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Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Recap – “The Frenemy Of My Enemy”

By Christina Roberts

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I can’t say I’m a fan of this week’s Agents of SHIELD episode title, but man, did it have twists and turns. Was I the only one who had a hard time following it? I attempted to keep it into the segmented areas, but since they all kind of converged, it’s pretty much down to only two.

Not-So-Short Summary: Fitz meets up almost immediately with Coulson, Hunter, and Deathlok in their quinjet where he immediately gives Coulson’s Fury’s Toolbox. Coulson gives him the low-down: Strucker and List were looking into Specials, and lays the news out there that they’re going to make a deal with Ward so Fitz isn’t surprised later.

They find Agent 33 and make a call to Ward. He shows up covered in guns and knives, stripped of them all by Deathlok’s orders. Ward and Coulson’s sit-down is full of sarcasm and passive-aggressive tones where Coulson tries to offer Ward something for getting them an in with Strucker: Running him through TAHITI and giving him a free and clear start on life. Literally leaving his emotional baggage behind. (#NoWardRedemptionArc)

“I might know a guy,” Ward responds.

He brings him Bakshi, who is probably more than happy to comply. He sets up a meeting with List, and I’ve got to say, Bakshi as a brainwashed drone is hilariously likable. They send him in with Deathlok as his bodyguard, and the Bakshi/List conversation goes quite poorly. He offers Deathlok as an experiment, and back on the quinjet, Ward pulls a gun on Coulson while 33 gets a knife to Fitz’s throat. IT’S A TRAP!!!

Ward tries to talk Coulson down while Deathlok targets everyone in the room. Fitz is let go with enough time to tell Deathlok to play along, only to have List fly off because of an “event” (with Coulson following).

It turns out List has been following a trail of “quantum entanglements,” aka teleportation trails, aka Gordon. They’re off to investigate.

Afterlife: Look, I understand that the Johnsons are a broken family (is it too soon to call them the Johnsons? Too bad). I get that Cal literally made himself insane to help bring back his wife and try to find his daughter, and I understand that Jiaying and Skye both feel conflicted about many different factors in their weird relationship. But there’s only so many times I can write about it.

The gist: Jiaying is sending Cal away from Afterlife because he doesn’t belong. Skye disagrees, thinks it will end badly, and ends up going with Cal to Milwaukee, where she would have been raised.

Have I mentioned how much I love Kyle MacLachlan? He plays Cal so well, soft but overexcited about stupid things. Full of stories of how much he had planned about Skye’s childhood, “a life we could have had, should have had.” It’s entertaining and heartbreaking.

Skye takes a phone off a stranger and makes contact with May, tells them to catch her and Cal and bring them in, Bobbi and Mack take off to get them. Lincoln’s on them the whole time.

“Daisy Johnson. Huh,” Skye mutters to herself as Cal brings her to his old office (I also enjoy that he said he changed his last name to something more sinister when he went on the run). He shows her the tools he used to put Jiaying back together (which is dark and weird and creepy). Skye tells Cal he needs to move on, says she can still visit…and that’s when Lincoln steps in and Cal puts the pieces together about how they’re trying to abandon him like Jessie in Toy Story 2. He throws Lincoln into a filing cabinet and Bakshi, List, and company hear it down below.

As Cal gets ready to go off on Lincoln, Hydra shows up. Cal takes them on, Lincoln helps Skye leave, Coulson and crew also show up. Coulson and Ward track down Skye, only to have Gordon show up to take her away and Cal latches on. You can easily see the pain and disappointment on his face as Skye leaves him again.

Post-Credits Stinger: Bobbi and Mack in the aftermath of the battle find Coulson at Cal’s desk in the aftermath of the fight, ready and waiting to go back to HQ. Not exactly to turn himself in, but to at least make some allies…hopefully.

Badass Moment of the Week: Not really the biggest “badass” moment, but I laughed and then applauded when Cal jammed that letter opener into the top of the filing cabinet.

Best One-Liner: “You have a cyborg with a rocket in his arm,” Ward comments.
“He’s not a cyborg, he’s a SHIELD agent!” Coulson corrects, “…with a rocket in his arm.”

I didn’t cover the fake!SHIELD HQ because not much happened. Simmons confided in May about Fury’s Toolbox being a fake, so they make Simmons tap into Deathlok’s eye feed…right when Coulson and Ward are on screen together. There’s also a moment between Bobbi and Mack where Bobbi comments that maybe they shouldn’t be focusing this much on Coulson. Like maybe there’s bigger fish to fry.

One thing I’ve found relatively infuriating in the last four or five episodes is that no matter how many strides forward an episode takes, bad happenstances always trump at the very end and they’re back to square one, or close to it. This week: everyone converges in on Milwaukee, Coulson’s in the same hallway as Skye, and she gets swept away. They’re back to square one again.

Ward/33, do we buy it? Ward’s emotions look genuine, but the key word there is “look.” He seemed pretty upset when he saw Skye and she left too quickly (hence the multiple double-taps at already dead Hydra agents). Then again, that could be from the four times she shot him. Part of me wishes his feelings for 33 are genuine. But I know better.

That being said, I actually really enjoy this iteration of Ward on SHIELD’s team, even if it’s temporary. There’s still that lingering feeling of #NoWardRedemptionArc hovering around, but if it’s more of the “wipe him and make him a blank slate,” I would be slightly more for it. Still…no, Agents of SHIELD, keep him a wild card.

With the rumors/news that Bobbi and Hunter may be starring in that Agents of SHIELD spinoff, I have to wonder how and when this will happen.

Next week is the last episode before Avengers: Age of Ultron. While everyone has said it doesn’t tie in as well as the ones around Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I have this weird feeling some of our SHIELD cohorts will be in the wrong place at the wrong time… or just a couple buildings over from where the real action is.

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