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“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” recap (2.1): It’s Xena, bitch

Previously on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Coulson was appointed Director Coulson over a teensy-tiny new version of S.H.I.E.L.D. that wasn’t infiltrated by a zillion Hydra spies. This, after: Ward betrayed S.H.I.E.L.D., dropped Fitz and Simmons into the bottom of the ocean, manipulated the shiz out of Skye, murdered his own dog, and was finally beaten the heck down by Malinda May, who chided him for being weak and dumb and a lazy lay. So now S.H.I.E.L.D. is fighting Hydra and running from the U.S. government with only a couple of dollars in their pocket and like a treehouse for HQ.

In the waning days of World War II, Agent Carter(!) and the Howling Commandos busted up a Hydra outpost in Austria, arresting Daniel “Kraken” Whitehall and boxing up all his little supernatural doodads, including an Obelisk that killed all the non-Hydra guys and that blue alien that provided the Jesus Juice that will bring Coulson and Skye back to life in the future. Jim Morita and Dugan are like, “This stuff seems pretty terrifying” and Agent Carter is all, “Hopefully one day there will be a warehouse in Nowhere, South Dakota operated by a lesbian Secret Service agent and her time-traveling girlfriend where all of these artifacts can be kept safe. In the meantime, let’s turn them over to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

The Kraken says if they cut off Hydra’s tentacles, two more will grow in its place, and that’s just fine with Agent Carter because she’s got a TV show coming in 2015 and she needs somebody’s ass to kick.

Present day. Melinda May and Skye (who has traded her doe eyes for bangs and is now 100 percent hardcore) are doing spy stuff in an elevator shaft in a random warehouse while Isabelle “Xena” Hartley and two companions try to buy the only Level 10 0-8-4 in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s inventory from a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who has defected and is now selling off artifacts willy-nilly to the highest bidder. It’s all haggle-haggle-haggle and then Crusher Creel waltzes up in there and beats the hell out of everybody, absconding with the 0-8-4 secret file. Skye and May swoop in to save Isabelle Hartley from getting shot, so now everyone is out in the open and the package is gone and Absorbing Man is on the loose. Coulson’s solution, from HQ: “Go dark.”

Back at HQ, Billy says Coulson’s only got time for May.

May: You are in charge of the earth’s mightiest heroes, but I’m in charge of you, which means I’m the most powerful woman on the planet. But you already knew that. Coulson: Sorry I haven’t checked in. I’ve been jetting around the world – in economy, by the way, which is just full of gross people who don’t wear shoes – trying to recruit new S.H.I.E.L.D. helpers. May: How’s that going? Coulson: Shitty. Everyone has defected to Hydra or the private sector or they’re too scared to join up. How was it working with Agent Hartley? May: Whatever, she’s a mercenary. A good guy and a badass, but a mercenary. Creel stole the info on that tech we were trying to buy and also I haven’t been able to procure a cloaking device for the bus. Coulson: Whoa, this 0-8-4 was the Original 0-8-4. Must have this Precious. May: Call me “Precious” again and I will break your face. Coulson: No, I mean “Precious” like from Lord of the Rin-never mind, we need to get our hands on this.

 

Skye is trying to decode the runes that Coulson scribbled down last season after Garrett also scribbled them down after drinking every last drop of Jesus Juice and learning all the mysteries of space and time, but her work is interrupted by Coulson who explains that she’s the only one who can do what needs to be done to gather intel on Creel so they can stop him from nabbing the Original 0-8-4. Skye rolls her eyes and descends into the bowels of HQ, where Ward is being held captive behind a laser barrier. He knows Creel because Creel worked for Garrett like Ward worked for Garrett.

