One of Us

This week's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was entertaining as usual, but there was something a bit off for me too. I had to sleep on it before it finally came to me: the super-team of villains that Cal assembled seemed only intermittently "super," and in no way a "team."

Take, for example, the character of Karla. (Rather a waste of actress Drea de Matteo, I think.) Her industrial-strength razor fingernails really made her no more dangerous than, say, a ninja armed with hand claws. A good deal less dangerous, really, as she didn't really have much in the way of combat skills. Thematically, this was sort of the point on two levels: that Cal was reaching out to all the misfits, and that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s categorization system -- that dumps her in the same bin as some real super villains -- is in need of an overhaul (as Simmons pointed out). My point is that after seeing Bobbi Morse beat the crap out of that guy in the prison facility, there wasn't even the slightest hint of danger as she fought Karla.

Similarly, the "strong man" Noche didn't seem like much of a menace. Again, Morse had taken out a strong man earlier in the episode. And while I'm not willing to speculate at who would win in a fight between May and Morse, I'm confident in saying there's no opponent that would lose to one but defeat the other. I mean, the fight looked awesome. But the similarity of the characters here meant no sense of danger for May in the final showdown.

The "tech guy." Did he even do anything? Which leaves Angar, with the catatonia-inducing shout. Okay, he was pretty cool, and the scene where we saw him use his power was an excellently crafted visual. But since Coulson dealt with him first -- and since his powers in no way meshed with the rest of the villains -- things never really got rolling there. The whole storyline was just a bit scatterbrained and toothless, much as I'm starting to find Cal himself, no matter how fun Kyle McLachlan's performance is.

But the episode did deliver up some nice moments for some of the main characters. Surprising us with May's ex-husband, and seeing Skye's reaction to learning about him, was great fun. The scene where Fitz and Simmons briefly forgot they were upset with each other as they gossiped about him was even more fun. Blair Underwood was a solid presence in the role of Andrew, and I'm already looking forward to them bringing him back for a future episode.

As for the Mac-Bobbi-Hunter story... well, they must have felt as I did last week, that things on the show were moving a bit too fast. This week was just a tap dance (while handcuffed to a sink) that kept things stationary until the reveal at the end of the episode: Mac and Bobbi are working for the "real" S.H.I.E.L.D. (or at least, what they think is). I'm not sure I'm seeing the potential in this storyline yet. At best, it's just a misunderstanding between two different groups of people who both think they're picking up the pieces of the former organization. At worst, it's a Hydra redux when they could just as easily have kept using the genuine article, right? I guess we'll see. The up side is that the show has managed to get me caring as much about the new characters as those from season one, so I am interested in seeing what happens with Mac, Bobbi, and Hunter.

I'd say this episode certainly had its fun moments, but was the weakest since the show's return. I give it a B.