S01.E18: Providence

[ChelseaNH]

she was the one who helped Fury manipulate him into 'choosing' the team he did

I'm not seeing how this harms Coulson.

May says Fury ordered the surgery but did not oversee Tahiti.  So, is what happened to Coulson two parts?

My assumption is that TAHITI encompasses all of Coulson's resurrection.  It sounds like Fury delegated TAHITI to someone else, but presumably we'll find out more later when All Is Revealed (which will inevitably Lead to More Questions).

[jhlipton]

So the secret hideout is in the Canadian S.H.I.E.L.D.?  Now it all makes sense!

This was a great episode.  How weird it was that the boring Ward of the first episodes was on purpose! Zut alors!

[Sarahastro]

I think I liked this episode even more than last week's. Last week's was very exciting, but it was nice to see the team deal with all the fallout and repercussions this week. Also, I loved Evil Garrett, Evil Ward, and the Evil League of Evil. I could not stop grinning through those scenes.

The stuff with the team, on the other hand, was painful, but in a good way. There's been a lot of talk about whether Coulson is justified or being an asshole. I would say that both are true. He's definitely being an ass, although I have to say that IMO he was more annoyed and short-tempered than angry. Even his meltdown in the woods seemed mostly sad and desperate. That being said, I did want to smack him a few times. But would I rather he had been calm and even-keeled? Hell no. That would have been boring and totally inconsistent with the emotional, obsessive man we've seen develop over the last season. What I loved about this episode is that each character reacted differently to the news that S.H.I.E.L.D. has fallen in ways that seemed true to their characters. Skye is sad, but ready to follow Coulson anywhere because of her devotion to him. Fitz is scared, but he wants to believe in Coulson and keep following his orders because he's afraid of the alternative. Simmons wants to be part of the team, but she is also the first to point out that Coulson's authority is basically meaningless now, and she wants her opinions to be heard. Tripp wants someone to stick with after being betrayed by Garrett, but he's also not going to follow Coulson blindly. May is sticking with Coulson because she cares about him and doesn't want him to hurt himself or anyone else. And Coulson is desperately trying to cling to S.H.I.E.L.D. because it's the only thing he has. It doesn't make for a very pleasant episode with them all arguing and doubting each other, but it felt real. I always felt that their whole "we're a family" schtick felt premature and fake, and I like that this episode threw that away and dealt with the cracks in their relationships.

[Mz Anthrope]

From all I'm reading, my impressions of the episode do *not* match those of many.  For the series, that's a good thing, because I thought this episode tanked in several areas.

Coulson emoting?  I did not find that he pulled that off well at all.  It was close to being good, but for me, became more desperate and suspect rather than genuinely how he ended up feeling.  By this I mean:  leading up to being at 'the Fridge', it was pretty good.  Coulson does really good cold-pissed, strong and quiet determination, snarky and inteilligent reparte.  That's what I LOVED about him in the Marvel movies.  He was this seemingly nice, charming, sweet, almost shy (Pepper and Tony scene with the champagne when Pepper was in the sassy cut off jeans shorts and he 'respectfully looked down and away' during their discussion)... and also a man that I KNEW wouldn't take anyone's bullshit.  He'd usually give some snarky comment to show his sincerity and strength when challenged.  And he showed his cold, balls out eff you when he blasted with that one gun (that no one knew what it did - "oh, so that's what it does").  He had this class, strength, intelligence, and grace that ... well... made me Dedicated Coulson Putty.   

But the stuff we've been seeing lately?  Not so much.  And my husband keeps reminding me that we weren't watching Coulson as lead of a team in the movies, so we didn't see his Alpha entirety.  With this team, he has to make the calls, take the shots, and be the hard ass, so with that, I can appreciate a lot more of what we're seeing.  But, the overly-emoting, piss-ass bad-ass who has all the warm-fuzzies for Skyeflake... he just seems to me that he's lost all direction and conviction.  At least what made him the Coulson I apprecaited.  I don't trusts in those he's trusting. 

 

I still think that Simmons is HYDRA.  She's just giving me that vibe.  And at this point, I don't see demure, cute, and innocence with her.

