S02.E17: Melinda

[ChelseaNH]

Here I've been wondering where Coulson got the money to run SHIELD, and it turns out he has a whole other pile of money to spend on the Theta Protocol.

 

Back at the end of the first half of the season, Coulson told one of the Koenigs to activate the Theta Protocol if things went south

Activate implies that it's already in place, so not sure what Coulson needed to run around buying.

 

So, that's how Melinda became "The Calvary."

Now you've done it.  (Confess, you say "reelator" and "nukular" too.)

 

so that isn't going to be one of those dumb secrets some shows do

It's going to be one of those dumb "let's keep this from everyone else" secrets, 'cause that always works out so well.

Edited April 15, 2015 by ChelseaNH

[kennyab]

Activate implies that it's already in place, so not sure what Coulson needed to run around buying.

 

My understanding was that all of the running around they were talking about was between the fall of SHIELD and Puerto Rico. That's exactly what we saw Coulson was doing back at the beginning of the season -- always on planes, never spending much time at HQ. Hartley and Mack had been planted with him for a bit by the time the season started, and they were keeping tabs at that point. Then Bobbi took Hartley's place. So presumably all that work had resulted in something that was in usable shape by the time the team ended up at the old Kree city and he gave Koenig those orders.

[DeLurker]

 

Back at the end of the first half of the season, Coulson told one of the Koenigs to activate the Theta Protocol if things went south

I'm ready for another Koenig to make an appearance.

[Raja]

Somethings not adding up about the whole Skye origin story.

We've been told that Skye (as a baby) was discovered to be an 084 (I'm still curious how SHIELD discovered that Skyebaby was an 084 and needed to be protected at all costs) and that everyone in the village in China including all but one member of a SHIELD team were killed defending Skyebaby against two monsters/powered people/whatever.

If Skye was born on July 2, 1988 and the SHIELD file on Skyebaby was closed in April, 1989, does that mean Cal and Jiaying were out of the village at Costco or Walmart when shit went down at the village -- or did this incident at the village occur when Jiaying was in the hands of Whitehall and Cal was out looking for her (since Jiaying was eviscerated by Whitehall sometime in 1989 after she was captured in a village in China).

Did Jiaying lie to Skye as well ? She said that after Cal sewed her back up (again, if she has these awesome regeneration powers where she can regen complete organs, why does she still have facial scars ?) which would be sometime in 1989

.

I figure the scars remain for political purposes. She is a leader but can fit in with humanity unlike Rayna or Gordon. The scars from Whitehall and humanity in general says I have fought with you. And I won't turn and hide should SHIELD come after us.

I'm ready for another Koenig to make an appearance.

Check out the next to last episode of Justified.

[mybabyaidan]

I am suspicious of Skyemommy too. When they first said 1988 and Skye questioned it, they both kind of froze for a second....I don't know if it was just there for the " gee I am a year older than I thought" gag, or if there is more to it, but it struck me as odd. I'll have to re watch and see if I still see it.

One question, do Gonzalez and the REAL Shield know Fury is alive? I lost track of who knows what.

[KirkB]

One question, do Gonzalez and the REAL Shield know Fury is alive? I lost track of who knows what.

 

 

The show hasn't been entirely clear on this point. But I get the impression the only ones who know for certain are Simmons, Coulson and Deathlok, all of whom directly interacted with him. For all we know Coulson may be hiding this from May and the others or it may just be the members of his team who know.

Edited April 15, 2015 by KirkB

[MSquared]

The show hasn't been entirely clear on this point. But I get the impression the only ones who know for certain are Simmons, Coulson and Deathlok, all of whom directly interacted with him. For all we know Coulson may be hiding this from May and the others or it may just be the members of his team who know.

 

May knows too.  She was in the room at the end of last season when Coulson was having his kind of adorable meltdown about being brought back from the dead and when Coulson got the promotion to Director.  

[xqueenfrostine]

This episode though, I feel it was the first time this show rose above its usual standards. Tying May's flashback to Skye's lesson from her mother about parental love and its sometimes misguided actions, was really smart. It was also used to explain Carl's previous behaviour. Is it grating that May and Coulson be used as a prop for Skye? I can see how that can be to some people. But I think Skye's experience needs to tie back to her team, otherwise she might drift away from the rest of the show. 

