This week on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the gang took a detour from the adventures of Inhumans, Hydra, and Bears (Oh my!) to welcome Lady Sif back into the fold once again. This time around, Sif emerges from the ocean in Portugal and can’t remember her name or anything about her life in general. Jaimie Alexander as Sif is always a welcome addition to the show, as it’s obvious from watching her performance for more than two seconds that she loves the role and is ready and willing to jump back into the armor at the slightest notice. Hopefully, whether it be on NBC or Netflix, someday down the line we can get a Lady Sif television show. It’s great to see that she can not only hold down the action beats, but also can quip with the best of them (like Coulson and May), quite like Hayley Atwell’s Agent Carter.
On the team front, man, did I ever hate the subplot of trying to hide Skye’s powers from the rest of the team. It’s just completely ridiculous, and Simmons’ constant “we really need to just eradicate the virus!” cracks are out of nowhere. It seemed like this was created to just be another “drama bomb” to hang over the heads of the team, so it was nice to see it done away with in a timely manner in this episode. The team has needed someone who could fall right into the “powers department,” and having that person be Skye gives the audience a nice twist to the character originally introduced as the P.O.V. agent. Even with that addition, however, I still think that the Agents are a little top-heavy in general, and could perhaps let another member or two loose.
The most surprising part of this episode was the amazing exposition dump from the revealed Kree warrior, Carver, who was fighting Sif, causing her to lose her memory at the start. If you were wondering what the origin of the Inhumans was, it’s all laid to bare as Carver goes into detail about the Kree, who they are, how they created super powered beings, and so on. I know I usually rally against the idea of letting plotlines dangle for too long, but this is something that I feel should have been revealed at a later time, and with much more gravity. After so much buildup to the Kree in the first season, for the Agents’ first encounter with this alien race to be … some guy, just really took the wind out of the sails of what could have been an amazing reveal. To be honest, I thought Carver was going to be revealed as a Frost Giant, especially with him pumping liquid nitrogen into himself.
Back around to the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. themselves, the drama from this episode also came from the secrets of Bobbi and Mac, who are talking to one another in the shadows, and having to keep Hunter at arm’s length to stop him from discovering whatever it is they’re doing. Ultimately, this just feels like a retread. Whether the duo is working for Hydra or Nick Fury or heck, even Tony Stark, it just doesn’t have the same urgency that we had when everyone was being shown to be agents of Hydra in Season One. It feels like a subplot spawned to eat show time and give these characters something to do, when it will ostensibly be revealed that they were secretly good the whole time but had to keep it from the team “because reasons!” It rings hollow, and there surely must have been some better plot to give to these two. The in-fighting at the end of the episode among the team about what should have been done with Skye -- only for the camera to pan back to show that Skye had been right there the whole time -- is just a cliche that’s been done a million times over.
In the long run, this episode was very middle of the road from last week’s spectacular outing. While the plot was on point and Sif was a welcome return, the group dynamics were awful and the secrets are becoming a bit much at this point. However, next week promises the return of Kyle MacLachlan and his team of newly assembled super villains! Really looking forward to that one.
Episode Rating: ★★★ Good
Agents of M.I.S.C.E.L.L.A.N.E.A.
- Man, Daredevil looks REALLY good. That commercial they played during one of the breaks was amazing.
- Whenever something Asgardian appears in the show, it’s a treat insomuch as you get to wonder what is happening in the “Realm Eternal” with Loki currently posing as Odin, following the end of Thor: The Dark World. Why did he really send Sif to Earth?
- I know why they can’t really have Thor drop into the show, but it does seem a bit funny that they wouldn’t attempt to make some sort of contact with him since he is on Earth and hanging out in Avengers tower, and this was straight up Asgardian business.
- Skye: “Going full Mortal Combat?”
- Bobbi: “Fun was never hard for us.”
- Police Officer: “Pick up her sword from booking before you go.”
- Coulson: “I’m sure he’ll turn up somewhere.”
May: “Twitter...Skye found it.”
- Sif: “My mind is that of a lost adolescent!”
- Coulson: “Who can explain the mysteries of the Asgardian brain?”
May: “I can.”
- Sif: “Answer his question, elderly man!”
- Skye: “He’s like Willy Wonka blue.”
- Sif: “We don’t need you to talk!”
Coulson: “Actually, we do.”
- Carver: “That’s noble. Stupid, but noble.”
