Agents of SHIELD – What They Become: Skye
Welcome to the recurring series “What They Become,” where you will find a look back at the first half of Season 2 of Agents of SHIELD. Journey along as we cover where our main characters have been in the last ten episodes.
Miss a post? Get caught up: Agent Melinda May | Grant Ward | Agents FitzSimmons | Agents Morse and Hunter | Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie
It’s one of the bigger changes of Season 2. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the winter finale yet (though then that begs the question, have you read all of the other “What They Become” posts without seeing the winter finale?)
At the End of Season 1: Saving Mike Peterson from Hydra’s grasp, and at the same time, saving Coulson and Nick Fury from being destroyed by Garrett. Lingering questions remain about her parentage and how the GH-325 will affect her.
At the Start of Season 2: Trying to decipher the alien writing Garrett was writing (and Coulson is secretly writing), and out in the field with Agent May, who is also her SO, training her to be a better agent.
At the Winter Finale: In the mysterious city’s temple, breaking out of her Terrigen Mist cocoon, watching Agent Triplett crumble before her, and literally shaking the house down. She has a lot of stuff going on right now.
The In-Between: She was the character we disliked the most in Season 1 (more or less than Grant Ward, depending on your own personal preferences), the stock character who fell a little flat at selling us on how “special” she was to be included in the ranks of SHIELD. We didn’t care about her struggle to find her parents or discover who she really was.
Right around that 10th-episode mark (“The Bridge,” for anyone who cares), the show started to click. Skye found her niche in this SHIELD team, and the chemistry and animosity between Chloe Bennet and her SHIELD counterparts felt more believable.
Honestly, Skye grew the most in Season 1, but don’t completely discount Season 2 either. In this season, she starts as an infantile SHIELD agent, finally getting proper training from Agent May and growing her confidence. As the episodes fly past, she proves her worth, both as a hacker and a field agent. She (presumably) kills Donnie Gill, a.k.a. Blizzard, in the third episode, while maintaining Simmons’ Hydra cover. She manipulates Ward on numerous occasions to get information out of him (though it’s not hard to manipulate someone who’s in love with you … that sounds shady coming from me …). She takes one for the good of the team when Ward uses her as leverage.
By the time we reach the winter finale, we have seen her morph from someone unwilling to take a shot at an enemy (see the third episode of Season 1) to point-blank shooting Ward multiple times and uttering, “Never turn your back on your enemy. You taught me that.”
And this isn’t even getting into the last scene with the Diviner when the “transformation” takes place, as her father called it. Crystals came out of the Diviner once it was placed on its pedestal, and the Temple closed itself off. Raina and Skye became encased in the stuff, leading Triplett to believe they were dead. As Triplett died, Skye and Raina’s cocoons broke away to reveal what was underneath. For Raina, we saw glimpses of a very physical transformation, while Skye’s cocoon flew from her and everything began to shake.
Daisy “Quake” Johnson, indeed. She is far from the hacker we were introduced to in Season 1.
Where She May Be Going: This is a loaded statement. With the reveal at the end of the episode that Skye’s transformation gave her seismic superpowers, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD looks like it will be heading in a completely different direction. Superheroes front and center. It’s different than anything else we’ve seen, because it’s a main character with the powers, not some form of a guest star.
The fate of Agents of SHIELD‘s storylines hinge on how Skye responds to her powers. Her father tells her that after her transformation, no one will understand, but this is a secret organization that’s used to dealing with “specials.”
Her relationship with Coulson will also be a factor. The majority of this season, we watched Skye show concern for Coulson’s weakening mental state and constant Nick Fury-esque behavior. Their relationship grew into a much more blatant father/daughter dynamic, especially when Skye’s biological father came into the picture (a.k.a. “Cal,” a.k.a. Calvin Zabo). Cal claims that no one will understand her after her transformation. But if Coulson, who has dealt with aliens and gods and superpowered people on a regular basis since 2008, can’t figure out a way to help and support Skye, then this show is going down the wrong path.
It seems obvious that Skye will hate her powers at first. Having watched Triplett try to save her only to get himself killed, her guilt will be too much to handle. It’s a standard trope, and how they set up the winter finale feeds into this too well.
How long will her guilt last? I feel like this is a theme we get a lot of in the X-Men movies, and one that shouldn’t be focused on for too long, no matter how much we all loved Triplett (or that may just be me. And Nick). We’re tired of the suddenly superpowered people not wanting their powers because they’ll just hurt those they love.
We want a badass who comes to understand their powers. We want someone who will work hard and train in order to strengthen what they can do. With Agent May as her SO and Coulson as a supporting father figure, you have to think she’s going to hit this point soon-ish.
At least before the end of the season. But that may drag it out too long. My best guess (and my guesses mean nothing)? We will have two or three episodes of Skye freaking over her powers before May/Coulson/Cal smacks some sense into her and she gets down to training.
Chloe Bennet has brought Skye a long way from the start of this series. No longer do we cringe when Skye is onscreen. Now we wait to see who she shoots — or shakes — next.
Next: Catch up with our review of the Agents of SHIELD midseason finale