 

If the show had left it at the little girl just being an Inhuman who had undergone teregenesis using crystals stolen from Afterlife, I would have been okay with it.  It's not a bad idea for us to see why it's so important for the Inhuman leaders to control who has access to the terrigen mist and who doesn't (and therefore why Raina and Skye's transformations are considered taboo).  But taking that story and making it into something about Skye's dynamic with her mom is a bridge too far.  Especially since it's now an excuse for Jiaying to hide her connection to Skye.  There's tying Skye's journey to the other plot lines in the episode, and then there's making props out of other characters' important backstories to build up Skye's story.  This is exactly the sort of stuff that annoyed so many people last season.  It's never a good idea for writers to show such blatant favoritism for one of their characters that they can't give their other characters' stories the time and space to live and breathe independently of what's going on with their favorite.

 

Is the same actress playing Raina now that she is all thorny?  Her voice sounds different to me.

 

I wondered the same thing.  There were a few moments when I could definitely tell that it was Ruth Negga, but there were others that made me doubt.  I know Raina said earlier in the season that her spines felt like they were ripping up her insides when she moved.  That might be as true for her tongue and throat as it is for her arms and legs, which would explain why her voice sounds so strange.

 

It's going to be one of those dumb "let's keep this from everyone else" secrets, 'cause that always works out so well.

 

I found Jiaying's insistence on keeping Skye's maternity secret to be pretty gross.  She sounded like a politician dealing with an inconvenient love child who she adores but finds terribly inconvenient to have around in an election year.  I get why Skye, one of the few people to undergo teregenesis without permission or training, being Jiaying's daughter might cause unrest among the residents of Afterlife but this is a secret that is bound to get out.  The circumstances surrounding Skye's transformation are only going to look more suspicious to the Inhuman population after Jiaying has covered up Skye's true identity than if she had acknowledged her from the beginning.  It is, after all, almost always the cover up and not the crime that sinks you in the end.

 

And what a terrible way to start off a relationship with your long lost child!  Skye is someone who Jiaying knows has serious issues surrounding home and family, so starting off their relationship with "this has to be our secret!" is an awful thing to ask her to do.  Skye might be too excited to finally find her mom for that to bother her right now, but this is the kind of things that could end up being pretty hurtful down the line.

 

 

I am suspicious of Skyemommy too. When they first said 1988 and Skye questioned it, they both kind of froze for a second....I don't know if it was just there for the " gee I am a year older than I thought" gag, or if there is more to it, but it struck me as odd. I'll have to re watch and see if I still see it.

 

I thought that look was really suspicious looking too. If Skye's date of birth was in November or December of 1988 I might have just written this off as the orphanage underestimating Skye's age by a couple months when they took her in.  But at the age Skye supposedly first entered their care, it should have been pretty hard to be off by 6-12 months.  Babies grow really fast.  Barring some sort of health issue that might inhibit physical and mental development, no one with childcare experience would mistake a 18 month old for a 8 month old.

[Jeezaloo]

Sparkplug needs more of a personality, he's just kind of there

Lincoln is a bore.

Yeah, I forgot where I read it, but someone described it as "cheekbone casting", i.e. casting an actor because they're photogenic and not because they're particularly talented or anything.

 

I have to give the writers a bit of a nod for some really nice touches:

 

• Raina going from following "The Clairvoyant" to actually becoming a clairvoyant.
• Cal's joy at seeing Skye start to come around - poor crazy Cal, his needs were really so simple all along
• "I moved a mountain."
• "I'm 26?!"
• The reveal of the real villain May was facing all along in the flashbacks. Just f'ing creeeeepy.
• 'Pain-eating zombified secret agents' is now a phrase that actually make sense thanks to this show

[FiveByFive]

Did Jiaying lie to Skye as well ? She said that after Cal sewed her back up (again, if she has these awesome regeneration powers where she can regen complete organs, why does she still have facial scars ?) which would be sometime in 1989

Healing factors don't always work the way people would expect them to in the comics so I figure it's probably not much different here. They made it pretty clear Whitehall did quite a lot to Jiaying and dumped her body when he got what he wanted and she appeared to be dead.  Her powers could have been completely taxed by the time Cal found her because in the comics even healing factors have limits. Furthermore, there's also Deadpool who has a healing factor but also has scars which cover his entire body. That doesn't mean he cant heal internally or regenerate limbs - it just leaves scarring.

 

Sparkplug needs more of a personality, he's just kind of there

This isn't much different than he was on The Tomorrow People. He is pretty to look at though and he seems to have mastered getting rid of his natural non-acting accent. Good for him!

