What They Say:
Ye Who Enter Here – SHIELD discovers the ancient city but uncovering the secrets may require a major sacrifice; May and Sky are determined to get Raina before Whitehall.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This season of Agents of SHIELD is one that feels more layered for an obvious reason; filming Agent Carter at the same time and building some connective stories with her through a couple of well placed cameos makes for a richer show. The previous episode did a lot of backstory building with the SSR and early days of SHIELD, but it also gave us a look at the life of Whitehall, from when the Red Skull was killed to how things went until he resurfaced and gained his health back through the Diviner, second hand. Which in turn has connected him to our mad Doctor and his own plan. One that likely involves Skye on some level as well considering his madness. The growth of the overall narrative this season has been good, though at the expense of the kind of team we had last year. Which is, surprisingly, a point in its favor. With Ward off on his own, new additions here with Hunter and Bobbi and Mack, things have a feeling where they’re much more interchangeable based on needs and that keeps it fluid but tight.
The cold open for this episode is one that goes for the dream state as Skye is coping with a bit of a nightmare by running around the SSR facility trying to find Coulson but unable to do so. All she hears is a sound that draws her closer, revealing a case that Coulson is watching. With the Diviner supposedly in the case, she’s trying to keep it away from him. Seeing a variation on what’s likely to be her own past as a baby as played out by Coulson and may, it’s a mix of curiosity and abject terror as she tries to piece things together through her subconscious, especially the fear that she can’t touch the Diviner. It’s a good piece to set up some of the psychological issues that could come into play now that this part of the team is returning to headquarters.
With everyone back together and some of the information being laid out for all to see, the reveal of where the city is and their plan starts to come together. Because of what the obelisk represents with it being a weapon of significant power, Coulson is intent on ensuring that whatever it is that Whitehall is planning, an extinction level event to be sure, so with the team now having more knowledge than Whitehall does with its location, they’re intent on heading there and simply eliminating the place so that it doesn’t become used in the wrong way. You have to hope that there’s more to the plan than that considering the revelations that could come from it, but Coulson is attempting to work in layers like Fury now so I want to give him some space with it.
The show also swings us back to Raina after a little bit of time away. She’s trying to go about her life as normal, albeit with a tracker in her, but that’s gone out the window now that Hydra, with Agent 33 making an appearance, have found her. There’s a good bit of fun little tech that comes into play as Koenig saves the day, which also answers the question of what happened after he got killed as there are apparently at least three of him running around at one point. Or rather, two now after those events. The tech is fun and the lines that he uses are great since it has an old school playing at being a spy approach that is light and right in tone compared to the rest to help offset things a bit.
The show moves into a split team formation here to deal with what’s going on as Coulson and his team head off to San Juan to see if they can get into the underground city that they’ve discovered. Skye, much to her dismay, is sent to extract Raina and figure out what’s going on with her. Skye’s team is a lot of fun to watch as we see Hunter and May moving in and eliminating a lot of the Hydra agents that are hunting down Raina. It’s a pretty good piece overall as the action gets underway, especially as Skye goes up against Agent 33 and we see that her skills have definitely improved a lot. Too much, in some ways, but with her refocus after what happened with Ward, it makes sense. Agent 33 is definitely good to watch her as she’s still got May’s looks, but with some serious scarring to her after what happened in their last encounter. Skye’s handling of the situation is definitely professional here overall and while it is a familiar piece of character material in a Whedon series, it’s one that I admit I like. It’s also familiar enough in the comics world itself so it’s no surprise there either.
This storyline offers up a little more information as well. When she learns from Skye that Whitehall has the obelisk, she realizes that Whitehall’s not trying to kill her but rather wants her since she can hold the device. That has her trying to escape from Skye, but the team is able to keep her and bring her into the bus. Raina and Skye have some pretty good time together as Raina is very talkative and goes on about her past, her time with Skye’s father and a little more about just how special they are, human but with the potential to be more. We also get the Kree mentioned within it as she talks about what the Diviner can do and its importance to those who, like Raina and Skye, are special. To make matters even more problematic though is that Whitehall and his group show up mid flight – in Hydra Quinjets – in order to get Raina back. With Ward. It just gets worse and worse, especially since they have to give up Raina and Ward makes it clear he wants Skye too and that there is no negotiating here. Ward is running his own game and it feels like multiple feints at work past the point where trust can be had.
The San Juan adventure definitely gets underway well as we see Coulson…. wishing he was a hat guy. A small moment that I like, but it segues well into him explaining more of how his approach to running SHIELD is different from Fury’s as he’s intent on eliminating the threat rather than making it a power of his own. Which you know is why Fury brought him in. While they go about their business and setting up contacts to figure out how to get into the city, we get some good time with Fitz and Simmons as she’s about to tell him how she feels, as Bobbi has nudged her right, but Fitz is pre-empting her a bit by talking about how he can’t work with her and he intends to to leave the science division and do something else within SHIELD at this point. A predictable split that’s been in the making for a bit.
Coulson’s team has one way that they’ve found to get in through the plans and it has its own history as well on the island as the fort that’s built over it was from the 1800’s, but the guard tower they’re going through predates it by two hundred years. The team here has a good balance and it’s a segment that lets us get to know Mack just a bit more in how he handles situations, which is good as I rather like him a lot. Naturally, he goes down first into the darkness and discovers that tech doesn’t work down there. Even worse, he sees the symbols in the floor that they’ve got familiar with and brushes away some of the dirt, only to be infected by it now himself and thrust into severe pain. With him pushed over the edge and violent, he gets his match with Bobbi in the hand to hand department and is proving to be resistant to SHIELD technology as well. Suffice to say, the fight here doesn’t go well for either side and leaves a lot of uncertainties at the moment.
In Summary:
The series has been working towards this point for a bit now and we get some decent progress here. With a few small reveals made clear, with Raina talking about the past and a kind of near-religious aspect to it, understanding a little more about the Koenigs and also getting more about how Coulson is really running things. There’s a lot of small plot points being worked and that keeps it from really hitting a strong note here. I like what it’s doing and how it ends things here with things being less than clear about who is doing what and if some are even alive. Bringing us to the city, or at least the front door of it, is definitely a good thing but now it’s a matter of whether they can really carry through with it and make it important rather than a feint. I’m hopeful, but wary. But when you get more of the nods towards Inhumans and bring in the Kree name as well, it leaves me eager to see.
Grade: B+
