Sarahastro

Coulson: Take me to your leader.

I thought this episode was pretty disappointing. The stuff with Ward bored me. I don't really care about him anymore, and going after Bakshi didn't convince me of his relevance to the story. I do feel really bad for Agent 33, though. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. can finally rescue her. My main complaint is that it felt like nothing really happened, but it took a long time. Like the whole subplot with Coulson dropping Skye off in the woods felt pretty slow. I really want her story to move past the initial "I'm scared of my powers and don't know what to do" stage. I'm not knocking the character for feeling scared or overwhelmed, but the last few episodes have made me feel like her story is kind of treading water, and I'd like to see it move forward. There's a lot of interesting potential for her once she starts exploring her Inhuman roots and learning to use her powers. Same thing with the stuff with S.H.I.E.L.D. vs. real S.H.I.E.L.D. This episode was really just a set up for the conflict next episode. I am looking forward to how that plays out. And kudos to the casting department for getting Edward James Olmos -- he has such a commanding presence, it's really hard not to root for him. As for the S.H.I.E.L.D. vs real S.H.I.E.L.D. conflict, I have mixed feelings. As much as I like Coulson, I think Gonzalez and his allies have a really good point. It's pretty scary that the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. spent the first part of the season being controlled by an alien substance that none of them understood. Plus Coulson often seems way too sentimental to be in charge of a spy agency. (I was glad to see that in this episode he actually made the rational decision to send Skye to the safe house rather than keep insisting "but we're her family!" If he wants to be the Director, he has to make the hard choices.) But on the other hand, I don't really understand what they want except that they want to get rid of Coulson. It's not clear how they would handle things differently if they were in charge. Plus the whole real S.H.I.E.L.D. thing makes no sense. Where have they been all this time? How did Coulson not know that they had a Helicarrier? We've heard next to nothing about the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who aren't on Coulson's team (except for when they need to kill someone off), so it seems weird that now we're getting this story about dissension within S.H.I.E.L.D. So yeah, as much as I love seeing Edward James Olmos, and I think there's interesting potential in a S.H.I.E.L.D. vs S.H.I.E.L.D. story, I'm not sure how I feel about this development.

I'm not sure if you get a good look at the picture in the episode, but you can see it in one of the promo stills, and it doesn't look like May. Of course they could decide to change it later, but I got the impression that he had really moved on. Plus we already have one divorced couple who are sort of back together. I think adding a second would be repetitive.

I liked this one, but it wasn't as good as I had hoped. Cal was delightful. The rest of his team was kind of meh. I did like that he was driving around in an Evil RV on a road trip to Wisconsin to eat pancakes at a diner with his Evil League of Evil. Kyle Maclachlan is just so much fun. I liked seeing May interact with Andrew and learning a little bit more about her. They have good chemistry together. And it's always nice to see Ming-Na smiling and laughing. But the stuff with Andrew and Skye didn't really go anywhere. They talked a couple of times. He didn't help her with her powers at all. So that subplot felt like treading water. I also thought that Cal getting whisked away by Gordon was anti-climactic, although I liked hearing Gordon dismiss Cal as not one of them. Interesting. Not sure what Cal's going to be doing now though. The stuff with Bobbi and Mack interests me a lot. I'm guessing the central conflict will be over what exactly should be done with alien tech and gifted individuals. I'm looking forward to seeing Edward James Olmos. The guy oozes gravitas.

I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that Fitz's characterization is coming at the expense of Simmons' (although I think I see your point because they are in conflict a lot). But the writers are doing a lot more with Fitz right now than with Simmons, so it feels like his character is changing and growing whereas hers is staying still. He's formed a new friendship with Mack, he's trying to adjust to his new cognitive and physical disabilities, and in the last two episodes we saw more of an emphasis on his relationship with Skye. Simmons hasn't really done that much since she got back from Hydra except for worry about her relationship with Fitz. I actually like that she came out as more cautious about Inhumans because it gives her character something to do that isn't directly tied to Fitz (and, as other people have pointed out, her concerns are not unfounded).

One of the really annoying things about the show is that they've never really addressed why these people are still working with S.H.I.E.L.D. Some make sense -- Coulson's in charge, May and Coulson are BFF, Skye is really attached to Coulson and has nowhere else to go -- but I don't really get why the others have stuck around. I'd kind of given up on the show ever addressing this, so I was really surprised and pleased that we got the big fight in this episode between Coulson and Mack, and we learned that Bobbi and Mack have their own agenda and are spying on Coulson. It'll be interesting to see how these things play out going forward, and what this means for the team and Coulson's leadership.

I thought this episode was really good and set up some interesting stuff. I liked that Mack let Coulson know all of his frustrations and anger with how he's been leading the team. I like Coulson a lot, but Mack is totally right. Coulson has his reasons for everything he does, but he doesn't tell anyone about them except for May and Skye, and sometimes he doesn't even completely understand those reasons himself. It's perfectly natural for them to all be wondering why the hell they had to rush to that alien city in the first place. I also really like the new hints about what Bobbi and Mack are really up to. I was not expecting that miniature Lola to be a spy gadget. Way to go, Mack! Since we already had May reporting to Fury behind Coulson's back last season, I'm guessing they're involved in some other organization that will be an ally of S.H.I.E.L.D. but have its own agenda. I like what kennyab said about Bobbi trying to ingratiate herself with everyone. I still think she's one of the good guys, but it does put an interesting spin on her interactions with everyone, and gives some credence to Hunter's constant complaints about how Bobbi can't be trusted. It was cheesy, but I really liked their staged attack when they were transporting Bakshi, especially when May called Coulson out on his overdramatic line. That made me laugh.