 

Overall I really can not stand the Skye storyline. It's the story of a Mary Sue learning about her past. I have just never gotten over that aspect of the character and as much as I like the "idea" of what's going on - I still find Raina, her mom, her dad, Gordon, random guy going backpacking in the woods, etc way more interesting. 

 

I like the fact that we found out Agent May was discussing kids with her husband before they jumped into the May kills a kid and gains a title story. However ... honestly, she was a SHIELD agent and the girl hurt a lot of people. I don't get the dramatics. I still don't completely buy how much it apparently "damaged" her. She snapped a guy's neck earlier in the episode who may not have needed his neck to be snapped if not for the girl. Maybe I sound cold but I'd think May would rationalize it at some point and think, "Well ... what were we supposed to do with her? If I didn't do it, everyone's lives including mine would have been over. There really was no other option." However, instead we got lots of "Oh! This changed my LIFE!." 

Edited April 16, 2015 by FiveByFive

[MisterGlass]

Sometimes people fixate on something and can't get past it.  And with May, I don't think it was the act of killing the girl alone.  She had to contend with all the awed whispers of agents about her bring the cavalry, and being awarded a medal for something that haunts her, even if it was the only decision that could be made.

 

Forgot to add: I like the fact that Andrew and Coulson get along.  I don't think they were ever comparing Captain America trading cards, but they seem perfectly accepting of each other and their relative positions in May's life with no over the top jealousy. And Andrew worries about May, but respects her professional career and her abilities without trying to sway her away from what she does.

 

 

That one guy Ethan .Something is going on with him ,maybe this is where the missing Diviners come in ?Those who are being denied falling in with HYDRA if they are creating supers?

Now that's a thought.  Hydra would love to see more powered people who could be trained to comply.

Edited April 16, 2015 by MisterGlass

[sinkwriter]

 

I don't think they were ever comparing Captain America trading cards

 

The visual in my head of May's ex and Coulson sitting around trading Captain America cards is really funny.

[Boundary]

If the show had left it at the little girl just being an Inhuman who had undergone teregenesis using crystals stolen from Afterlife, I would have been okay with it.  It's not a bad idea for us to see why it's so important for the Inhuman leaders to control who has access to the terrigen mist and who doesn't (and therefore why Raina and Skye's transformations are considered taboo).  But taking that story and making it into something about Skye's dynamic with her mom is a bridge too far.  Especially since it's now an excuse for Jiaying to hide her connection to Skye.  There's tying Skye's journey to the other plot lines in the episode, and then there's making props out of other characters' important backstories to build up Skye's story.  This is exactly the sort of stuff that annoyed so many people last season.  It's never a good idea for writers to show such blatant favoritism for one of their characters that they can't give their other characters' stories the time and space to live and breathe independently of what's going on with their favorite.

 

Like I said, I understand how it can grate for some people. But make no mistake, this was May's story. All Skye said was "wait a minute, I read about this..." The lesson to Skye would still have been the same even if Jiaying had killed that girl herself. But the episode itself was named after May and had other uses: a connection was also made to May's husband working with Coulson and it also shed light on the trust issues behind much of May's current attitude to Coulson. 

 

I think it's nice if an episode's A and B stories connect. Besides Coulson, Skye is this show's main character, especially now that she is Inhuman. But her story hasn't been treated in a way that befits a main character. We met Coulson's SHIELD team via her, her perspective and her background and her motivation will always be highlighted by the writers because she's their vehicle in this. Does she need more flaws, conflict, mistakes? Maybe, those things are useful when a character's arc involves overcoming them or learning from them. Unfortunately, until recently I felt like Skye's character often felt like a plot device rather than someone taking me on a journey with her. But with this Inhuman reveal, tying her back to her biological family and to May and Coulson as surrogate parents she never had, I'm seeing a lot of character growth there that make her more than just a plot device.

 

This has become a Quake origin story, she has become more than a just brilliant hacker who'd find the right information to dump on the audience when the plot called for it and then get praised to the high heavens for it. I loved it when she said she was scared of something going wrong because finally she felt at home at this Afterlife place. I think Chloe can pull off heftier weights, many times actors get blamed for writers' mistakes. But the show is starting to treat its main character (again aside from Coulson) the way it should have right from the beginning. 

