This premiere sure had a hell of a lot going on in it, though that did help in creating the sense that they have a lot of story to tell this season. We got a new villainous thug in the form of Absorbing Man, and he was fairly fun to see in action -- more menacing in just one episode, I think, than Deathlok managed to be in all his first season appearances. We also got a taste of who might be the new Big Bad for the season (for a while, at least) in mysteriously ageless Whitehall (played by Whedon-verse alum Reed Diamond). There were also a host of new "good guy" characters, though the most impactful of them, Lucy Lawless' Hartley, apparently did not survive the episode. (Having your arm slowly cut off, only to die anyway? That's a bad day!)
But by far the most compelling aspect of the episode was the parade of changes we saw in the main characters. Skye, forced out of her naive shell late in the first season by Ward's betrayal, has now moved further into true badassery. She was confident in the field, confident in bantering with the team, confident in her talk with Coulson-- confident everywhere except for her meeting with Ward. (And even then, she didn't shrink from going to see him.) In short, she seems to have a raft of new capabilities to supplement her already considerable ones, which should make her a more compelling and formidable character this season.
As for that weak spot, Ward. I think we all know that in the long term, Ward can't forever remain a Hannibal Lecter style character that stands behind the glass and interacts only with one other person. But the slower the writers can make the journey to him actually getting out (for whatever reason), the more chance it will have of being believable. And in this episode, it certainly seemed like a slow pace could be sustained for a while. The interesting thing about captive Ward is that he wasn't entirely in control and pulling Skye's strings. He seemed in at least half measure to be a broken man. His account of his suicide attempts came off surprisingly grisly, considering the sparse visuals. Of course, given how many times we were told last season that he's the "male Black Widow," there's always the chance that he's faking. But either way, it does seem that captive Ward is still going to be interesting for the show.
An unquestionably broken man was poor Fitz. It's great that there are lasting consequences to his narrow escape from death in last season's finale. And those consequences seemed bad enough for most of the episode -- the brilliant mind was slow in his thinking and battling a sort of aphasia. But in a clever twist I probably should have seen coming but didn't, we learned at the end of the episode that it's far worse than that. He's closer to full on crazy, hallucinating a Simmons to talk to. And even his hallucination doesn't seem to be 100% on his side; some of her body language with him was caring, but some of it also seemed reluctant and pitying. Worse, it seems that Coulson, the man who never gives up on anyone, has given up on Fitz. Is Fitz really beyond recovery? Probably not; we have a long season ahead. But completely isolating Fitz like this certainly gives him a tough challenge to surmount. Given that his character was defined almost exclusively as part of a pair in season one, cutting him off like this definitely sends him in a new and interesting direction. (To say nothing of the future possibilities for the real character of Simmons, when she eventually pops back up.)
All of this, plus little teases alluding to the ongoing plot threads that remain in play from season one -- Coulson's weird writing, the alien that healed both him and Skye, the mystery of the multiple Patton Oswalts, and more. Plus a fun little peek at the upcoming Agent Carter series. For juggling so many threads so well, and getting me genuinely excited to see what happens next, I give this episode an A-.
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