I also suspect Skyeflake.  Going back to the beginning - for someone so flippnig savvy and street-wise, she was caught awfully easy.  And please, PLEASE don't 'ship her up with Ward.  Good grief... she completely loses her edge when all doe-eyed and hopeful for love.  And Ward is not worth it. 

I don't see Ward's character as having too much in the way of  range.  He's just blah to me.  And having him go back and forth being the douche with someone (from what I remember) the woman who could control minds says his heart is set on (which is why May dumped him - wasn't her).  It's annoying.

Fitz - what is up with that man?!  Get some balls, babe...

LOVE me some Patton Oswalt!  His delivery is epic.  I hope he's on this series, lanyard and all, for a long while. 

Loving Bill Paxton being Super Dick.  He's really effing good at it. 

But, I have to say, I am not enjoying what seems to me to be this MASSIVE push to cause intrigue and doubt in who and who's not HYDRA.  To me, seems forced and contrived for maximum drama.  Kind of kills it for me, really. 

Team Oswalt !

[JTMacc99]

LOVE me some Patton Oswalt!  His delivery is epic.  I hope he's on this series, lanyard and all, for a long while.

I couldn't think of a better guy to give lanyard-issuing authority.

Loving Bill Paxton being Super Dick.  He's really effing good at it.

Chet: Lady, I wanna get to the bottom of this. ASAFP.

Lisa: Oh, so do I.

Chet: But first I'd like to... butter your muffin.

Lisa: Why do you have to be such a wanker?

Chet: Because I get off on it!

[Tim Thomason]

I still think that Simmons is HYDRA.  She's just giving me that vibe.  And at this point, I don't see demure, cute, and innocence with her.

I also suspect Skyeflake.  Going back to the beginning - for someone so flippnig savvy and street-wise, she was caught awfully easy.

Here's my prediction for a season finale scene:

 

GRANT: Ha ha! I've got you all now. In the name of HYDRA, I will-

SIMMONS: Um, sorry. You do know that I'm with HYDRA, right?

GRANT: Wha-- but?

TRIPLETT: Me too. I mean, we both trained under Garrett.

SKYE: Plus, Rising Tide is an affiliate of HYDRA. I thought we were on the same page here, teaming up as two HYDRA spies?

MAY: I've been communicating with HYDRA every week from that phone.

COULSON: Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a secret HYDRA plant from my time with TAHITI. You guys really thought I was this messed up?

FITZ (wearing a HYDRA t-shirt): Hey, guys, what's going on?

[Cranberry]

I also suspect Skyeflake.  Going back to the beginning - for someone so flippnig savvy and street-wise, she was caught awfully easy.  

Yeah, but we already knew that was on purpose. Her plan was to get into S.H.I.E.L.D. to find out more info about her parents (because her previous searches dead-ended at a redacted file), and that's exactly what she did. 

Love that finale scene idea! Now that would be a reboot. I'd actually enjoy a TV show all about the bad guys.

[HistoryGirl]

Yeah, but we already knew that was on purpose. Her plan was to get into S.H.I.E.L.D. to find out more info about her parents (because her previous searches dead-ended at a redacted file), and that's exactly what she did. 

Also, from Coulson's speech we're to believe that Skye has unwavering loyalty to SHIELD because they took care of her and protected her growing up. I would say aside from Coulson and May, Skye is the third most unlikely Hydra operative. With Fitz pulling up fourth because of his tears and refusal to join up when Garrett was going to bust his knee caps. 

I am hopeful that maybe with the disillusion of SHIELD we'll finally figure out WTF Skye is. 

[dusang]

I enjoyed the episode.  My favourite parts were:

1) Talbot's Mal-ism of "just asking a few questions and you and your men can be on your merry" which both annoyed me by both Coulson and Talbot using "boys" and "men" as their collective pronouns when the majority of Coulson's team is, in fact, women and amused me for being so Firefly it absolutely jumped out of the episode for me.

and 2) Ward's response to Raina when she opined that she didn't think Ward was May's type: "I'm everybody's type."  It would appear that that is more true since his Hydra allegiance was revealed.