Edited April 16, 2015 by Boundary

[VCRTracking]

Holy crap, that was one scary little girl! Probably the scariest of all horror movie little girls.

The truth behind what happened in Bahrain definitely lived up to the hype for me. No wonder May doesn't like to be called "The Cavalry". Ming Na was absolutely fantastic in this episode.

I thought Chloe Bennett did a good job in the scene finding out the truth.

Raina actually being 'clairvoyant' was awesome in it's irony.

I loved the final scene with Fitz making contact with Hunter and Coulson.

[sinkwriter]

 

Holy crap, that was one scary little girl! Probably the scariest of all horror movie little girls.

 

LOL. You need to watch The X-Files. The little girls in an episode called "Eve" were probably the creepiest for me. Scary, scary, psychopathic twins. *grimace*

[Bec]

Yeah, I forgot where I read it, but someone described it as "cheekbone casting", i.e. casting an actor because they're photogenic and not because they're particularly talented or anything.

This show is not really using Luke Mitchell to his full potential so far. He somehow managed to be really great in The Tomorrow People, and that show was mostly god awful. I'm hoping he'll get a little more to do.

 

Confused why he's in the room when Skye and bio parents have their family dinner, though. I thought it was supposed to be a super duper secret that Jiaying is Skye's mother?

[Kalliste]

With that first scene of May talking about having a kid, I thought the incident would involve her being rendered sterile somehow. SO glad they didn't go that way, as it's such a cliched and quite sexist plot device.

I was thinking they'd do that too. 

 

I don't understand why this would have ruined their marriage. They still get along and obviously feel something for each other and given Andrew's profession I would think he wouldn't give up on May. It would be interesting to know what happened further down the track.

 

I don't know about the whole cult storyline.. it will obviously turn bad soon. I find it hard to take Dichen Lachman seriously sometimes because she was Katya on Neighbours and she was pretty damn terrible on it. I also wondered about her scarring, less that she had them and more that they were so minimal.. if your face had been put back together like that I feel like they'd be more prominent.

 

While I enjoyed this episode and getting to see more of May's backstory I didn't really buy the 'killing a kid ruins May' angle. She's killed so many people (and many in this episode who didn't have control of themselves) in the name of Shield so why was this such a big deal in comparison? She gave the girl a chance and had no other choice. Like Coulson said, forget about the girl.

 

Also, how do you escape a windowless bathroom with only a hand drier?

[Kel Varnsen]

Confused why he's in the room when Skye and bio parents have their family dinner, though. I thought it was supposed to be a super duper secret that Jiaying is Skye's mother?

 

I had to laugh when Skye's mom said their family connection would be their little secret. I thought to myself "of course as long as no other Inhumans have telepathic powers you will be fine". 

 

Also how does Raina sleep at night with the porcupine head? She said she can try to go to sleep but she has nightmares. 

[Kalliste]

I was going to link to an echidna sleeping but it's surprisingly hard to find an image of one sleeping.. I imagine she face plants.

[Kel Varnsen]

Also I wish they have given a bit more information about when the Bahrain incident went down. They said it happened 7 years ago (in 2008 I would assume) and Coulson mentioned Fury and him were putting together the Avengers Initiative.  But the first Iron Man movie came out in 2008, so did this incident happen before or after Stark created the Iron Man suit?

[Raja]

It does bring up a main thing I want to see from an  Agent Carter return, just how open and how secret was SHIELD before the Battle of New York? That SHIELD could flash credentials and send men in company suits and a commando team into a sovereign state seems odd for a secret organization

[Sakura12]

With the Dinner, I can go with the other Inhumans thinking that their Leader was at the dinner to watch the crazy psycho that is Cal and make sure he doesn't hurt anyone. I think even Lincoln and Raina didn't figure that out. Raina said she dreamed of Skye eating dinner with her father, she said nothing about her family or her mother. 

[lovett1979]

I realize arguing physics with a superhero show is a bit ridiculous but I have to point out that when crystal glasses with water in them make a beautiful sound, it's the crystal that's vibrating, NOT the water.

[FurryFury]

I liked this one. Skye bonding with her family gave me all kinds of feels I never expected to have about Cal. Also, an 20something orphan girl with magical powers suddenly meeting her mother who barely looks any older and telling her her painful history of never feeling at home anywhere? What is this, Once Upon A Time?

 

Really liking Raina's story. She's come such a long way since her first appearance early in season 1. Too bad we'll probably have to say goodbye to her soon, I think the actress got a big role in some other show.

