Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review – “Making Friends And Influencing People”

This week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gives us the missing half of FitzSimmons, the return of Donnie Gill, and one heck of an episode. Screw introductions, let’s jump into it!

Not-So-Short Summary: Dr. Whitehall is as young as ever, talking about second chances to a woman (Agent 33) getting the A Clockwork Orange therapy. We flash to her on multiple occasions, and she continually says that she will never work for HYDRA. I’m sure that’ll change by the end of the episode.

Then there’s Simmons, all happy smiles times and happy working girl, travel mug of coffee and all. She’s working in a HYDRA lab and is consistently super happy–until her boss is pressuring her to get answers from samples she’s studying. It’s a brisk change of pace, this opening montage of Simmons’ morning routine and journey into work. It’s so happy and joyful compared to anything that’s been in the first two episodes. More montages like this, please!

We have an in-depth look (or more than before) of May training Skye. There’s a lot of banter about thinking the target is a target, not just Ward like Skye is pretending. And then there’s the sniper rifles; May wants Skye to get used to the recoil. And let’s not forget about keeping her heart rate consistent and low.

Donnie Gill makes a quick appearance as he hangs out in the Marrakesh Express. He freezes several people, giving off an Elsa vibe (I’ve been watching too much Once Upon A Time), and heads to where the mysterious figure was supposed to take him. He freezes a freighter to the dock.

Simmons heads home to her apartment and hears things thumping. It’s Coulson! He brought groceries. And he cooks dinner while she fills him in on what HYDRA has going on, but where she is in their cog work isn’t high enough for information Coulson needs. It boils down to her needing to make friends to keep her cover secure and her asking how Fitz is.

As soon as she attempts to ask her boss if he wants to go for drinks and karaoke after work, there’s a security issue and she is taken “upstairs.” It turns out she’s been keeping something from HYDRA. What is it? Well, after the seventeen-minute-long commercial break, it’s the fact that she’s already encountered Donnie Gill, saved his life even. Since she’s a familiar face, she’s heading with the TAC team to help bring Donnie back in.

Skye meanwhile is working another angle: Ward. She wants to get a feel for HYDRA, how they run, how they operate. Ward plays is so creepy, so broken, it’s perfect. It’s a Hannibal Lector vibe and it works so well. He says that “gifteds” that don’t join HYDRA get taken out, so S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to beat HYDRA to Gill before they can take him out. Everyone but Fitz and Mack take off to where Gill was last spotted: Casablanca.

Fitz feels like secrets are being kept from him now that he’s “damaged goods,” so while the others are out, he breaks into where Skye’s “asset” is and discovers Ward. And Fitz loses it. Rightly so. Ward tries to explain himself, says he did what he did to save Fitz and Simmons. Fitz loses it and decides to deprive Ward of oxygen to show him what it’s like, what has happened to him. It’s terrifying, and Ward saves himself by telling Fitz what’s going to happen when they find Gill.

Simmons is not good at being a secret agent in the field, shouting for who she’s looking for. She faces off against Gill and S.H.I.E.L.D. shows up (as secret backup). Simmons talks Gill down, focuses on being a scientist. Until he freaks out again. Bakshi, through the intercom, has Simmons repeat after him the same mantra Whitehall is using on the mystery girl.

Gill was in the Sandbox and destroyed it with his new powers. HYDRA brainwashed Gill and want to reprogram him. Fitz manages to call the Bus and tell Coulson what Ward says will happen on that ship. In the meantime, up in the rafters, Hunter has a gun trained on Simmons’ back, ready to take her out. May sees it’s her and shoots Hunter to stop him.

Skye shoots him in the shoulder and he plunges over into the freezing water and (apparently) freezes to death. Skye aims for Simmons’ boss, but Simmons shoves him out of the way, maintaining her cover. I do wonder if Gill is actually dead since Skye reports later no one has found his body; he seems to encase himself in ice as he sinks to the bottom, so is he going to be preserved like a Cap-sicle or does that not work because he didn’t have Dr. Erskine’s serum pumping through him?

