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| Image Courtesy www.facebook.com/AgentsofShield |
You know how you might
be expecting things to go a certain way, but you’re worried that it will
not? And you know how the story might
take a sharp left turn and make you think that it will pull the rug completely
out from under you? And then you know how
the story can turn around and give you exactly what you were expecting all
along but it still feels new and surprising?
That’s pretty much this episode.
“A Hen in the Wolf
House” has a ton of stuff going on, but it is impressive just how well it handles
all of its different subplots, and especially its introduction of a
fan-favorite comic book character and Avenger.
It gets pretty exhausting trying to keep everything straight, but I
think that the final product makes it all worth it.
Reminder: Retro-Reviews contain potential spoilers for
all of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seasons 1 and 2 (plus everything else
to-date).
The first subplot is
Hydra’s efforts to weaponize the Obelisk (which they don’t actually have) and
use it to create weapons of mass destruction.
This leads to a test run at the wedding dinner of a member of an elite
U.S. Navy unit tasked with hunting down Hydra (Navy SEALs?). All of the party guests drink champagne laced
with the alien-metal-derivative, but only 8 of them are killed (6 Navy); some
of the others get sick but survive.
Though the Hydra scientist responsible for this experiment thinks this
is still something of a success, both Bakshi and Whitehall strongly disagree
with her. Whitehall calls most of his
best scientists—including Simmons and her supervisor (Kenneth)—to a meeting to
discuss options. Simmons notes that
because the alien metal will react to tissue differently, they would only be
able to weaponize the Obelisk if they actually had the Obelisk in their
possession. However, as soon as the
meeting is over, Simmons leaves a message for Coulson on a flex screen in their
dead-drop location. This connects with
the second subplot.
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| Image Courtesy www.hexdimension.com |
Raina went to Skye’s father (still only known
as “the Doctor,” though I’m going to call him “Cal” because it’s easier) to ask
him for the Obelisk so she can turn it over to Whitehall and save her life. Cal refuses to give it to her, and she
decides to go to Whitehall and beg for her life. However, as she is entering the building, she
sees Simmons and realizes that she is working undercover for S.H.I.E.L.D. Raina follows her, takes a picture of her
with the flex screen, and tips off Hydra that there is a mole in their
organization. She then arranges a
meeting with Coulson to force him to let her bring Skye to Cal (at which point
Cal might be willing to either give her the Obelisk or offer her protection) in
exchange for ensuring Simmons’ safety from the Hydra sweep. However, Coulson refuses her offer, tags her,
and sends her away, hoping to use her to get to Whitehall. Consequently, Simmons’ cover is now
blown. This gives us our major plot for
the episode.
At the Hydra building,
Bakshi and the head of Hydra security, Morse, start a witch hunt to find the
mole. Morse starts interrogating Simmons
at her desk to find out where her loyalties lie since there is no evidence that
Simmons ever supported Hydra before the uprising. However, while she is doing so, an agent
discovers flex screens in Kenneth’s desk (hidden there by Simmons) and he is
taken away. Simmons is still pretty
shaken, however, and goes to the bathroom to calm down—and Morse is waiting for
her when she leaves the stall. Still
shaken, Simmons goes back to her desk only to find that the picture is on
everyone’s computer screens. She runs,
pursued by Bakshi and a pair of security officers, and runs into Morse with 2
more officers. However, Morse suddenly
pulls out a pair of batons, knocks out the officers with her, and reveals
herself to be another undercover agent working for Coulson. Morse (“Bobbi”) tries to get Simmons out without
raising any alarms, perhaps hoping to maintain her cover. However, she has to blow her cover when
Bakshi finds Simmons and the two of them escape together by jumping off the
roof and onto the cloaked quinjet, piloted by Trip. On the way back to base, Bobbi explains that
she was there to keep an eye on Simmons, and that before leaving she’d taken
Simmons’ hard drive, meaning that they now have copies of just about all of
Hydra’s research.
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| Image Courtesy www.facebook.com/AgentsofShield |
Back at the base, we
get the culmination of what seemed to be a running joke for the first 4
episodes of the season—Hunter’s demon-spawn ex-wife. It turns out that Bobbi is the ex-wife! I actually liked this twist, considering that
Bobbi’s ex-husband from the comics is actually Clint Barton, who is in the
movies and probably won’t be showing up too often on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. This makes even more sense now that we know
Barton to be married with 3 kids! Having
both Bobbi and her ex-husband on the show gives them a means to explore all of
those relationship dynamics that were so important in the comics. Remember:
Bobbi and Clint have a terrible relationship in the comics, complete
with multiple breakups, divorces, and the like—and yet they are founding
members of the West Coast Avengers and trainers for the Great Lakes Avengers. I suspect that exploring this dynamic may be
the goal for the recently-announced Marvel’s Most Wanted.
