson waking up in the middle of the night to carve in a wall a bunch of drawings that look like an alien language, the same as crazy Garrett was doing the previous day.

Did you know:

Well, not a bunch of Marvel comic Easter eggs; just wrapping up the season and setting up the next. I have a grander theory on what AoS means to the grander scheme and what it all leads to for the Marvel phases. Look for that soon. I hope you guys enjoyed the show and the season. I’m not going to lie: I didn’t really like the show and I don’t think I’ll be watching in next season, but I think I’ll give Agent Carter a go. Also, I live tweet 24, so if you want to see my thoughts on that follow me at @julianlytle.

Talk you to trill believers later, when I drop the knowledge of the SOURCE on you!!

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"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Debrief: Episode 1.11, "The Magical Place"

So trill believer, here we are in the New Year 2014 and we are back to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. So where’s Coulson? What happened to Coulson? What happened to Mike? Will Skye be less annoying? Just how many times can Agent May side eye in an episode? Hopefully all these questions can be answered now that it’s starting to bother me and to entertain you with my spiteful recaps.

So this episode starts three days after the events of the last episode. Agent Victoria Hand and a large team of agents are with what’s left of the crew trying to find centipede and Agent Coulson. It seems that Agent Hand is more focused on catching Centipede than saving Coulson while that bothers most of the team they go with it...except for Skye. Oh Skye, still trying to break every rule by using her hacking skills except this time she is denied because of the SHIELD access bracelet, looks like Agent Hand is putting her foot down. With Skye’s access cut off and Agent May nowhere near co-signing for her with Hand, the rest of the team hatches a plan to get Skye off of the Bus (big old plane aka mini carrier) so that she can help find Coulson in her own special way.

Meanwhile Coulson is being held in an old nuclear test zone town. You know the ones with all the happy looking mannequins around.  There Mr. Po and Reina, the woman in the flower dress, are keeping Coulson to get him to remember what Tahiti really was. Coulson being the cold beast of an agent gives them nothing so this makes Mr. Po choose to torture him which also continues to be unsuccessful. Out in the world we see Skye trying to use her hacking abilities to follow a money trail to finding centipede and where they might have Coulson but her bracelet keeps locking her out from hacking anything. It seems Agent Hand basically put the uber parental controls on the ENTIRE internet for Skye.

So Skye uses some cunning and cosplays as Agent May and tricks this smarmy business man into thinking SHIELD is about arrest him unless he helps her get into his banking transactions, which somehow works. Over at the Coulson trials, Reina and Mr. Po disagree on how to handle Coulson when Mr. Po tries to flex his connection to the clairvoyant who calls to talk to Reina? The Clairvoyant.  When Reina gives the phone back to Mr. Po he is killed through some crazy blue virus via his old school flip phone (that real killer tech), now Reina is in charge. Reina then, instead of taking the tough approach with Coulson, talks to him in her usual nice/manipulative ways yet confirming some of the issues Coulson does have with his return after Avengers.

Here is where things start to wrap up a bit too easy. Skye finds out where Coulson is, takes the rich guys nice car, and calls Ward to tell him what she has found. The whole crew gathers around the phone, then Agent May comes in, takes the phone, and asks what she knows. After some creative interrogation techniques by Ward, Agent Hand admits that she has plans to launch attacks using centipede. Agent May asks Hand that they be allowed to go and save Coulson using Skye’s Intel. Hand agrees and the team is off. While this is happening Coulson is in this weird bed with this mind thingy so that it can help him remember and record his dreams (??) as he goes in the fantasy of Tahiti starts to fade to show him on an operating table with Dr. Stretain (Ron Glass) telling another doctor that they shouldn’t be doing this with that doctor saying that this is what Fury wants. During this you hear Coulson saying “let me die let me die” over and over again as the shot pulls back we see this weird spider robot shocking parts of Coulson’s exposed brain.

The team then descends on the place and fisticuffs ensue as Skye searches for Coulson. Ward and May defeat their foes and Skye walks in on Reina and Coulson, punches Reina in the face, and gets Coulson out of the machine. Mission accomplished. The team finishes up with Agent Hand, celebrations are had, Skye is relieved of her bracelet and Reina goes to SHIELD jail... but all is still not well.  Coulson pays a visit to Dr. Stretain asking him about the disturbing truth he just found out. Dr. Streatian tells him he wasn’t even there in the beginning of it and that Coulson had been dead for days when Fury used every resource to bring him back. There was one thing wrong they couldn’t give Coulson his will to live back and they made up the fake memories of Tahiti to cover up the memories of his return to life.  Then after the credits we see poor Mike didn’t die. He’s all scared up from the explosion and he lost a leg. The kicker is this when he looks into the mirror he sees a message meaning that he now has one of those crazy robot eyes that can kill you if you don’t do what it says. Poor Mike.

