This week’s episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was sadly one of the few weaker episodes of the current season as Cal’s little legion of villains was a major letdown and got way more attention than it should have.
There are probably 15 reasons why I was bored by the villains other than Cal and Kayla Gideon (played by the talented Drea de Matteo) and felt that it was a wasted opportunity to set up a cool little super-villain group that could recur on the show. It would have been nice to have seen some minor Marvel characters join Kayla and become a secondary antagonist for S.H.I.E.L.D. But instead, it was just random “gifted” people that didn’t bring anything interesting to this story. It was fun to see Cal just being his psycho-self, but other than that, it was all pretty lackluster.
However, there were some highlights in this episode, including the introduction of Melinda May’s ex-husband, Dr. Andrew Garner (played by the smooth Blair Underwood) who came in to help Skye with her earth-shattering problems. I enjoyed what he brought to the table and that he wasn’t too much of a stereotypical shrink that we see on TV sometimes; he fit well into the Marvel tone as a whole. I was hoping for more background about him and May before they got divorced, and even though we got some intel, there should have been more. But the most important thing was that this his presence did in the end was help Skye get some control of herself and her powers, although at a painful price.
I’m still getting more familiar with Daisy Johnson in the comics; it looks like that we may have gotten another famous element of Daisy in the show. We see what happened to her arms when she was directing her powers inwards which led to Simmons creating special casts for her, but here is the interesting part to that comic Easter egg: they are also specialized to cause less damage when she uses her abilities. Could these be the gauntlets that Daisy has in the books? That would be a neat way to bring those into play on the show one day.
We finally get an answer to who Bobbi and Mack have been working for this whole time and it’s none other than….S.H.I.E.L.D., but the “real” one. First things first: boo to no West Coast Avengers formation as I had hoped for. Secondly, what the heck? I’m obviously going to be patient before I judge because this could turn out to be the coolest thing ever, but the overall MCU fan in me is slightly confused about what is going on here. Fury is obviously not behind this, because if he was, then what was the point of making Coulson the director of the new S.H.IE.L.D.?
The reason I was partly disappointed with this reveal was because that I was looking forward to perhaps getting a new major comic element into the MCU, something like SWORD, West Coast Avengers, or something like that. But to just get an organization that claims to be the “real” S.H.I.E.L.D. feels like a slight insult to the show. I have no idea what this could be leading to and whether this is another way to connect the show with the films, but it definitely left me wanting to learn more. Overall, while “One of Us” wasn’t one of the strongest episodes of the season, it was a solid one; it just could have been much better. The show did give us some more Inhumans teases with Gordon that I’m dying to learn more about.
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesday nights, 9/8c on ABC.
[Photo via ABC]
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