[Mz Anthrope]

Tim, that would be absolutely hilarious and completely acceptable - save for my love and hope for Coulson.  It would make sense that Fury had him monitored if he thinks HYDRA had anything to do with his recovery.  However, given that 'the clairvoyant' needed Coulson to lead them to the remedy, my guess is that they were in the dark and didn't do much with Coulson prior to May getting the group together

[JTMacc99]

I still think that Simmons is HYDRA.  She's just giving me that vibe.  And at this point, I don't see demure, cute, and innocence with her.

I think something happened with Simmons, but I am not sure they are going with HYDRA.

She had more than one un-Simmons like reaction or statement in this episode. I wasn't sure if that was just her way of dealing with the world being turned upside down, or if there was something else going on. Whatever it is, I noticed a definite shift from innocence to confidence in her social interactions.

[caseylane]

Knowing Joss Whedon, Simmons is probably a secret badass who will trade In her smock for a leather cat suit. He did it with Amy Acker's Fred and River on Firefly. Take the waif like girl and make her a secret (or possessed) super fighter.

[Kromm]

Team Oswalt !

Oswalt rules.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Kromm

[Happywatcher]

1. Hail Hydra!

2. The show runner always has the meek nerd girl turn into a tight leather sex goddess with super powers in all his shows. Simmons...

3. Given on the way there SuperSkye had the internet she has mastery of, and at hidden base she has SHIELD database again...why has she not run a search for people with a similar history of experience/travel?

4. Joss has never run more than one core team traitor at a time per series before, but  he will change the traitor after the last traitor rejoins the team and is forgiven.

[KirkB]

I kind of think Simmons is a red herring, what with Ward officially being Hydra and all. Whedon's thing, when there is supposedly a traitor in a group, is to spend a portion of the season leading you to think it's one person. Then partway through its revealed they were hiding something else, perhaps just something silly, and the traitor is in fact someone else entirely. Only here they did it out of order. They revealed Ward before clearing Simmons. So my guess is they're making her still act a little odd so some suspicion will still fall on her but it won't turn out to be anything.

[1TrackMind]

Okay, when Quinn was brought in and started griping, I turned to my room mate and started imitating a crying baby. That was all i could hear out of him was 'WHHAAAAAAAA AAHHH WAHHHHH!' I would not have missed him if he had been left in his tiny cell.

 

I also expressed my happiness at Wards Hydra leaning, to which roomies dad, whom we were watching with, said 'but then the love interest goes away!' My reply was a perhaps too enthusiastic 'GOOD.' I am one of those who found the idea of SkyWard to be boring and predictable.

 

That said, admittedly I have not gotten to see Cap 2 yet so I have the 'Fury is not dead' thing ruined for me, but I never would have believed he was dead anyway so it is not much of a spoiler. The show is finally finding some legs and has me excited for the next episode.

[John Potts]

A slight disappointment after last week's episode - mostly because I was getting so pissed off with Coulson's sense of entitlement. Oh boo hoo, May was spying on you - how terrible that the team that you haven't told are on a one way trip to Canada contained a spy for your boss. And you generally don't complain about people following Security Procedures the day after SHIELD uncovered the biggest security breach in history. In fact, I was glad that when presented with the "Trojan Prisoner", the SHIELD operatives at "The Fridge" did not allow them in but followed procedure (and if they'd continued to do so, they wouldn't be dead now), though I don't really blame them for letting in Ward when they came under fire.

 

Lantern7 - It's like the "Heil Hitler" salute wasn't good enough with one arm, and Hydra wanted to supersize it.

 

Aren't HYDRA ex-Nazis or something? Maybe they thought Hitler failed because he wasn't OTT enough and decided to supersize everything! Though at least HYDRA seem to be having fun ("It's good to be bad!").

Edited May 3, 2014 by John Potts

[webruce]

Was surprised the team walking in the cold didn't show breaths, or get chance for frost bite or frosted face.

Garrett I still don't think is the Clairvoyant. But they emptied the Fridge. Ernesto the Barber had a cool hideaway. I wonder if Raina will be a problem. Not sure she is quite up with Garrett and Ward. Also with Ian Quinn(Ghost Whisperer) out, he will be a problem.

Skye worried about Ward wasn't a good thing. Colonel Glen Talbot and his soldiers trying to restore order made Coulson not happy. But it was cool his badge had coordinates to the Canadian Shield Fortress of Solitude. Surprised only Agent Eric Koenig was there.