Love in the Time of Hydra

This week's installment of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a less action-oriented affair than the last few have been, though that didn't necessarily mean it was less than enjoyable.

Skye's storyline was a rather wrinkle-free moving of her to a secret safe house, but it did a number of things well. There were several scenes where characters got to shine. Fitz and Simmons' argument in front of Skye showed that while the two may be back on speaking terms, they're far from "okay" again. The discussion between Coulson and May provided a great opportunity for May to really drop her mask and reveal her thoughts. (Heh. May and a mask. We'll get to that plot.) And the more fatherly scenes between Coulson and Skye were outstanding, largely because Clark Gregg can do no wrong. The plot even managed to serve up multiple references to the Avengers in a way that felt far more organic than some of the ham-fisted references of early first season.

The story of Hunter being brought into the "Other S.H.I.E.L.D." was an interesting one, largely because of the guest star casting. Edward James Olmos brought full Adama-style gravitas to his role as Gonzales, while Kirk Acevedo (of Fringe and 12 Monkeys) smarmed about the sidelines. I thought the characters all made a credible presentation of a view where Coulson is a crazy threat not to be trusted. It made sense, from their point of view. The one thing that doesn't make sense to me is that this Other S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to have a great deal of money and resources at its disposal, especially compared to Our Heroes. Particularly, how is it that Talbot doesn't know these guys are running around out there when they clearly have the blessing of someone with traditional authority? Perhaps we'll get into that in weeks ahead.

But the main development of the week was the return of Ward and Agent 33 to the plot. It was a great opportunity for Ming-Na Wen to portray a different character (and gave her the technical challenge of dubbing dialogue into several other actors' mouths). The relationship between the two characters was an interesting one, particularly for Ward. He seems to have somewhat genuine intentions to help a fellow broken person pick up the pieces of their life. But he's also working an angle, controlling and lying to her (for example, about the fate of his family). So you can bet he has an endgame in mind.

Their caper to break into Talbot's installation was fun, although Talbot himself was written a bit cartoonish for the otherwise serious tone of the show. It's hard to tell exactly when it shattered the top, but it was definitely over the top when he was pulling on someone's face and ordering his wife to the ground at gunpoint.

It was a bit of a transition episode overall, but it was full of nice moments. I give it a B+.