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

By far, this was the best episode of the season. It airs out all of those “secrets” that have been bogging the show down (Skye’s mysterious past, Coulson’s resurrection, etc.). And they finally had some fun with the universe they’re in–no, there weren’t any masked superheroes showing up, but there was a noticeable jump in this episode’s step.

Quick Summary: There’s been an attempted freezing at the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy, which calls Coulson’s team to the science and technology side of things for the organization. Here we see FitzSimmons being the super cool, awesomely popular kids on campus. While FitzSimmons, Ward, and Skye do some preliminary investigating, Coulson and May fly to Mexico City to follow up with one of the agents assigned to Skye’s case back when she was a baby, her parents were killed, and she was left on a doorstep.

And it takes a crazy turn. It turns out the S.H.I.E.L.D. team was responding to an 084 (object of unknown origin–you know, Thor’s Hammer, that kind of stuff). And the 084 was Skye. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent tells them to stay away from “the baby girl,” because death follows her everywhere.

Flash over to the Academy, where Skye name-drops Bucky Barnes on a memorial plaque of those lost in the line of duty (just hours after my article about The Winter Soldier and how S.H.I.E.L.D. could totally ramp up the hype), and we get to see FitzSimmons giving “the talk” to all the students. Cue another freezing attack on a student–Donnie Gill (Blizzard from the Iron Man comics, just with a different background)–and you have FitzSimmons saving the day.

Of course, things don’t work out that well. Fitz chats with Donnie in his room after the attack and gives him an answer to the problem he was having with his power source for a machine that he and his best friend, Seth, plan to sell to Ian Quinn. Said machine basically creates an ice hurricane (and ends up being destroyed in the midst of everything. And also killing Seth).

Add in a lot of internal turmoil with Coulson and you’ve got a heartbeat in this show. Coulson’s fed up with all the secrets in the agency, in his life, and within his team of agents, prompting May to confess her and Ward having sex (which is dismissed in hilarious fashion by Coulson). Knowing that his memories have been tampered with, Coulson doesn’t know who to trust let alone what to trust in his brain.

Coulson feels the need to tell Skye what they discovered rather than keeping it from her, and I was glad that they didn’t make us sit through the explanation a second time. Instead, we get shots of Skye trying to keep it together and moments when I actually felt sympathetic toward her. I’m interested to see what they do with this side of things. It certainly makes Skye’s plot much better than before. Now she’s not just a hacker.

Hands down, FitzSimmons are my favorite characters. Fitz had some great lines and my particular favorite was when he was discussing his other half with Donnie. “Simmons is probably smarter…technically. But that’s because she loves homework more than life itself.” It’s a Hermoine Granger-like comparison, and it cracks me up.

The huge nerd in me was hoping that when the ice blizzard was happening, Thor would show up and help stop it or Loki would fly in and exclaim something about Frost Giants ruling the universe (or something equally ridiculous), but that’s a far and distant dream (and probably me being impatient for Thor: The Dark World on blu-ray).

And what does this week’s episode end on? Ian Quinn telling Agent Coulson that The Clairvoyant says hello. Oh snap! Overarching bad guys!

“Seeds” just seemed to have fun this week, and it’s a great relief. Name-dropping Bucky Barnes, FitzSimmons mentioning both AIM and HYDRA, and not to mention Donnie being driven to jail and tracing his finger along the window, leaving ice behind was just great. Even Agent Ward seemed to open up and enjoy himself (he had a couple good lines, too).

Can we keep hoping for more of this? Honestly, I’m thinking we have hit the point in the season where everything is going to ramp up and every week will be more like this.