Did you Know:

Well I was looking hard for clues. The only one I see is that really for the first time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe you’re seeing the Nick Fury doing whatever he wants to get what he wants tactics from the comics here. Let me know folks if I really missed anything. Until next week.

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"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Debrief: Episode 1.10, "Bridge"

Well dang Trill believers where was this episode like say back in early October after the first couple of episodes? This episode, the last new one for the year basically, took all the stuff we’ve seen in the previous nine and put it together into a fast paced and packed 40+ minutes of entertainment. Was this episode perfect? No it wasn’t but it was by far one of the best episodes of the series so far, second only to the pilot. It helps that this episode shares something with that episode, that being J. August Richards as Mike Peterson. 

This episode even starts off kind of hard-in-the-paint as a bunch of soldiers break into a prison to get this middle-aged bald man we last saw in the episode "The Girl in the Flower Dress". All of the soldiers had that centipede Extremis thing on their arm straight wrecking folks.  This causes Coulson  and his team to get a move on and Coulson has a surprise for his team as he goes to one of the many S.H.I.E.L.D. bases and recruits Mike Peterson (the guy from the pilot that got folks hyped cause we all thought he was a known superhero) to help them with his mission. It seems that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been training him to be an agent ever since the team stopped him from his Extremis rage. Some of the team have reservations about Mike joining the team on this mission but Skye is cool with it, as she should be since she was a criminal hacker who betrayed the team once already.

The usual interpersonal issues crop up as the team does some detective work to locate Centipede, connecting with a soldier's family for a clue.  It seems Ward is catching feelings for Agent May after all their secret rendezvous. Fitz and Simmons learn that the device they made to stop Mike from blowing up stabilized the Extremis, allowing him to continue being a super powered person. The team also learns the identity of the Girl in the Flower Dress thanks to Mike as she was the person who initially came to him to get involved with Centipede. We learn the man they broke out of prison is Edison Poe (don’t bother searching marvel for this people) and he is connected to someone else called “The Clairvoyant” that is somehow directing the purpose of Centipede from the shadows.

 The team ends up tracking the soldiers to Oakland where we get to see all the action agents fall into a trap (shout out to Akbar) except they have Mike with them to help deal with all the Extremis powered guys. Ward and May try to deal with one with Ward taking a sacrificial slam so that May can continue fighting. Coulson gets mollywhopped kind of early on as Mike is left to face them, taking a steel rod in the side yet still overcoming one of the soldiers as the others flee.  The solider that got beat was never interrogated as Centipede killed him through eye implants as he begged for his life. 

As the team licked its wounds and figures out the next move we get more drama as May goes at Ward for what she thinks was a romantic save, and then to Skye as May tells her she needs to stop focusing all of her attention on the mystery of her unknown parents. It then focuses on Mike and Coulson as Coulson gives a pep talk on reaching out to his son since Mike thinks he was monster the last time Ace (Mike’s son) saw him. Soon after Mike talks to Ace on the phone and learns that Reina has his son and wants to do a swap. Earlier, Reina and Edison saw that Mike is with Coulson and unlike their current group of Extremis-powered troops he doesn't need a constant injection of serum to stabilize. Now the team has to scramble to make a plan to rescue Ace and hopefully get these Centipede folks at the same time.

Now here is where things get ramped up. Mike asks for Coulson to go with him. Skye and May are in the car as Ward is up high in position with a sniper rifle keeping an eye on Mike and Coulson. As those two approach Reina comes out with Ace here we learn that Centipede doesn’t want Mike they want Coulson. Coulson goes with Reina and Mike and Ace go towards the car with everyone shocked at what happened.  It seems that Centipede wants to know how Coulson returned to life, something that Coulson doesn’t really know himself. Mike has Ace stay with Skye as he attempts to go back and save Coulson.  Next thing we know huge explosion where Mike is running as we as supposed to think he’s dead (c’mon son GTFOH. No body no dead) and the car that Reina was in then also explodes. Next Ward is shot from an escaping helicopter as Agent May gives it a stare that should have blown it up from pure hateration.  Now the team is in a complete mess as they have seemingly lost Mike, Coulson, and possibly Agent Ward.

Did You Know:

To be honest the only thing you need to know is the previous nine episodes. All of them. This episode brings together every single little moment from each episode basically. This is actually the best episode since the pilot. Now this isn’t the best TV show in the world but in regards to this show it was pretty cool to watch. I really hope that the next 10-12 episodes that air in the next year continue in this pattern and not what came before. 

Also just so you know I won at livetweeting Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. last night

And there’s my new vanity plate RT @julianlytle: Coulson is the magical white dude for Mike. #AgentsofSHIELD
— Clark Gregg (@clarkgregg) December 11, 2013

See y'all in the debrief room in a month. Peace

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