S02.E02: Heavy Is The Head

[jhlipton]

Great FX with the bullet bouncing off of Creel's head.

I thought it was a Rocket-Propelled Grenade, which would make more sense than any kind of bullet. But it didn't explode on contact, mostly because of [PLOT!].

 

 

I'm not really sure how actual brain damage works, whatever the kind he has, but I think that at least for Fitz stress just exacerbates the problem.

 

As I said in the previous episode, he has CBBI -- Comic Book Brain Injury

 

 

I was glad to see from the recap that someone else was bothered by the Obelisk's ... non-obelisk-ness.

 

I mentioned that in the previous episode, too [pouts]. But once it was stood up and the symbols came out, it looked a little more obelisky.

 

[The size isn't what makes something an obelisk -- the slabs in 2001 were not obelisks.  An obelisk is an object having a square or rectangular cross section and a pyramidal top.  See Cleopatra's Needle or this

:

Edited October 1, 2014 by jhlipton

[Lyndy]

I dropped out early last season, then dropped back in for a couple of episodes towards the end (so I know why Fitz is having issues). I'm not up-to-date on whatever's going on in the Marvel universe past The Avengers so I only sort of get who Hydra is. This is because I have a short attention span and also Marvel can't expect me to consume all of this stuff and still enjoy the rest of my life. 

 

So I dropped back in with yesterday's episode and am quite a bit in the dark and you know what? Kinda like it. No idea what's going on and it's sort of fun trying to figure it out. My tiny tin heart breaks for Fitz. I like what that actor is doing with his vaguely explained brain injury plot line. There seem to be one or two superfluous new characters. Otherwise? Pretty entertaining. Dropping in on a show I know little about is officially my new pastime. If I weren't too cheap to pay for HBO, I'd totally do this with Game of Thrones.

 

Oh, and I notice Skye is way less annoying this year. Good for her!

[HistoryGirl]

I dropped out early last season, then dropped back in for a couple of episodes towards the end (so I know why Fitz is having issues). I'm not up-to-date on whatever's going on in the Marvel universe past The Avengers so I only sort of get who Hydra is. This is because I have a short attention span and also Marvel can't expect me to consume all of this stuff and still enjoy the rest of my life. 

 

So I dropped back in with yesterday's episode and am quite a bit in the dark and you know what? Kinda like it. No idea what's going on and it's sort of fun trying to figure it out. My tiny tin heart breaks for Fitz. I like what that actor is doing with his vaguely explained brain injury plot line. There seem to be one or two superfluous new characters. Otherwise? Pretty entertaining. Dropping in on a show I know little about is officially my new pastime. If I weren't too cheap to pay for HBO, I'd totally do this with Game of Thrones.

 

Oh, and I notice Skye is way less annoying this year. Good for her!

I will say that Captain America 2 is worth the watch to fill you in on what you missed about Hydra.  It will definitely provide insight.  I still remember being in the theatre unspoiled and gobsmacked. 

 

Also, Jasper Sitwell.  I'll say no more. 

[Irishmaple]

Raina!  I'm so happy she's back.  She alone made the episode for me, still rocking the flowery dress and the deadpan attitude.  I liked her version of flirting/setting up Creel, looking a little intimidated but doing her best to hide it.  I could have lived without her drinking the Garrett Kool-Aid but nobody's perfect on this show.  Never mind 'the daughter', Raina, go liberate Ward and make me a happy viewer as the two of you team up and do whatever it is you need to do to get some Garrett-style enlightenment.  Or whatever, just team up. 

 

What about Creel and his apparent indestructibility made Hunter think a solo assault was the way to go?  The guy totalled a waitress by accident; he's not going to hold back when attacked.  That was one of dumbest things I've seen a character do on this show.  I'd have handed him a couple of million just to leave SHIELD before he did something else boneheaded.  Like piss May off.  Oh, wait.  I'm not finding the guy very interesting.  Lucy Lawless had one episode to do her Lucy Lawless thing and she nailed it; I'd rather have her on the team.  Creel's very polished contact was interesting.  Does he have some kind of ESP?

