Visitors from other worlds.
What They Say:
Who You Really Are – Coulson and the team help Lady Sif, who lost her memory after a fight with a mysterious warrior; Bobbi and Mac continue to keep their true mission hidden.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Agents of SHIELD got its midseason return underway in a pretty decent way as it focused on a few different things with a broad brush. There was appeal in seeing a pushback against Hydra with several key figures taken out, which surely doesn’t bother Von Strucker much, but it felt a little tacked on in some ways as an action taken solely to get revenge for Tripp. Since Tripp wasn’t supposed to be in this season at all to begin with, there wasn’t enough resonance for viewers to really connect with him and that hindered it a bit. What I did like is that we’re getting the slow build with revealing Skye for what she is, now with Fitz helping her to hide things for the moment, as there’s a mix of her own panic over it but also the change in the atmosphere of the group coming into play with Simmons being intent on treating those that Inhuman as basically being like a plague that needs to be contained and taken out in order to protect others. It’s not a bad line of reasoning, even in her particular field of science, but it hit in such a blunt way that it was almost like a different character.
The cold open for this one gives us some good Sif time right from the start as we kick things off in Portugal at night on a beach with friends hanging out. Sif pretty much walks in on the waves as she’s looking for someone named Kava with a pretty intense feeling about her. Having her reveal that she’s lost her memories sets the stage well for the chaos ahead that she’ll cause. Such is the case with Skye as well as she feels like she’s full of chaos. We see her and May going at it in training but Skye continually pulls back from going all out because of the fear of losing control, especially now that she’s not what she was before and May isn’t aware of it. There’s some decent dialogue about it and a watchful eye from Fitz who stops in to check himself because he’s concerned about what Skye is capable of herself. There’s some basic stuff going on here about how Skye is going to really have some serious power behind her soon and control is key on multiple levels.
Changes are a regular occurrence here and we see a few of these moving along well here from the get go. Hunter and Bobbi are certainly getting along well and we learn that Coulson has offered him a permanent position now that they’re a bit short on staff after recent events. There’s some good bits between the two and some of the complications between them. We also get a little time with Coulson and Mac as Coulson is trying to do what he can to shore up their equipment side and understand what they have, but also making a push to get Mac to be a part of the team in the field itself because he definitely has the talents. Mac’s more intent on just working the gear and vehicles, and not one that wants to partake in violence, but Coulson calls him out on it easily enough in that he’s been acting out a lot lately.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for Coulson and May to connect with Sif, though she’s unaware of who they are. A little video footage helps to ease things and that lets her work with them to figure out what’s really going on as they discover a fight she was engaged with in Portugal against a rather powerful man that managed to take her down and toss her into the sea. The investigation side of it works well with some playful dialogue about it as Sif tries to remember who she really is and that makes you grin, even if some may think it’s just name dropping. Coulson, May and Sif together are definitely fun to watch, especially with Sif having quite the disconnect, but it’s also good seeing how Mac, Fitz and Hunter work their part of it looking for clues. Lots of little pieces coming into play here along with a few clues coming from Bobbi and Skye’s investigation elsewhere too. Everything, for the first part of this, just feels like it comes together better than you’d expect as a whole considering past episodes have felt a bit more scattered.
As events continue, and we learn that the mystery man that Sif is after is actually a Kree, there’s some decent movement to pull things together and it ties him back to what happened back in 1945 with Whitehall, who we knew was in possession of what was believed to be a Kree then as well, which we saw at the start of this season in the flashback with the Howling Commandos and Agent Carter. Putting the pieces together happens quickly, which is welcome, and capturing the guy even faster since they go in prepared and intent to take control of the situation. It may feel like it’s missing a spot of action to really make it flow, but not everything has to really involve a fight. Where it turns really intriguing though is that the Kree tries to claim that he’s there to help and not hurt, and the only reason he wiped Sif’s memories is because she attacked him. Revealing his name to be Vin-Tak, it’s definitely great to see this aspect of the larger universe being involved in the show in an up front kind of way.
When we do get memories returned, reveals move quickly here about how the Kree were instrumental in operating on Earth in the past, as they used Terrigen crystals in order to help try and create forces to help them fight in their wars across the galaxy. But as it turned out, things didn’t go well on Earth with the crystals, which is why they’ve stayed away so long. But the activation of the crystal that Skye was involved in sent a signal that gained their attention. What’s scary though is that as they deal with what Vin-Tak was there to collect, they find that the case of six diviners that the Kree had here ages ago is empty. That puts a whole different spin on things as there’s the potential to create a whole army out there. Even worse though is that as the intensity ramps up with both Sif and Vin-Tak talking about what these “abominations” that are created can be like, she ends up losing control in a pretty big way because of her fear over what will happen to her.
All of that forces both Sif and Vin-Tak’s hand as Sif wants to take her to Asgard since she can’t be left on Earth while Vin-Tak wants to take her out completely because of the layers of threats she represents, not just for Earth, but for the Kree to potentially restart a terrible plan. There’s a lot of chaos to it as it all unfolds, where we get May hiding her away to try and help Skye regain control while Bobbi and the others get to deal with Vin-Tak. There’s also the piece that comes into play with Simmons realizing that Fitz knew the whole time and that’s just going to add to the growing rift between them. The action playing amid the quake itself definitely ramps up the tension well, and while it has a kind of shortcut ending, it works well to put a lot of things into play going forward rather than drawing them out for too long to come.
In Summary:
Agents of SHIELD works through a lot of stuff here with what it wants to do and it definitely works well. While things could go in a lot of directions with Sif here, I’m glad they worked the Kree storyline, made it clear what they did in the past and their connection to the Inhumans and their view of how what happened on Earth was not normal and very dangerous. The push of that danger is what’s focused on here for the most part and it comes across in a clear way, especially with Skye not able to handle it at the moment. There’s some potentially interesting rifts forming in the group, though I can’t believe that the show will explore them well, but it sets the tension in a way that can be played with as it moves forward with more of what Terrigenesis means and what else is out there since there are a number of missing diviners. There’s a potentially long play being put into motion this season that can spread over a lot of different aspects of the Marvel Cinematic universe.
Grade: B+
