Ye Who Enter Here Helps Agents Finally Finds Balance with Penultimate Mid-Season Episode
Spoilers ahead. Go watch, then come back and read.
Agents of SHIELD's penultimate mid-season episode, "...Ye Who Enter Here" goes up against high stakes and delivers. There is much buzz on the internet about the potential tie-ins to the Inhumans on this season of Agents. Tonight's episode, the final episode before the winter finale, really sealed the deal. Raina, the on again, off again friend of Hydra, came into the foray thanks to Patton Oswald's impressive umbrella cloaking technology. (Seriously though, that scene was genuinely funny, impressive on the visuals, and surprising, all things that Agents needs much, much more of.) Skye was beset with the task of "interrogating" Raina in hopes Raina's connection to Skye's father would create an emotional connection. It works and Raina not only gushes about Skye's father, but reveals that.... wait for it.... drumroll please.... KREE TECHNOLOGY is involved. Yep, you heard me right. Agents of SHIELD has gone Kree official. Now there are many things left to fall in to place after this revelation, but its seems 99% sure that the second half of season two will be highly connected to the Inhumans.
Normally, at this point, I would do an episode recap, but considering the Spoiler warning at the top, I'm assuming you've watched the episode. So, instead of a shitty recap (seriously, just go watch the show), I'll go ahead and lay out my analysis.
The Good
OK, what's good about Agents of SHIELD this week? The character development is truly on point. I am really starting to care about all the characters again. And I must say that I think this is the case because the ensemble nature of the show has expanded quite a bit. With so many characters in the mix, I don't feel forced to care about characters that I just wasn't compelled to care about before now. On the flip side, we've watched our core characters long enough now that I'm actually starting to care about them. The newest auxiliary characters, à la Mac, Lance Hunter, Mockingbird (can I really call her auxiliary?) have added a new tier of characters that might just be more interesting than the original crew. With enough history and dynamic between them, it's hard to deny the strong family vibe going on between Coulson, May, Skye, Fitz and Simmons. On the evil end of the spectrum, Ward has really come into his own as a nasty villain. As an antagonist, Ward is easy to hate, and what else could you ask for from a villain? He is far better as a bad guy than he ever was as an agent.
The Bad
The really shitty side of all this is that it's quite clear that Agents is stretching things out. Maybe, just maybe, next week's winter finale will be as good as tonight, but I highly doubt it. It's pretty clear that the show runners are setting up next week for a solid cliffhanger before a long break when we can hope the show picks back up with some Inhuman madness. I'm excited to see what Agent Carter can bring to the Marvel TV pantheon, but at the same time, I don't like it when Agents of SHIELD strings us along. Its pretty much the major exercise of the entire show, stringing us along. This show, like many comic book inspired TV shows, are trying to exercise a careful balance of telling great stories and telling frequent stories. It's something that you'd think serialized storytelling would lend itself toward, but there is always the struggle of budgets that TV just can't keep up like illustrated stories can.
The Be-All and End-All
Agents of SHIELD continues to be a show with immense unrealized potential. The only thing that keeps me coming back for more is that they are slowly, very slowly capitalizing on the latent potential. This week was one of the best. I literally was freaking out when Mac fell down that deep ass after Mockingbird tased the shit out of him. The dynamic between Fitz and Simmons was pretty heartbreaking. The father-daughter dynamic of Skye and Coulson actually has me caring about them. Agent May continues to be badass, even when she is just being impersonated by Hydra Agent 33. Lance Hunter and Bobbi Morse are staring to feel like real people with a believable post-divorce, working relationship. (I know a lot of people love their bickering, but I frankly found it obnoxious.) I don't have high hopes for next week's show, but as I find myself saying again and again, I'll keep watching.
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