Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Ye Who Enter Here Review (Spoilers)

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.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. A Fractured House Review (Spoilers)

Mockingbird Steps In to Step Up the Female Badass-ery on Agents of SHIELD: A Fractured House

As usual with my reviews, there will be spoilers ahead. Please stop now if you haven't watched this episode yet.



Agents of SHIELD continues to be good, not great, but still better than ever before. This week we saw Hydra lead an attack on the United Nations. The trouble is that they are impersonating SHIELD. So, all the nations of the world quickly jump on the hate train to put SHIELD down, led by Senator Christian Ward (Tim McKay), brother to former Agent turned Hydra, Grant Ward (Brett Dalton). Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to review last week's episode "A Hen in the Wolf House" for the début of Bobbi Morse aka Mockingbird (Adrianne Palicki). But nonetheless, I have been watching with excitement as Bobbi Morse has quickly become a leading character. At the same time, so has Lance Hunter (Nick Blood)... Lance is a decent character, but he just seems like the bad boy replacement for Ward. He is a bit two-dimensional, constantly playing up his role as the mercenary whose only allegiance is to money. Add in the obnoxious grudge match dynamic between Bobbi and Lance and I pretty much have no desire to watch his character. He did slightly redeem himself at the end, busting in on Hydra with a six-pack as if everything is cool.

In the world of the first season cast, we see Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) still struggling to deal with his brain damage. Things have gotten slightly more complicated since Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) has arrived back at the SHIELD HQ. Fitz feels that Simmons abandoned him when he needed her most.  He tries to open up to her and she only scoffs and walks away. Mack, ironically played by Henry Simmons, has become the new Simmons in the Fitz-Simmons duo. Over the last few episodes, Mack has made an effort to befriend Fitz and help him deal with fallout from his brain damage. He has been a true friend. Simmons is confronted by Mack and he tries to set her straight. It's a pretty touching scene where Mack tells Simmons he never knew the Fitz she knew, and this new guy is kinda weird, but he likes him. I enjoy the dynamic between the new Fitz-Simmons a bit more than I enjoy watching the old Fitz-Simmons work through their issues. I appreciate that the show runners wanted to set the stakes high and actually let us see a character (Fitz) truly get hurt, but the fallout is starting to drag on a bit. There was a good twist when we first realized that Fitz was imagining that Simmons was there. But then they let Fitz work through that and start to open up to his teammates. I think it's time to let the brain damage run its course and make Fitz useful or bench him.




The Skye/Ward mind fuck games continue in the basement as Skye (Chloe Bennett) is tasked with getting any intel on Ward's brother Christian. Ward is just truly creepy this season. Not only does everything about him feel skeezy, but he is literally a creep at this point. He uses his every interaction with Skye to try to woo her back to him, saying weird ex-boyfriend shit like, "I'll never lie to you." Look, dude, you were a covert Hydra operative. I don't think that line is going to fly, like EVER. Director Coulson (Clark Gregg) finally tells him as much after striking a deal with Ward's brother. Sen. Christian Ward gets custody of his brother in exchange for calling the nations of the world off SHIELD's back. Seems legit.... NOT. How do you go from being attacked by supposed SHIELD agents one day to a week later being like "ok, they're cool." You don't. I don't think this episode weighed the gravity of this particular plot point very well.



Speaking of shitty plot points, we later see Bobbi Morse going "undercover" back into the confines of a Hydra held science lab. She is tasked with getting her hands on the latest Hydra weapon, which is something like a throwing star that causes your body to disintegrate once it hits you. She gets into the lab no problem and begins talking to Toshiro Mori, who created the weapons... in Japanese. Surprise! Oh and another surprise, Bobbi kisses the dude. How convenient since your ex-husband is watching this whole thing. Then, the two settle down for tea and decide to start talking in English. This whole scene felt forced and stupid. Bobbi waits all of three minutes before she tries to get Mori to give her some weapons. Sorry, Adrianne Palicki is smoking hot as Mockingbird, but I don't believe for a second any dude with some wits about him would fall for this. And it seems Mori doesn't as a huge fight ensues and the Agents come out on top.

