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

Welcome to Season Two of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! It’s been four months since Agent Coulson and his crew have graced our televisions with new weekly adventures. It’s made for a long summer, one that was only alleviated by Guardians of the Galaxy, but I digress.

Many things remained up in the air when Season One closed (we have a fun recap here, so catch up!), so where did this season premiere take us?

Not-So-Short Summary: We start back in 1940s Germany where the Nazis are raiding through one of HYDRAs last bases. In swoops Agent Carter and several Howling Commandos to clean up the mess and take control of everything, including a mysterious gleaming obelisk that is apparently dangerous (and the origin of the term “084”). It may hold the answer to death itself, but of course it’s the Red Skull who said this, so take it with a grain of salt because he was a little on the crazy side.

May, Trip, and Skye are spying in on a drop-off, the unwanted backup for a handful of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and it’s our introduction of new players (including Lucy Lawless’s Agent Hartley) as well as Carl Creel, aka the Absorbing Man, who we will see for more than one episode.

A trip back to the Playground, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s new HQ, gives us a taste of the state of the fallen agency: lots of secrecy, lots of only certain people finding things out, lots of Coulson being a fill-in Nick Fury and rarely around. There’s also a side-story about Glenn Talbot hunting down both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA.

Our first look at FitzSimmons after their traumatic experiences is interesting. Simmons is normal, maybe a little too happy, but Fitz…Fitz is having memory issues, recalling words, and has a lack of patience. It’s painful to watch, because you can see his struggle and his attempts to remain calm and go back to how he was before. There is definitely a lot of hand-touching that seems out of place, but more on this dynamic later…

Skye is looking into what Garrett was carving into the glass and the same thing Coulson carved into the walls. She has found nothing so far. Did Coulson set her on this task because he’s been carving it as well and doesn’t want anyone to know, or he has one of his Coulson-inclinations that something may be off in his brain?

Ward is apparently in a basement holding facility of the Playground, and no one has gone to visit him yet, aside from whoever clothes and feeds him. He is fully evil–or fully redemptive, depending on your opinions of beards and suicide attempts. Skye visits him (because it’s who he wants to see, and it’s creepy how Brett Dalton plays it. Which is also cool.) because Ward has intel on Creel and where he may end up. He gives them one better: he tells them how HYDRA communicates, and the team stumbles upon an attempt at Talbot’s life.

Talbot has an Ocean’s 11 moment when Triplett runs into him, slips a cell phone into his pocket, and then Talbot tells his wife that it’s not his phone ringing. Coulson warns him about a danger coming to him, but he ignores it and sets his guards on Coulson-hunting duty. Cue in the Absorbing Man and May and Skye coming to the rescue and disappearing before they can be apprehended. But then Talbot gets into their Tahoe and they take off.

Coulson gets to have a heart-to-heart with Talbot and kicks off the season properly by giving another angry, motivating Coulson speech. After angry banter and a lack of a compromise (because the Absorbing Man is in their custody and they don’t know how to handle him).

So the team breaks into where they are holding the Absorbing Man, both to find the mysterious 084 he is after as well as some “secret” mission Coulson has May, Trip, and Skye on. Hartley finds the 084 first and grabs it in an attempt to stop Creel, but that plan (obviously) backfires, and her crew takes off to save her life. Coulson’s team stays on mission and steals a quinjet, so now they can disappear.

Flash over to Hartley and her crew driving away, she pulls a Thor and gets her arm cut off to save herself (I also had flashes of Albus Dumbledore), but it seems all for naught when the Absorbing Man crashes their car. I thought Lucy Lawless had more of an arc than just one episode, but she looked pretty dead to me. Looking it up, she was only slated for the premiere. Looks like she needs to head back to Pawnee for the final season of Parks and Recreation.

And then there’s the most heartbreaking scene of the episode: Coulson discussing Fitz’s mental issues due to the damage to his temporal lobe. “Since Simmons left,” he begins, and I gasped. It turns out the Simmons we’ve been seeing–the overly nice, incredibly understanding, smiling at Fitz’s hand on top of hers–is just a mental projection for Fitz. She has left S.H.I.E.L.D. in hopes that her absence will help Fitz get better, but it’s only made him more secluded.

But it explains the hand-holding, the thoughtfulness, the understanding. It begins to make sense, the projection we are seeing. This isn’t the Simmons we’ve come to know all throughout last season. Yes, she would be understanding, but not to that extent. She would push Fitz to do his very best because she knows he’s capable of it, no matter the circumstances. For her to be in the background, not doing her own work, gently guiding Fitz… it doesn’t fit.

It ends with Dr. Whitehall from the opening scene with Peggy and the Howling Commandos, getting the 084 and looking not a day older than he did in 1945.

Badass Moment Of The Week: Let’s go with the cold open with Peggy and the Howling Commandos, because they are awesome and badass. Runner up is Coulson’s plan to stead a quinjet.

Best One-Liner: “So, flying coach it is. Though–I did score an exit row on the flight back from London!” Agent Coulson, speaking truths about flying.

Runner-Up: Coulson: “Can you give us a moment?”
Triplett: “Watch this.” And he leaves. I’m so going to use this from now on.

Fun Theory I’m Making Up Right Now: This idea comes from Austin, who I have successfully drawn into the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. obsession: Ward points out that he can see a toned difference in Skye’s arms and that May is training her. Does this mean she’s on her way to flying, or is possibly already there? Are those rumors of her being Miss Marvel actually true?

Also, at the end, who flew away in the quinjet? May was on the bike, can Skye or Triplett fly? (I’m assuming it was Triplett.)

The glimpse of Agent Carter in the beginning was lots of fun and makes me hope for more cameos from movie characters. It’s also a good set up, both for the miniseries that will be coming in the winter as well as that rumored flashback scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

When the Absorbing Man absorbs the diamond, did anyone else have flashes of Emma Frost when his hand and forearm turned to diamond? Let’s seriously talk about the Absorbing Man. He was pretty sweet and reminded me of Colossus. The effects on him were some of the best of the series, probably because they weren’t such a broad scale like the Bus flying over an ocean. Plus, it’s very nice to see S.H.I.E.L.D. jumping head-first into comic book characters joining the ranks.

Skye is pretty wonderful. When she gets the information from Ward, he gets excited and tries to talk to her, but before he can say more than half a sentence, she turns the wall opaque and shuts him out. He wants to discuss what he knows about her father. What does he know? Was Raina letting him in on this? Or does he only have what little information she said in the season one finale? Skye’s not going to believe him–not yet, at least. #NoWardRedemptionArc

In regards to the alien writing, it showed up on the 084 when Hartley had a hold of it (Skye noticed). There was also a blue glowing thing we didn’t get a good look at because Peggy slammed it shut, but it sure looked like some sort of tattooed arm that could be the blue alien from the Guest House.

This episode is better than what made up the first half of last season and is comparable to some of the less action-filled ones of the second half. It sets up a lot of groundwork, a lot of “backstory” so that hopefully the next few episodes won’t have to fill in the blanks and we can focus right in on the action.