 

May's story didn't exactly wow me, but I still liked it. The child actress was terrible, though. Kinda sad May has probably missed her window on having a child, she looked like she wanted a family very much. I wonder if the show will end with her adopting some kid.

 

Everything is slowly gearing up to a pro-powered vs anti-powered showdown. They're totally setting up Civil War (although I'm not a comic reader, so that's my assumption based on what I've heard about that storyline).

 

I still wonder if Jiyang being alive is a retcon. Nothing about Cal's behavior in the first half of the season made me think she could be alive.

[mac123x]

"Skye, you must NOT tell anyone that I'm your mother because it would cause issues and drama!  Now let's go have dinner with your nutjob father and discuss our family history in an unlocked room where anyone can just walk in and eavesdrop."  Brilliant leader, Jiaying is not.

 

Going forward towards future MCU projects there will be the tension of the 'Aces" who can hide and the Jokers that the Real SHIELD and like minded folkwill immediately focus their attention on putting down.

 

Hopefully they can put a twist on it, but this theme has been done to death in the various X-Men movies.

 

Also how does Raina sleep at night with the porcupine head? She said she can try to go to sleep but she has nightmares

 

Face-down on a massage table might work.  Or Gordon got her a custom-made memory foam pillow from the Relax the Back store.

[marceline]

I know it's been said before and will be said again but DAMN, Ming-Na makes 50 look amazing. There's no difference between the way she looks now and when she was on ER except her body has gotten crazy toned. I can't remember which of the magazines does a "beauty through the ages" feature every year but they need to book her stat.

[xqueenfrostine]

It does bring up a main thing I want to see from an Agent Carter return, just how open and how secret was SHIELD before the Battle of New York? That SHIELD could flash credentials and send men in company suits and a commando team into a sovereign state seems odd for a secret organization

I don't think that the existence of SHIELD has been a secret at any point in the "present day" Marvel films and TV shows. Coulson flashed his credentials at Pepper the very first time he met her in Iron Man I, and the agents who seized all of Jane Foster's equipment and research in the first Thor film were also carrying around SHIELD credentials. I think before the Battle of NY, SHIELD was probably a legally recognized intel organization but it wasn't an agency the general public was familiar with. Sort of like how in the real US there are officially 17 agencies that make up the US Intelligence Community, but few people not working in an Intelligence related field would actually recognize all 17 names or be able tell you what kind of work they do.

[justjoan]

Confused why he's in the room when Skye and bio parents have their family dinner, though. I thought it was supposed to be a super duper secret that Jiaying is Skye's mother?

 

He might be especially clever (boy howdy do I not believe that), but I don't think Lincoln's seen or heard anything that would make him suspicious they're mother and daughter (yet). He knows Jiaying is training Skye, so as far as he knows, Skye's having dinner with her volatile father and her faculty adviser, who presumably, through abilities or personal connection, can keep him under control. That's only a little weird. And I figured he was just there to drop off more dinner rolls or play piano in the background or something. Really, he had an urgent case of Plot Pointitis.

[Kalliste]

Yeah I don't think it was "woah, Skye's father AND MOTHER!" but more "Raina can dream the future"

[dwmarch]

Raina will be lucky if she doesn't get called "Psionic the Hedgehog."

 

Is there a Raina thread? If not, we now have a title for it!

[Tarasme]

I finally finished this one as real-time Tuesday was occupied with saying goodbye to one of the most brilliant shows I've been privileged to enjoy (and wistfully remember the author who's work and memory the show always respected).

 

* Dichen still sucks all the charisma out of a scene. As much as I wanted the feels during the tearful reunion of two lives unmade due to a despicable man's hubris- all I could see was a gaping black hole of charisma suck. It was wise to bring Cal back into the mix at the end though the constant review of Jingyang's expression after Cal said a sentence- I guess meaning that Skye was reassured that Mom told her the truth- was super annoying. For me, that annoyance sits squarely with director choices. I'm gonna blame the director for lack of energy in the mountain and courtyard scenes too.

 

* Elizabeth Henstridge and Iain De Caestecker are the unsung heroes of this episode for me (ok- most have shouted out Iain for his bathroom greatness). Jemma and Fitz were both only in one scene but were both amazing in each of them. I have NO idea where Jemma's loyalties lie at this point- if anyone on the team was working with Coulson on Theta- and it wasn't May- it would have been her but- brilliantly- while working with May and acting appropriately pouty about not knowing, she never actually denied knowing about it. It was also left ambiguous whether or not she told May that Fitz has the toolbox (I think that scene cut to Fitz right after May demanded Jemma open it).    