 

I was just starting to like Skye and now she's kind of whiny about Coulson being occupied with saving the world.  I appreciate that May laid that out for her, but I need Skye to get over herself again.  I found Fitz more interesting this week.  It's interesting to see that most of the information he needs for his job is still there and it's the retrieval process that's failing him, which is why he defaults to his imaginary Simmons.  The new guy is a good fit for this version of Fitz.  I got bored of watching Simmons coddle him last season so Mac is good, pushing Fitz but not pressuring him and willing to listen to what Fitz is trying to say as much as what he says. 

Edited October 1, 2014 by Irishmaple

[marceline]

 

I was glad to see from the recap that someone else was bothered by the Obelisk's ... non-obelisk-ness.

 

The obelisk reminded me a lot of the puzzle from Alias. Maybe its time for SHIELD to meet SD-6.

Edited October 1, 2014 by marceline

[OmegaX123]

(Am I wrong in supposing that Creel has to consciously decide to absorb whatever, and it doesn't happen automatically upon exposure?)

As far as I can tell, not wrong, though in the comics way-back-when there was a time he was fighting Hulk, holding up a giant rock (boulder, I guess) to crush him with (Hulk was in Banner form and unconscious or just about there, iirc), then stepped bare-footed on Banner's chest and suddenly was no longer made of anything sturdier than flesh and bone and the boulder pressed down on Creel instead.

EDIT: Forgot to add, I find it interesting that Head!Jemma seems to think she's a real person, but Fitz sometimes acts like he thinks she's real and sometimes like he knows she's not. Kind of odd, that.

Edited October 1, 2014 by OmegaX123

[Sandman]

I mentioned that in the previous episode, too [pouts]. But once it was stood up and the symbols came out, it looked a little more obelisky.

 

Ah, so you did, jhlipton. I meant someone else besides us, obviously. (Ahem.) Sorry.

 

Creel's very polished contact was interesting.  Does he have some kind of ESP?

 

Are you thinking of the response he got from Creel when he told him to take a deep breath and be calm? I assumed that was some kind of conditioning taking over, rather than the contact imposing any kind of mental control. I do believe that the producers have said there will be no psychic abilities in the MCU. (Not sure I like that decision, but we'll see if it is actually borne out.)

 

EDIT: Forgot to add, I find it interesting that Head!Jemma seems to think she's a real person, but Fitz sometimes acts like he thinks she's real and sometimes like he knows she's not. Kind of odd, that.

 

I noticed that, too. Can we take it as a sign that Fitz is actually aware, at least sometimes, that he's subject to delusions, and thus is actually getting better?

Edited October 2, 2014 by Sandman

[Irishmaple]

I thought there was something odd about the way the contact reacted when Creel was first attacked.  He responded very quickly; it seemed like he knew the attack from Hunter was coming.  It could have been the way the actor moved or the direction of the scene, but the way it was presented suggested something to me.  I like ESP and that kind of thing so it's too bad it's off the menu.

[Grammaeryn]

Fitz has an oddly selective bit of brain damage. He can talk like a normal person as long as the conversation doesn't involve problem-solving. If it gets technical he gets confused but he gets help from his invisible friend. He knows he has solutions to problems in an archive but he doesn't know how to simply say "look at my SHIELD Ipad for the answer".

I know this is a TV show and I'm not a neurologist but here I go chiming in. In the real world, no brain injury is alike in effects from person to person. I do not have a complete right temporal, parietal, or frontal lobe. Immediately post-injury, I could not list the months in order but could remember obscure medication names. I could not talk like a Normal for two years. The idea was in my head but getting it to my mouth and then choosing the words was SO SLOW. I would get so frustrated, I would dissolve into tears. Brain damage does not mean dumb.

[jhlipton]

This is a bit silly, but kind of cool:

 

I was watching an ad for Geico motorcycle insurance and at the end about five bikes pull up at this dusty run-down cafe.  Yep, the very same "Halfway House Cafe" where the poor waitress bought it. 

I just found their FaceBook page, and the Cafe has been used in a LOT of TV shows and movies.