The nice thing about this is that they're not all working together. Sometimes they do, like Cal and Raina working with Hydra, but even then their agendas were at cross-purpose. I think their are gradations to their villainy that make the show more interesting: Hydra: Flat out "take over the world!" villains. Ward: Despicable evil human who is actually pretty directionless, which explains why he's teaming up with... Agent 33: Mind-controlled by someone who is dead, so she's directionless. Also, who knows if or when the mind-control will break Cal: Crazy murderous nutjob Raina: Completely out for herself, but not necessarily evil. Plus, she's achieved her goal by being transformed, so who knows what direction she'll go. Blind guy: No idea what his agenda is, other than to find Skye and Raina. Maybe to kill them, maybe to recruit them, maybe to protect them. So I do really like that the villains aren't all working together and are different levels of evil/crazy. It does make the show more interesting. I just wonder about the balance of them on the show since we only have 12 more episodes. Maybe they will do that they did with Spike on Buffy and have some vanish until next season. He was around in Season 2, then barely showed up in Season 3, and became a bigger player again in Season 4.

These writers seem to love their villains, and so do I, but they really need to trim them down. Right now we have Ward, Agent 33, Bakshi (unclear if he's dead or in a coma or what, but it looked to me like he was still alive), Skye Daddy, and Raina, plus Hydra is still out there as an amorphous evil that will probably be spawning another bad guy. And now they've introduced No Eyes Guy, who I'm assuming will be another villain. How are they going to keep working them all in?

I had the same thought. The only Kree we know about was blown up in the Guest House when Coulson and crew broke in. But if they get ahold of another, they can start bringing people back from the dead again! This is why I hate when they bring people back from the dead. If you do it once, you have to have a good explanation for why you can't just bring everyone back to life.

I wonder why the writers didn't just give her the last name Johnson. It's so common, it sounds like the kind of thing they would give a baby at an orphanage with no birth certificate. I think this will be like Mike Peterson, where he is the MCU's version of Deathlok, but he doesn't have the same name of any of the men who have been Deathlok in the comics. Skye is Quake, and her birth name is Daisy, but they're just going to keep calling her Skye.

We have heard her last name. When she took the lie detector test, she said the orphanage named her Mary Sue Poots. So I don't see how they are going to have her name end up being Daisy Johnson. Personally, I'm going to keep calling her Skye until the show starts calling her something else.

In the comics, Calvin Zabo can turn into some kind of monster called Mr. Hyde. I don't know much about him because I don't read comic books, but from what I've seen online, it sounds like Mr. Hyde is kind of like the Hulk. It's unclear if the same is true in this universe. It seems like he might have enhanced strength (or maybe Coulson is just easy to beat up). I had the same thought though too. What exactly was his plan for when he saw Whitehall? And what if Whitehall had had a gun?

I really liked this episode, but I'm glad that other people have brought up how dark it was. I could barely see what was happening, and I kept forgetting who was where and with whom. Love Skye not taking any of Ward's B.S. and shooting him. Love that Skye was willing to give up having powers in order to protect people from the Obelisk. I did think it was a little contrived that everyone ended up running around in the tunnels trying to find each other -- yeah, it was the right thing to do, but it was still a little cliched. I'm sad that Trip is gone. They could have done a lot more with his character. Overall I'm impressed that they really shook things up in this episode, and I'm wondering how that's going to change things for the second half of this season. It really changes the whole series, from ordinary people fighting Hydra to a superhero origin story. I'm not totally sure how I feel about that because I'm not that into superhero movies/TV shows/comic books, but this time last year the idea of Skye getting powers made me roll my eyes and now I'm actually interested to see what happens, so good job show.

I agree with the complaints about the pacing. It's frustrating not to be able to guess what's going to happen because all of the big decisions are actually being figured by Marvel execs way at the top as part of their 5-year master plan. Everything seems to point towards Inhumans, but it seems really weird to introduce them four years before the Inhumans movie. Or maybe it's a brilliant move since most of the non-comic-book-reading public (including me) had never heard of them until now? I don't know, but personally I think I'd enjoy the show more if I could just watch it without wondering how it's going to tie into movies being released over the next five years. The May/Skye relationship is one of the highlights for me this season. The same old pairings got so boring last season, and I'm so glad that they've been mixing it up more this season. I like this theory. I'm also a little worried that she'll be the one to pay the "ultimate sacrifice" next episode. Please don't, show. I really want to see Raina running around with super powers. Now that Ward's kept his promise to kidnap Skye and bring her to her dad, does this mean he's getting killed off? I just don't see what else he has to offer to the story at this point.