The episode wraps up with a big Hydra/SHIELD throw down in a SHIELD safe house in Belgium. This scene is pretty awesome. We get to see May and Bobbi kicking a lot of ass, but Agent May (Ming-Na Wen) steals the show again here with her fight against Marcus Scarlotti, Whiplash in Marvel comics. Scarlotti (Falk Hentschel) wields a chain with a knife on the end for some pretty exciting fight choreography. In the end, the Agents defeat Hydra, but only after they lose 6 of their own red shirt, faceless agents. General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar) seems to be coming around to SHIELD, offering a handshake and condolences to Agent May at the scene of the fight.

One last stinger scene teases more mystery surrounding the alien writing that is clearly the central theme of this season. A new and unknown character (Brian Van Holt) shows up at a tattoo parlor and removes his shirt to reveal the alien writing all over his torso. I'm sure we'll be learning more about this guy next week.

Overall, A Fractured House demonstrates how this show is still on the come up. The fight scenes, the character development, and the choice of new Marvel c-listers added to the cast are helping to make this show more of what comic book fans want. The failings of this show could be summed up in criticism any bad comic book would receive. Stop talking so much. I'm tired of watching guys in suits standing around giving big speeches about how SHIELD isn't going to let this or that happen. It's like who wants to read a comic book with hundreds of speech bubbles all over the page? Most people don't. Not because we don't like to read, but because that is not what the medium is best suited for. You have to strike the right balance between showing and telling. I think Agents of SHIELD still has some work to do to get there. I only say this because I find myself waiting for the episode to be over. Whereas with The Flash and even Gotham, I'm pretty hooked until the end of the episode. Agents of SHIELD has made good on its second chance, bouncing back from a lackluster season one and winning back critics and fans. Now it's time to see if they can kick that same process up a notch to make this show something GREAT.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Face My Enemies Review

Episode 4 of Season 2, "Face My Enemies" Proves This Show Can Be Good

Spoilers ahead. Stop now if you haven't watched yet!

My Tuesday afternoons are getting a bit difficult for decision making. Before the Fall TV season began, I would just turn on Chopped re-runs and zone out. But with Agents of SHIELD and The Flash both airing at the same time in my market, I'm having a hard time choosing what to watch. After The Flash premiered, I was hooked. I thought, "Sorry, Marvel, but DC wins this one." Then I watch episode 4 of Agents and I almost changed my mind... (not quite though).



This week's episode brought A LOT of ass whooping, and it was truly great. Director Coulson has been drawing crazy alien (presumed Kree) writings. We don't know why he is doing this, but apparently he can't help himself. At the top of the episode we learn of a prized painting that was the one remaining item that survived a burning church. The painting also happens to have this alien writing on the back. So, of course, the Agents of SHIELD are on a mission to scoop it. A nice little spy caper kicks off the first part of the episode. The team works together to get Coulson and May access to a fancy charity event where the painting is being auctioned. They run into General Talbot pretty quickly, blowing their cover. And then they find out that he's not actually Garrett at all, but a Hydra stand-in. Here's where the "face" my enemies part comes into play. The Hydra agents have some unexplained tech that they stick to their face and take on the identities of Garrett and later Agent May. The special effects are pretty decent this episode. Especially the climatic fight scene between May and her doppelganger. Who am I kidding, that shit was AWESOME. This fight scene has really raised the bar for this show. As you might guess, after a lot of ass kicking, the Agents recover the painting and some team bonding ensues in the final piece of the episode. Fitz, who has been struggling with brain damage and seeing hallucinations of Simmons, finally comes around and has a beer with the guys. It was pretty touching.

The character development on Agents has really come a long way. I'm actually starting to care about these characters as people. And with special effects and fight choreography that went into this episode, Agents of SHIELD is looking a real winner for the first time. I have to admit, The Flash will get my viewership in Tuesday nights, but I'm going to be damn sure to watch Agents on Demand as soon as possible on Wednesday.