 

* Mack can get off/ stay off my screen anytime now. 

 

* Not sure what game Bobbi's running. There's an awful lot of sincerity in her scenes with May for me to believe that she's actually sincere. What, with the spy thingy and all. If there is no underlying agenda, then tPtB handled that storyline ineptly at best. I want more from Bobbi Morse than "*sniff* we just want the very bestest S.H.I.E.L.D. evah! But Coulson's so mean and is a lying liar who lies. But he's nice too! So please be on my side because- Bestest. S.H.I.E.L.D. EVAH!"

 

* I don't even know what to say about the Cavalry. I think I'd have really preferred that Bahrain be forever whispered about but never fully realized.

 

* Glad to see Blair Underwood again. I hope the candid pics mean we'll get more before the season's finished.

 

* I'm willing to give Lincoln some time. He's been exposition guy- which was annoying- but at least they had him come into conflict with Gordon and show some sympathy for Raina. Now that the jig is up on the nature of her ability, I hope they give Lincoln and Raina some scenes to develop a relationship. Not romantic- though that could be interesting- thinking more teacher/student, friend, acquaintances going through a trial together, etc. Also, a Lincoln and Raina vs. Gordon/Inhuman establishment could get interesting. Maybe every single organization in the Marvel universe is going to go through a Civil War?

 

 

 

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

Also I wish they have given a bit more information about when the Bahrain incident went down. They said it happened 7 years ago (in 2008 I would assume) and Coulson mentioned Fury and him were putting together the Avengers Initiative.  But the first Iron Man movie came out in 2008, so did this incident happen before or after Stark created the Iron Man suit?

It's possible that the concept of an Avengers group was a twinkle in Fury's eye at that point, but he had not fully developed who might be part of the team. Pretty much the only members who might have been would have been Hawkeye and Widow. It also isn't necessarily the case that because Iron Man was released in 2008 that it took place in 2008, although that seems a fair assumption.

 

It does bring up a main thing I want to see from an  Agent Carter return, just how open and how secret was SHIELD before the Battle of New York? That SHIELD could flash credentials and send men in company suits and a commando team into a sovereign state seems odd for a secret organization

 

It seems to me that from Cap 2 it's fairly clear that SHIELD had been doing this sort of stuff for quite some time. It's been a while since I saw it, but there is backstory about Fury getting injured while involved in some other-country op. 

I still wonder if Jiyang being alive is a retcon. Nothing about Cal's behavior in the first half of the season made me think she could be alive.

 

On the one hand I agree with you. The show definitely left the impression with me that she was d-e-a-d dead.

 

On the other, the actress who plays Jiyang, Dichen Lachman, is part of the Whedon Repertory Company (along with the actor who plays Mike Peterson, J. August Richards and the actress who plays Coulson's love interest, Amy Acker, probably others I'm not remembering). So it's perfectly plausible that the powers-that-be always intended for her to have survived, since it is unlikely they would cast such a person for a one-off role.. 

[Cranberry]

I don't think that the existence of SHIELD has been a secret at any point in the "present day" Marvel films and TV shows. Coulson flashed his credentials at Pepper the very first time he met her in Iron Man I, and the agents who seized all of Jane Foster's equipment and research in the first Thor film were also carrying around SHIELD credentials. I think before the Battle of NY, SHIELD was probably a legally recognized intel organization but it wasn't an agency the general public was familiar with. Sort of like how in the real US there are officially 17 agencies that make up the US Intelligence Community, but few people not working in an Intelligence related field would actually recognize all 17 names or be able tell you what kind of work they do.

 

This is my opinion, as well. Plus, Clark Gregg once said, "The organization is not a secret. What we do is."

[Sakura12]

Because Dichen Lachman was playing Jiyang I knew Skye's mother was still alive. Cal never said his wife was dead, people just assumed that because of how crazy he was acting to avenge her. They made sure to have him say Whitehall butchered Skye's mom, he never said killed. 

[VCRTracking]

Because she's part of that company I assumed it was just a cameo like Enver and Alexis Denisof in The Avengers movie or Ron Glass as the doctor who altered Coulson's memories and appeared in just a few episodes. I really did think Jiaying was dead.