I really like Bobbi’s
character in this series, and especially this introduction. I remember at the time when it was announced
that Bobbi Morse would be the head of security for Hydra there were rumors
flying around about how that would work.
Some people called it correctly, but there were also some who thought
she would be a Hydra believer who switched sides eventually or that she was
brainwashed into compliance. When it
turned out that she really was undercover for Coulson, I was actually somewhat
surprised because she played such a convincing Hydra goon! And at the end of the day, that’s really
Mockingbird’s character in a nutshell:
able to convince people that she is something she is not.
There are two other
subplots to talk about with this episode.
The first is the subplot with Cal.
When Raina meets with him it is clear that he has control issues of some
sort, and they are very serious if his murder of both his patient and his
patient’s friend is any indication.
After Raina tries to blackmail Coulson, Skye goes to the location that
Raina gave them to try to find her father.
However, Cal is not there but instead is watching on the surveillance
cameras from his car. Skye is devastated
that she couldn’t even get a glimpse of him—and Coulson comforts her, something
that upsets Cal. Then May finds the dead
bodies and Skye realizes that Cal is a “monster.” Cal then drives off in a rage and brings the
Obelisk (“Diviner”) to Whitehall and proposes an alliance to destroy Coulson
and S.H.I.E.L.D. Throughout this season,
Cal played the role of antihero to a “T.”
Half the time he seemed to have good intentions, but then he went and
made an alliance with Hydra to kill Coulson.
He had no compunction about killing, and even seemed to do it for
fun. He was definitely disturbed and
didn’t necessarily want to be doing everything he did. And yet, in the end he wound up on the right
side. In fact, when you look at all the
villains from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2, Whitehall was really the
only one who fit the definition of a true villain; Ward, Cal, Raina, and even
Jiaying to some extent were more along the lines of an antihero. This is something we haven’t gotten a lot of
from the MCU movies, though Loki fits the antihero mold in Thor. I’m excited to see what they are going to do
with the villains in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3.
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| It's these guys! Image Courtesy en.wikipedia.org |
The other subplot is
with the alien writing. Coulson is still
looking for answers, but refuses to give Skye all the information she
wants. However, after talking to Ward,
Skye realizes that Coulson himself is the source for all of the new alien
writings and confronts him. He finally
opens up to her and explains that he started carving after he first saw
Garrett’s carvings, and that it really just “happens.” Skye is confused because both Coulson and
Garrett were injected with the GH-325 and both of them are carving these
symbols, but she is not carving them and she was injected with that same
substance. Coulson explains that he
believes that he and Garrett both experienced or are experiencing a negative
reaction to the alien DNA now in their systems, and that Skye is not having a
negative reaction because the alien DNA was already there. In other words, he suspects that she may be
alien. I think this is when the fan
theory of Skye being an Inhuman really started to gain traction, especially in
my mind. After all, “blue alien”
probably means Kree (especially after Guardians of the Galaxy), and the
Inhumans are essentially humans with Kree DNA markers thanks to ancient genetic
experimentation. This would explain
Skye’s mysterious origin, and possibly make the “Diviner” a Terrigen Crystal.
Coulson finally
reveals everything to Skye, and she tells him that she has a theory: “It’s a map.”
But what it is a map to is still unknown.
I really liked this
episode, and especially how it introduced Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird, onto
the show. In my mind this series was
already important to the MCU, but allowing a comic book Avenger to make her
debut on the series definitely gives it an additional degree of credibility beyond
simply the Marvel logo. I don’t know if
Bobbi is ever going to show up in the movies, but it would not surprise me in
the least if she does (though at this point without any rumors coming out, I doubt
she’ll be in Captain America: Civil War).
The reunion between
Fitz and Simmons seemed a bit anticlimactic, but considering everything the two
of them had been through recently—and considering that she ran off and left
him—it was pretty powerful for her to approach him hesitantly and him to be
withdrawn.
All in all, this
episode put a lot of pieces into place which will pay off in future
episodes. The alien writing is coming to
the forefront of the series. Cal is now
working with Hydra. Raina is somewhere
out there scared for her life. All of
these things will pay off sooner than later.
What was your favorite
part of this episode? Do you want Bobbi
to appear in a future movie, and if so, when?
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