Fitz and Coulson have a one-on-one discussion at the end. Coulson is upset Fitz almost killed Ward, but confesses that he can’t look at Ward because he hates him so much. He doesn’t like having Ward with them, but he’s their only HYDRA intel, so they can’t let him go. On top of telling Fitz that Simmons is on assignment and that’s why she hasn’t been in contact, he says that he sees Fitz’s improvements.

Whitehall and Bakshi discuss ominous things, and the girl who was in the hypnotherapy for most of the episode is now fully compliant. He wants to bring Simmons up top to help them out because her talents are being squandered in the lab. And, of course, they have ways of making her compliant if she fails.

Skye comes down to see Ward and asks, “Relieved it’s not Fitz?” He confirms HYDRA will use brainwashing if it comes down to it. His comments about never lying to Skye are just weird. And she asks him why he’s telling her the truth, because she does believe he is. “I don’t know what you hope to achieve,” she says, and he tells her that he wants her to trust him when he lays down a huge truth bomb…which he does right after that (stupidly. Give her time to acclimate!):

“Your father is alive. He’s looking for you. And someday, if you let me, I’ll take you to him.”
“We’re done here,” Skye replies, leaving the holding cell and checking her heart rate. It’s through the roof.

Badass Moment of the Week: May shooting Hunter. The choreography of that scene was so fluid I almost had to rewind and watch it again.

Best One-Liner: “Sriacha? Beer? What kind of diet is that?!” Coulson scolds Simmons.

Fun Theory I’m Making Up Right Now: Skye mentions her first time jumping out of a plane and plummeting back to earth involved Coulson and Lola. Where is Lola? I’m thinking next episode, we’re going to get an action sequence where the S.H.I.E.L.D. team is under fire, almost about to lose, and Lola will swoop in out of nowhere, completely unmanned, and take down all the targets. Why? How? Who cares!

Also, last week my “fun theory” was a Tony Stark cameo, because who else is going to fund S.H.I.E.L.D.? Well, Robert Downey Jr. did an AMA on reddit Monday and answered two separate users about being willing to do a cameo on S.H.I.E.L.D. I think I just predicted the future. GO ME!! Granted, he mentions there would be a lot of red tape, which will probably hold him up, but I CAN HOPE, RIGHT?!

Did Ward bulk up? Seriously, looking at him as he talked with Fitz and Skye, all I can see are his gigantic muscles. I know he has nothing better to do being locked in a cell, but…dang. Look at him over there!

If there’s one thing that bugged me about this episode, it was the lack of Triplett. He was only in a handful of scenes, and did have a hilarious comment after May states that she shot Hunter. “Man, I wanted to be the one!” Also, the lack of Agent Koenig makes me sad. I’m sure Patton Oswalt is busy, but come on, indulge us a bit!

When the subtitles said something about the Port of Casablanca, I started cracking up. All I could think of was the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. “Man, never show a good movie in the middle of your crappy movie!” Tom Servo groans. That’s just how my brain works.

You know, a lot of reviews I’ve read around the internet have commented about how long Fitz’s “injury” is going to last and how repetitive it will be if it goes on forever, how can they do something better/fresh/etc. Well, I think they did a pretty good job giving it a twist this week. Showing the dark side of his struggles, his frustration coming out in full as he slowly kills Ward shows just how unhinged he can become. With Simmons still deep within HYDRA, she’s not about to show up and make Fitz be better, so this will be an interesting development. Plus, the heart to heart with Coulson at the end was something Fitz most definitely needed to hear.

And during the preview for next week’s episode, I had two separate friends text me Coulson’s line of, “Look! Cufflinks!” It will be nice to see Coulson getting back in the field, because staying up top is making him as cryptic as Nick Fury.