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This week’s episode of Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D. showed us why this TV series needs to exist. It gave us a massive data-drop on the
Inhumans, the Kree War (in the comics it was with the Skrulls), and the dangers
which the team (and the Inhuman civilization) face. And this is so far the only place we’ve seen
characters from the Thor corner of the universe interacting with characters
from the Guardians of the Galaxy corner of the universe—and doing it
with humans. Where else would that
really make sense?
Like “Aftershocks,” “Who
You Really Are” follows up on narrative threads from the midseason finale—in this
case specifically the signal sent by the Diviner when it activated. That signal was picked up by an eyeless
Inhuman we now know to be “Gordon,” but it was also detected by a Kree
(Vin-Tak), who came to Earth to investigate it.
Heimdall saw him arrive and sent word to Odin (whom I assume is still Loki),
who sent Sif to investigate, intercept, and bring the Kree back to Asgard. Sif confronted him, fought him, and when she
looked to have the upper hand, he hit her with his weapon to wipe her memory. This sets up several amusing moments where an
amnesiac Sif doesn’t recognize or remember the S.H.I.E.L.D. team, doesn’t know
who Thor is, and has no idea who she is or what she is doing on Midgard. Coulson’s mention of “Thor” actually sets up
an amusing moment when Sif doesn’t know who he is, but can’t hide a reflexive
smile. Coulson plays it off with “Who
can understand the Asgardian mind?” to which May responds “I can.” It somehow doesn’t surprise me that Sif would
have feelings/a previous relationship with Thor (something Thor: The Dark
World strongly hinted at), or that May would be able to interpret Sif’s
smile. Of course, all of those light
moments were necessary to keep the episode from being too dark because most of
the rest of the episode was deathly serious.
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| Image Courtesy www.marvel.com |
For starters, Skye is
still struggling to control her powers, as evidenced during her fight with the
Kree when she vibrated her gun apart (an ability which would probably prove to
be more useful if someone else were holding it…). However, we saw it even during her fight with
May when May confronted her about holding back.
Chloe Bennett actually does a really good job of letting us experience
that tension she’s feeling: there’s
something dark inside her which she doesn’t want to let out. It came out against the Kree in a singularly
unhelpful manner. It started coming out
when Sif and the Kree confronted her, finally exploding out of her in a cascade
of shattered glass. When she ran off and
couldn’t make the earth stop shaking, the pain and fear felt very real. Even in the containment room she couldn’t get
her emotions under control enough to stop it—even before Sif rammed her sword
through the wall! The final scene when
Skye walked in on the team discussing her and then walked off to shut herself
into the containment/interrogation room made her inner turmoil even more real
and visible. It’s maddening for us as
the audience to see this character with an amazing gift shut it away, hide it,
fight against it, when all we really want is to see it in action taking down
the bad guys.
As an aside on that
previous statement: Do you realize who
Skye is? Personality-wise, she’s Tony
Stark: all quips, wisecracks, and
nicknames. But abilities-wise, she is
Bruce Banner: she doesn’t think that
this is a gift but a curse, and she wants to get rid of it and bury it where it
can’t harm the people she cares about. You
can almost see this episode as a re-envisioning of The Incredible Hulk,
particularly the parts when the government is trying to hunt Bruce down. The one difference is that Bruce didn’t have
any support until Tony Stark in The Avengers; Skye has May.
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This entire episode
was written towards a single moment: the
conversation in which Vin-Tak and Sif rapid-fire revealed virtually everything
there is to know about the Inhumans. They
were an experiment by a “vicious faction of the Kree” a very long time
ago. They were meant to be soldiers (“cannon
fodder” in May’s words) in a great Kree war.
