Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review – “T.A.H.I.T.I.”

Welcome back from the Olympic hiatus to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! It’s been a fun little break, so much so that I had completely forgotten Skye’s life hung in the balance…

Not So Quick Summary: The team gets Skye to the S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility, but it turns out both her large and small intestines were pierced and there’s nothing more they can do. Of course, Agent Coulson doesn’t take “nothing more they can do” for an answer. He was brought back from the dead, so why can’t they heal a couple bullet wounds? That seems infinitely less complicated than the whole Frankenstein thing Coulson has going on.

So he reveals his big secret to the members of his crew that didn’t know he was dead for days. They take off immediately to where Coulson says he was treated, keeping Ian Quinn in their custody and disobeying direct orders to hand him over. Because if Skye dies, they want to avenge her. Avenging is kind of their thing. But because they didn’t follow protocol, the Bus is boarded and the guy who comes on is Bill Paxton’s recurring character, Agent John Garrett. He agrees that he can interrogate Quinn on-board while they attempt to save Skye.

Fast-forward a bit. FitzSimmons find a drug (GH325) that seems to have been the key to Coulson’s resurrection. They discover an electronic paper trail of where his surgeries actually took place and it takes them to a decommissioned bunker from World War II, known as Guest House. Apparently this place is so secret and important that they only need two people guarding it at all times.

Coulson, Garrett, Fitz, and Ward head into the bunker, kill both the guards, and realize they have ten minutes before the whole thing collapses on top of them. Ward and Garrett attempt to disarm the bomb while Coulson and Fitz search for the drug. They find it in a locked storage room and Coulson tells Fitz to take it to Skye immediately. Because Coulson has found a door marked T.A.H.I.T.I. And now he has a new secret to keep from the team. Because it wouldn’t be S.H.I.E.L.D. if the superior officers weren’t keeping things from their team.

The serum works. Skye has stabilized. Everyone sighs in relief.

Best one-liner: “If they scratch my paint, I’m gonna be pissed!” Of course it would be Coulson saying this. Of course.

Badass Moment of the Week: This was going to be “Badass of the week,” but it’s always going to be May. So the badass moment would be when she just started pounding Quinn’s face with her fists. Kudos!

Firstly, as an aside, this show needs to stop with all the acronyms. It’s a terrible strain on the bloggers’ wrists.

The important thing is that the last ten minutes of this episode gave us a heck of a lot to look forward to. When Coulson found the room marked T.A.H.I.T.I. and started to pull open the drawer labeled “D.H.,” I held my breath. Because I seriously expected it to be Coulson’s mangled body and he would be confronted with the reality that he’s a life-model decoy. All those D.H. drugs were being pumped into his body in hopes that it would heal his heart after X amount of time. What would be more mind-shattering to Coulson than staring down at his actual body, still torn apart by Loki’s spear?

Alas, it is not Coulson’s body. Instead, we get half a creepy blue alien that looks not unlike Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. This apparently shocks Coulson to his core, freaking him out so much that he runs onto the Bus, screaming to not give the serum to Skye. What are the side-effects? What if it mutates her? But more importantly…

What the heck kind of alien is it?

The thing is too small to be a Frost Giant from Jotunheim, unless he’s more of the Loki-breed of them (not that Loki’s his own breed…). Some people are hoping it’s an Atlantean, though that seems less likely, but the general consensus is a Kree. Blue skin, very similar to humans…it fits quite well.

It feels like although this show tries to distance itself from the movie realm, it also wants to give some tie-ins/background information. With how inept the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization has been during the show, it feels like that idea is going to feed into Captain America: The Winter Soldier because the previews for that movie looks like S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to be compromised (I see you, Robert Redford, and your probable evilness).

If this is the case, then it would make sense for the alien to be Kree and show up in Guardians of the Galaxy in August. It’s a much smaller scale tie-in than the Captain America one, but it would still work very well.

We get a look at Lorelai, known Asgardian associate of Loki, and obviously Lady Sif is coming in next week’s episode. Finally! we all scream at once. Finally a good tie-in to the Marvel movie universe! Yeah, we had the episode that took place after the happenings of Thor: The Dark World, but there has been no drop-in of characters that we know from the movies. Sif is a badass, so it’s bound to be awesome.

Any guesses on what T.A.H.I.T.I. might stand for? Probably not “Tacos and Hats In The Internet” or (to be less silly) “Tactical and Heroic Intensive Therapeutic Initiative.” …I’m really bad at acronyms.