[Llywela]

I know this is a TV show and I'm not a neurologist but here I go chiming in. In the real world, no brain injury is alike in effects from person to person. I do not have a complete right temporal, parietal, or frontal lobe. Immediately post-injury, I could not list the months in order but could remember obscure medication names. I could not talk like a Normal for two years. The idea was in my head but getting it to my mouth and then choosing the words was SO SLOW. I would get so frustrated, I would dissolve into tears. Brain damage does not mean dumb.

Well said. I've seen the impact of brain injury on both an aunt and my sister, for different reasons - one had an illness called nocardia, with seven massive abscesses throughout her brain, which have left a lot of scar tissue, and the other had viral meningitis with the massive intracranial pressure likewise causing trauma to the brain. Having a brain injury does not render an individual non-functional. The effects are often more subtle than that. My sister lost her sense of smell, and lost the ability to connect certain sounds and tastes with their correct identification - she'd hear a motorbike going past the house and not be able to remember what the sound meant, or she'd look at her favourite meal and not be able to remember whether or not she liked it. My aunt suffered memory loss, seizures and vivid hypnogogic hallucinations that she couldn't tell weren't real, and which appeared real to her even after she knew that they weren't. She still struggles with memory loss. Both, four and three years down the line respectively, still struggle to bring to mind the words they want to use - they know what they mean, they know there's a word they should know, but there's a connection broken that makes it hard to get that word out, and both find it enormously frustrating.

 

Yet both are also getting on with their lives despite the injury - my sister still holds down a full time job as a teacher. She isn't incapable. She just has an injury that she's had to adapt to. Fitz's situation seems plausible enough to me.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Llywela

[Glory]

Lance Hunter? Seriously? Couldn't they give him a less cornball name like Max Power or Beef Jerky or Dash Riprock? C'mon!

Just give him a real, regular name. Like Nick Blood.

C'mon! It's Marvel! Should he have a regular name like Dum Dum Dougan? 

[korilian]

I'm really annoyed that they seem to have actually killed off Xena and the other guy. I thought it was interesting that they had to rely on mercenaries and I liked how this team played off each other. It gave the characters instant backstory and set up a nice conflict, because their loyalty was clearly more to each other than to Coulson. And now the cool boss lady and the flunky are dead and all we're left with is the broody, generic white male. Like whatever.

[ChelseaNH]

all we're left with is the broody, generic white male

 

Not quite generic -- he adds diversity to the cast because he's British.

Uh, because he's English.

Uh, because he's working class English.  See?  We didn't have one of those before.

[FurryFury]

I really think that by s2, they wouldn't add such a generic character to the cast. Ward, at least, was retroactively saved by being the mole - I doubt anything close will happen to Hunter. I'd definitely prefer someone more quirky or, hell, interesting. At this point Tripp, Mac and Hartley all seem/seemed to be more intriguing candidates.

Edited October 2, 2014 by FurryFury

[DeLurker]

I wish I could find the screen shot, but when Fitz & Mac finished their project and Mac was holding it, it looked like it was built from K'nex.

[APSimpson]

Some good Coulson quips in this one:

"I know, and we just retiled the bathroom."

"Why the breakup? Bad dental plan?"

And then the line about the George Foreman grill which I can't exactly remember.

:D

I love the banter between Coulson and Talbot. Adrian Pasdar looks and sounds so badass. Ugh, did I actually just say "badass?" I hope Talbot is a regular from here on out.

I couldn't believe Lance Hunter iced May and Skye, I shouted out "no" but just love the twists we keep getting with this show. Glad everything turned out ok and all is forgiven.

When Coulson neutralized Creel that was so unbelievably awesome looking. I love the effects on this show.

 

Loved the "I didn't solve this today" conundrum with Fitz, and then Mac figuring it out.

Looks like Simmons is on some sort of mission infiltrating Hydra. I don't believe Simmons is actually Hydra, but then I didn't initially think Ward was either, so what do I know?

[OmegaX123]

Loved the "I didn't solve this today" conundrum with Fitz, and then Mac figuring it out.