When the “peace-loving” faction of the Kree discovered what had happened,
they moved to end the experimentation and get rid of the products of it. Clearly they did not succeed; in fact, from
what we can piece together there is something of an Inhuman civilization on
Earth, though it is hidden away from the regular humans. There were six Diviners left on earth
(meaning that there are four more out there excluding the one that was
destroyed and the one which Gordon has)—could that mean that there are five
different tribes out there? Could Hydra
have one of them? We may find out sooner
than later. However, there is something
about this whole situation that I don’t get, and which I’m sure they will have
to explain in a week or two: We know
that there are Inhumans out there, and that Terrigenesis has been happening all
along (Jiaying guided several generations of Inhuman children through the
process, after all), so how is it that Vin-Tak or another Kree didn’t pick up
the signal of the Crystal activating all those other times?
The episode also explored several other
plots and character interactions. I think
the most interesting interactions explored in this episode were Coulson and Sif,
May and Sif, May and Skye, and Skye and Bobbi.
I especially think that May and Skye’s relationship will take on a
completely different character going forward.
Since May has been Skye’s training officer this season, she’s been
responsible for helping her become a better S.H.I.E.L.D. agent: shooting, hand-to-hand fighting, mindset, and
the like. Now that Skye has these powers
which are unleashed whenever she gets angry, scared, or upset, I think May is
going to be taking on a role similar to the one that Fury had with Quake in the
comics: May will be the one working with
her to understand her powers, control her emotions, and ultimately control her
powers so she can unleash them on command and restrain them when
necessary. It’s an interesting connection
that they would show the beginnings of this relationship (at least with regards
to Skye’s powers) in the same episode which saw the broadcast premiere of the
second Daredevil trailer, which included some shots of Stick training
Matt Murdock to hone his senses and fighting abilities. A strong part of me hopes that Skye will have
her abilities mastered before the end of the month (3 more episodes); for as
interesting as it is to see the “evolution of a superhero”—including her
learning to control and harness her abilities—I also just want to see her lay
down a world of hurt on Hydra or her father’s “Masters of Evil”-esque villain
team, or whoever the punching-bag-of-the-week happens to be.
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| Image Courtesy www.marvel.com |
Because the main plot
left plenty of room for character development and other plots, the subplot with
Mack and Bobbi was on full display. We
know a little more about it now than we did after last week’s episode, but we
still don’t know anything.
According to Bobbi they are “not Hydra.”
Mack talks about “pulling the trigger” on something which could bring
the whole place down. When they faced
Vin-Tak, Bobbi made a comment about calling in “real backup.” How do we reconcile any of these things? My guess for this week is that “real backup”
refers to one of the Avengers, and that they are working with/for the Avengers
to determine what’s going on with this new S.H.I.E.L.D. “Real Backup” could be a reference to Hawkeye
or Captain America if that is the case. Alternatively,
they could be working for Maria Hill, who can send in Iron Man if they need “backup.” Could this subplot be where the Age of
Ultron tie-in comes into effect? Either
way, we’re going to be getting answers very soon, especially after Mack knocked
out Hunter with a sleeper hold. I think
this subplot is building to be my favorite one of the series—not least because
they aren’t drawing it out as much as they have the other ones.
I thought that in
general the effects were as stellar as last week. They did a good job with Vin-Tak. The ridges on his forehead made it look like
there was definitely something different about him, though they were subtle enough
not to notice it. The only effect that I
wasn’t sure about was the Bifrost. Going back to rewatch how it looks in Thor, I noticed that there's a lot more of a tornado around the beam. There's something of a tornado this time, but not as pronounced. However, in rewatching "Yes Men" (1x15), I saw that the Bifrost in that episode looks nearly identical to the way it looks in this one. So, long story short, it's as convincing on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as it is in Thor; it's just a smaller-scale version.
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| Image Courtesy www.marvel.com |
This weekend I will
post a follow-up article about the Inhumans and what we know about them so far,
and then I will also post an article looking ahead to next week about how we
might see Inhumans appearing in future episodes.
So what did you think of
this episode? Did you like this one
better than last week? What other guest
stars would you like to see from the movies?
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