[paigow]

On the other, the actress who plays Jiyang, Dichen Lachman, is part of the Whedon Repertory Company 

Six Degrees of WhedonVerse would take a long time to play....

Edited April 18, 2015 by paigow

[Jeezaloo]

I'm beginning to think those thorns on Raina are some sort of psychic antennae that heighten her sensitivity?

[MisterGlass]

Could be.  I'm waiting to see how they react to vibrations.

[Humbugged]

Could be.  I'm waiting to see how they react to vibrations.

Well they didn't do anything in the last episode when Skye was quaking her to death

 

There was an interesting file in the Tool Box marked Echidna .An echidna is an Australian spiny anteater in real life .

But in Greek Mythology the character that is named after is called the Mother Of Monsters - one of which is the Hydra.

[Jeezaloo]

called the Mother Of Monsters

Yeah, nothing but ominous with this. LOVING IT

[manbearpig]

Heh, echidna just makes me think of Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog!

[paigow]

Is there a Raina thread? If not, we now have a title for it!

"Previously Unknown Sister of Peter Quill"

[FurryFury]

On the other, the actress who plays Jiyang, Dichen Lachman, is part of the Whedon Repertory Company (along with the actor who plays Mike Peterson, J. August Richards and the actress who plays Coulson's love interest, Amy Acker, probably others I'm not remembering). So it's perfectly plausible that the powers-that-be always intended for her to have survived, since it is unlikely they would cast such a person for a one-off role..

 

Oh, I know Dichen Lachmann (even if it's a bit too soon to add her to Whedon's repertoire of actors, she's only been in Dollhouse), but I guess the fact that she got killed off in s2 of The 100 about the same time as her appearance on AoS helped made me believe her death (and also Cal's fixation on killing Whitehouse). In retrospect, Anya's death on The 100 was probably the sign she would be alive here.

[jhlipton]

Dichen Lachman, is part of the Whedon Repertory Company (along with the actor who plays Mike Peterson, J. August Richards and the actress who plays Coulson's love interest, Amy Acker, probably others I'm not remembering). So it's perfectly plausible that the powers-that-be always intended for her to have survived, since it is unlikely they would cast such a person for a one-off role..

 

Wasn't Amy Acker only in one episode?  If so, being part of TWRC isn't necessarily a guarantee of a continuing role.

 

========================================

 

She could probably have started small, but instead she just causes a huge avalanche on the other side of the valley. It's a good thing she didn't kill any innocent people or animals, right?

Kind of what I was thinking, too.

Edited April 19, 2015 by jhlipton

[ChelseaNH]

"What REALLY Happened to Bambi's Mother"

"Scandal!  Mulan Falsely Claims Credit for Hun-Killing Avalanche"

 

Now I'm wondering if MCU heroes will be showing up on Once Upon a Time.  Ah, corporate synergy.

[Chicago Redshirt]

Pretty sure there is going to be an episode at some point in which Coulson's love interest finds out that he's alive.

[blackwing]

That little girl was way creepy with her soulless dark eyes.  The way she would just casually wave her arms and instantly kill her minions was thoroughly scary.  No wonder why May is haunted by that story and why it made her a legend in SHIELD.

 

I am a bit dense as I am confused as to exactly what some of these people's powers are.  I can only get that Skye = seismic powers, Jiyang = regeneration, Luke Mitchell = some kind of electrical discharge (which can also levitate himself or others), guy with no eyes = teleporter.

 

Russian lady had invulnerability and super strength.  But what powers does Raina have exactly, apart from the thorns?  And what was the little girl's power exactly?  They said they didn't put her through the mist because it was too dangerous.  So she had powers on her own, pre-mist?

[ChelseaNH]

The little girl's mother (aka Russian lady) stole some mist and exposed her daughter as a DIY project.

[kennyab]

Blackwing, Raina seems to possess the ability to see the future in her dreams. The little girl was also somewhat psychic in that she fed off the fear of others (and could kill those she possessed with just a thought).

[Humbugged]

 

Russian lady had invulnerability and super strength.  But what powers does Raina have exactly, apart from the thorns?  And what was the little girl's power exactly?  They said they didn't put her through the mist because it was too dangerous.  So she had powers on her own, pre-mist?

Raina has ended up with pre-cognition .So after all her looking for the Clairvoyant in Season 1 it turns out her its now her.