Just the tone and urgency in his voice, I knew right away (though I doubted myself for a while) that he was actually saying "I solved this before" rather than "I haven't solved this, I'm not good at what I do anymore", but I'm especially observant, particularly when it comes to situations like Fitz's where he can't say what he's saying, so I can understand the characters not getting it right away, I'm not going to call "holding the Idiot Ball" on them for that. It added tension that was much-needed around that point of the episode, besides, so even if it was an Idiot Ball moment, I could forgive it.

[jhlipton]

Just the tone and urgency in his voice, I knew right away (though I doubted myself for a while) that he was actually saying "I solved this before" rather than "I haven't solved this, I'm not good at what I do anymore"

It was the phrasing -- I knew that meant that either he had solved in the past or he had a vision of the future where he solved it. But I don't blame the others for not catching that.

[APSimpson]

Just the tone and urgency in his voice, I knew right away (though I doubted myself for a while) that he was actually saying "I solved this before" rather than "I haven't solved this, I'm not good at what I do anymore", but I'm especially observant, particularly when it comes to situations like Fitz's where he can't say what he's saying, so I can understand the characters not getting it right away, I'm not going to call "holding the Idiot Ball" on them for that. It added tension that was much-needed around that point of the episode, besides, so even if it was an Idiot Ball moment, I could forgive it.

 

Yeah, my friend who I talk to about this show gets stuff right away with movies/TV shows, me it usually takes a second viewing to understand some things because I'm usually just so wide-eyed and blown away with the production and just caught up in the moments and not thinking so much. But the very last time Fitz said "I didn't solve this today" I got it, and Mac got it then and they were able to get the ball rolling. Being able to cloak the Bus is just so cool :)

[greyhorse]

Getting really really tired of the Fitz brain damage thing.  It's not particular interesting to watch.  And he's not a compelling enough actor to make me care.

[Sandman]

I am totally changing my name to Dash Riprock.

 

I think De Caestecker is doing a nice job with it, actually.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Sandman

[John Potts]

From many years of roleplaying, you learn to spot "Exact Words" so when I heard "I didn't solve this today" I immediately suspected he'd solved it earlier (just like I'd be immediately suspicious if somebody promised "touch this and you'll endure forever" would probably mean I'd be turned to stone rather than given immortality). I hope Fitz recovers soon(ish), however unbelievable that would be in terms of real brain injuries. Sad to see that it looks like Lucy Lawless is most sincerely dead (not that that always bars out them returning!) since I'd've thought she'd make a good recurring ally - though it's not like she hasn't played characters who've died several times (both as Xena and No. 3), so I guess she could come back.

 

I do sometimes wonder how these Knight Templar characters manage to maintain their position - how many times can General "Thunderbolt" Ross lose tanks/choppers/planes unsuccessfully going after the Hulk before the US Army pulls the plug and how many times can General Talbot go after SHIELD before the government says, "Actually, we think your unit could better be deployed against the Taliban" (or fictional terrorists organisations like the Five Rings) - what exactly has SHIELD (or even Hydra-as-SHIELD) done against the USA? I actually would like to see him either score minor victories or face the consequences for his repeated failures.

[KirkB]

I'm not sure how much use Talbot and his people would be against the Taliban or the Ten Rings considering they couldn't even handle Coulson and a handful of SHIELD agents, but until recently they hadn't really done anything to warrant this kind of attention. After Winter Soldier and Widow's revealing all the deep dark secrets I would think people would be in hot pursuit of Hydra, not SHIELD. SHIELD has done some questionable, and yes illegal, outright bad things but it is nothing compared to Hydra. So why is everyone after SHIELD now while ignoring Hydra?

[ChelseaNH]

A certain portion of SHIELD was HYDRA; the plan seems to be "presume any SHIELD agent is HYDRA until proven otherwise."  And even if a SHIELD agent isn't HYDRA, keep them locked up if there's a reason to consider them a threat to national interests (which can be rather broadly defined).  Still, it's not like Talbot is refusing to collect the non-SHIELD HYDRA captures that Coulson provides.