Skye: Nice beard, Agent Irredeemable. Ward: These are my wrists that I have slashed repeatedly in remorse for my awfulness. Skye: I’ll make sure Billy brings you a sharper knife. Ward: I love you. Skye: Shut the fuck up. You tried to drown my girlfriend at the bottom of the ocean. Ward: I will never forgive myself for that. Skye: Good, that makes two of us. I need to know who Crusher Creel is. Ward: He is the Absorbing Man. He takes on the physical properties of everything he touches. Skye: Cool. Ward: I want to talk to you about your… Skye: Bye, bitch. Laser wall: *closes* Ward: …father.
The first part of Coulson’s plan to get his hands on the Original 0-8-4 is to keep General Talbot, who has spent the entire off-season shit-talking S.H.I.E.L.D. to the press and arresting agents and taking over all their facilities, from getting kidnapped by Absorbing Man, which means, of course, that he goes ahead and kidnaps Talbot instead. Coulson explains to Talbot that his S.H.I.E.L.D. is nothing but good guys and they’re saving the planet whether the planet likes it or not, and right now he needs to get into the warehouse with the Original 0-8-4 before Absorbing Man gets there first, a thing that seems pretty likely since he’s already on his way to a containment facility in the same building.

When Talbot refuses to help, Coulson sighs and shoots him with a stun gun and leaves him on a dirt road in his skivvies. He only needed his fingerprints anyway.

S.H.I.E.L.D. heads to the military base where the Original 0-8-4 and Creel are on lockdown, trickstering their way in with Tripp posing as a visiting general and Coulson posing as General Talbot on the phone and Billy using Talbot’s fingerprints to grant them digital access. Inside the building, Agent Hartley and her brigands find the Original 0-8-4 (just totally sitting out on a shelf like some Gatorades at Costco). Inside is the Obelisk that Agent Carter boxed up 70 years ago and once Hartley grabs onto it, she can’t let go, even though it starts gobbling up her arm. Creel is on the loose, too, of course because he absorbed the glass in his holding cell and beat down his guards. So he’s making mayhem and Agent Hartley is turning to stone and May and Skye are trying to find the one other piece of tech then need and it’s kind of a disaster.

Coulson tells them to keep on doing what they’re doing even though Agent Hartley is completely dying. They do. And what they find, finally, is a Quinjet, which will allow them to fly the friendly skies without being detected.

On the chase away from the military base, Agent Hartley realizes the only way she’s going to survive is if Hunter cuts off her arm with a pocket knife, so he gets to sawing on her while she’s biting down on a leather strap. All for naught, however, because Absorbing Man catches up to them and absorbs the asphalt and flips their car and everyone besides Hunter dies.

It’s weird. On the one hand, I understand that you’ve got to kill a character to prove your point that this season is going dark. And if it’s going to pack any kind of emotional punch, it’s got to be a character people care about. And if you’re going to make people care about a character you just introduced, having Lucy Lawless play her is definitely a strong strategy. But, on the other hand, Isabelle Hartley was Victoria Hand’s love interest in the comic books, so now the show has offed two lesbians without ever even addressing their lesbian-ness because the writers didn’t want to be accused of killing multiple lesbians? Seems like there’s a better way. Also, though, it seems like Isabelle isn’t really dead because why would they chop off her arm first if they didn’t plan to do something bionic with it? Especially when last season’s finale was all about how easy it is to make bionic limbs these days? Who knows.

Coulson gives a big speech at the end about how S.H.I.E.L.D. has to do stuff for the greater good, even if people don’t know they need it, which is a super scary, legitimately Nazi thing to say, but the music and Clark Gregg’s voice tell us it’s cool because he’s a real hero.

Fitz watches Coulson and the gang get ready for the next phase of New S.H.I.E.L.D. and complains to Simmons that he could have developed that cloaking technology if they’d just given him time. Actually, that’s what he’s been doing for almost the whole episode: watching from the shadows and looking to Simmons for comfort because when he ran out of oxygen under the ocean, it messed up his brain in a major way. It’s sad. Super, super sad. But not as sad as the fact that Simmons isn’t even really there. Fitz has been hallucinating her all episode long because she’s … gone.

These damn Whedons and their Whedon ways!

A Hydra agent reports that Absorbing Man got his hands on the Original 0-8-4, and Daniel “Kraken” Whitehall, the guy Agent Carter took it from 70 years ago, smiles a sinister smile. He hasn’t aged a day.

What did you think of the season two premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

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