Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review – “Turn, Turn, Turn”

This week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. definitely delivers on last week’s promise of being high-stakes and completely, utterly, absolutely crazy. Seriously. I watched it twice just to keep everything straight.

IMPORTANT SIDE-NOTE: There are spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier in this review. If you have yet to see the movie and do not want to be spoiled, you should probably bookmark this and read it later/after you watch the episode after you see TWS. Of course, if you’ve been following the show, then you probably have a good inkling of what’s going to happen. Regardless, read at your own discretion.

Not-So Short Summary: For the first time in this show, we’re getting an episode that’s taking place during a movie. And we start with Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper.” Because of course they can. It’s Agent Garrett listening to it and he becomes under attack by two S.H.I.E.L.D. drones. Luckily, Coulson and the Bus are in the general vicinity, help him escape, and bring him on board. Coulson fills him in on Agent Hand being the Clairvoyant and Garrett is all for taking her down when they arrive at the Hub.

Things are still tense on the Bus. No one trusts May anymore and Coulson shoots her to knock her out and send her to the brig where Ward is being held. Let’s start with May’s storyline. Fitz fixes her secure line straight to Director Fury and when Coulson forces May to call him, they discover that Fury has been killed.

This frees up May to tell Coulson that she’s been reporting to Fury about his mental/physical state. It’s revealed that she put together this ragtag team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to protect him if things turned south after his resurrection surgery. Someone to repair his body, aka Simmons; a technician to work on his brain, aka Fitz; and an agent to put him down if things got hazardous, aka Ward. Coulson feels betrayed that a longtime companion like May has kept this from him, especially since she knows about Tahiti being false memories. This background on his team helps us understand why they had so much freedom for most of this season with very few repercussions.

We get to The Winter Soldier tie-in that HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and an encrypted message has been clogging every channel of communication telling sleeper HYDRA agents it’s time to rise up. The big twist comes when it’s revealed that Agent Garrett is the Clairvoyant, not Agent Hand. And Agent Hand has been reading things wrong and is under the assumption that Coulson is HYDRA.

This was a seriously confusing point before it was revealed, because when Hand corners Simmons and Triplett and “tests” them, I sat on the couch going, “DON’T TRUST HER, SIMMONS! YOU’RE SMARTER THAN THAT!”  Simmons sticking up for Coulson worked very well for her character and how much she’s come to trust her superior, even when he’s kept secrets from her.

But the biggest reveal of the episode is that Ward is part of the HYDRA ranks. When he learns that his old S.O. Garrett is the Clairvoyant, he feels betrayed and asks Hand to escort her to the Fridge. On board the plane, she asks Ward if he’d like to shoot the right Clairvoyant this time. Instead, he shoots the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Hand.

Ward is definitely the most hated character on the show right now; Skye has made some great strides the last five episodes to feel like part of this team, but Ward still had that woodenness around him. Now, it kind of makes sense. It makes him slightly more likeable and makes our hatred toward him more justified. HYDRA’s reach is limitless within S.H.I.E.L.D. and it makes sense that one of their agents would be in Coulson’s team.

Side-note, I did boo when he and Skye kissed in the closet. My fiancee laughed at me.

Badass Moment of the Week: Ward taking out several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with huge shards of glass.

Best One-Liner: Garrett: “Phil, this is me being honest.”
Coulson: “No, John, this is you being a psychopath.” He’s got a point, Garrett…

Clark Gregg is crushing it as Agent Coulson. I could literally watch an episode that is just pissed-off Coulson arguing with a brick wall and glaring at it until it crumbles to pieces. His scenes with May had some fantastic acting for both of them and when Garrett is trying to turn him against Hand and he says too much, Coulson’s incredulous stare speaks more than any lines could.

Hand reveals to Coulson that they are probably the two highest-ranking agents that are left. While that pretty much means nothing now that S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t exist, that bodes well for potentially bringing Coulson back into the movies in some regard. I watched The Winter Soldier waiting for Coulson to appear out of nowhere and save Captain America, just so there would be fanboying, but I figured that probably wouldn’t happen.

Now for my sort-of-theory. While it’s a very cool twist that Ward is HYDRA, I have a feeling that this might be a triple-cross and he’s actually going undercover with HYDRA under Coulson’s orders. Look at what the show has done trying to make us think that Garrett wasn’t the Clairvoyant and Hand was. It wouldn’t surprise me if they threw another twist at us.

Why do I think this? Well, when Ward kills Hand and the agents on the plane, he doesn’t ever say “Hail HYDRA,” which seems to be their calling card no matter the occasion. When he’s heading to the plane to the Fridge, he looks back at Coulson and nods. Is it a nod to reassure him that he’s ready to take this next step and go deeper undercover? Or is it a nod farewell because he knows the next time he sees Coulson, he may be ordered to kill him?

There might not be much to this theory. Heck, even I don’t quite believe it because there’s a lot of evidence against it. But this show now knows it can go full-out with everything. They had to hold back until TWS came out and honestly? It’s worth it so far.

Upon my second viewing, I gasped out loud when Skye was backing up the Bus’s findings onto an external hard drive and then gave them to Ward so they won’t fall into HYDRA’s hands. I also hope that Ward is just playing with Skye because I don’t enjoy that pairing at all.

Next week’s preview looks like the stakes are just as high. Buckle your seat belts, people. It’s going to be an intense ride.