Though ABC’s “Agents of SHIELD” has been on a teensy break for the past few weeks, the season is scheduled for brand new episodes starting tomorrow. As there’s been a bit of a hiatus between our last review of the show (the last one was for Episode 5; check the review here) as well, I’ve thrown together a recap of the four episodes in between so you’ll be all fresh and florally scented for our continued coverage of the series.

Episode Guide

1.6: “F.Z.Z.T.” – This episode fools us into thinking that an unnamed superhuman is killing off some New York City firefighters who were on duty after the Chitauri invasion in “The Avengers.”  After a few of them end up as floating corpses with short-circuited brains, SHIELD tracks the source to a Chitauri helmet that the fire department had kept as a souvenir.  The twist? It was a vector for a virus that, well, short-circuits the brain.  After they isolate the problem, Simmons contracts the virus and the remainder of the episode is spent synthesizing a cure.  The episode concludes with a surprisingly intense scene of self-sacrifice and heroism in which Simmons throws herself off of the SHIELD plane in an effort to prevent the electro-bomb within her from killing her teammates.  As luck would have it, she chooses to off herself at the exact moment that Fitz completes the cure. Fitz readies a parachute to go after her, but Ward, fearing the idea that someone on the team could be more hardcore than he is, shoves Fitz out of the way and saves Simmons from a needless death. 

VERDICT: This episode was all about the plot twist.  When it started, I thought, “Great.  Let’s watch SHIELD track down yet another superhuman that will inevitably die at the close of the episode.” However, the inclusion of a Chitauri virus—especially one that turns the host into an electric bomb—was a nice touch.  The show is at its best when it establishes a connection with Marvel’s films, especially when we see how the Chitauri invasion has created some new variables for Earthlings to deal with.  It was also nice to see Simmons and Fitz demonstrate some heroic chutzpah instead of just being cute nerds with cute accents.

1.7 “The Hub” – After a visit to a SHIELD installation known as The Hub, we meet Agent Hand who appears to be one of Coulson’s superiors.  I get the sense that we’d be seeing more of her, especially since the episode was focused around the darker, more classified parts of SHIELD.  They leave The Hub with a mission that requires Fitz and Ward to visit Southern Ossetia in an attempt to find and dismantle a terrorist device called the Overkill.  Skye, who has been fitted with a bracelet that somehow keeps her from hacking into computers—a punishment for her involvement with Rising Tide in episode 5—persuades Simmons into helping her figure out why Coulson’s superiors have classified Fitz’s and Ward’s mission.  As it turns out, SHIELD had no intension of extracting these two agents, causing Coulson to seriously question how much of a rule-follower he really is.  He goes a bit rogue and saves his two agents, regardless of his orders.

VERDICT: I’m starting to question the direction that the show has taken with Skye.  She was recruited because she’s a good hacker, right? Soooo if she’s now not allowed to do any hacking—or really anything useful, for that matter—why is she still hanging around? I get that, from an archetypal perspective, her job is to constantly question SHIELD’s often shady dealings, but I’m struggling to see what else she’s contributing.  Even with the revelation that Skye was delivered to an orphanage by an unidentified SHIELD agent, some serious character development needs to happen to convince us that she’s of some value other than her constant need to keep it real. That being said, the different levels of security—along with the idea that even Coulson doesn’t know everything about SHIELD could open the show up to some interesting conflicts from inside the organization.

1.8 “The Well” – Episode 8 opens with the team visiting Greenwich, England as part of a response team assigned to clean up after the Dark Elves from “Thor 2” have trashed the place.  While Coulson and his team quip about how Asgardians could do with someone to clean up the messes that they leave on other planets, trouble is brewing in Norway.  A group of anarchic Scandinavians have discovered the first of three fragments that, when assembled, create an Asgardian artifact that will heretofore be known as the Rage Staff.  When Earthlings handle a piece of the Rage Staff, they become berserkers with enhanced strength and speed.  The downside is that it also causes Earthlings to constantly relive their most painful memory.  Ward and May take point and quell the berserker uprising, but their involvement requires the use of Rage Staff fragments.  When the staff amplifies their darkest memories, we see that Ward can’t shake images of his brother trapped in a well—by Ward’s own hand, no less.  May, on the other hand, doesn’t seem fazed by the Rage Staff’s power.  Apparently, something so traumatic has happened in her past that she relives it every day, which causes her to single-handedly save the day when Ward gets too emo for the mission.  Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that this episode introduced (and killed) an Asgardian who had been living on Earth for thousands of years as a university professor.  RIP, Professor Randolph.  You were really creepy in “Ghostbusters 2.”

VERDICT: This may have been my favorite episode of the season.  It felt less like the “CSI” meets “Smallville” that “Agents of SHIELD” has inadvertently become, and more like something inspired by a comic book.  Not only did tying the episode back to Asgard and Thor make the show feel like it was happening in the same universe, but the storyline involving a shattered Asgardian Rage Staff felt like the plot of a golden age Marvel yarn.  I’ve been having my doubts about Agent Ward throughout the season, and though I get the impression that this episode was designed to pierce through his cold exterior, I’m still not loving the guy.  Yes, he’s the team’s resident badass, but does he have to carry himself like a clichéd amalgam of every other TV badass in history?   

1.9 “Repairs” – A small town is ravaged by a tragedy at a local research facility that leaves only one survivor, Hannah Hutchins.  As this one survivor appears to exhibit telekinetic powers, SHIELD is all over it.  Apparently, their index doesn’t have any record of superhumans with telekinetic powers, everyone is nerdily excited.  However, when they arrive to question Hannah, she’s in the middle of a mob that’s ready to rip her apart.  May ends up plugging Hannah with a tranquilizer, since she may or may not have caused a police car to drive through the crowd.  While questioning Hannah on the plane, we learn that she’s not telekinetic at all, but that a fellow employee named Tobias Ford has somehow become trapped between Earth and a dimension that he calls Hell.  Tobias has been “haunting” Hannah in order to get some kind of revenge on her for a workplace dispute that led to the explosion and Tobias’s current, ghost-like condition.  May eventually convinces Tobias to give up his quest for revenge, which causes him to vanish.  In addition to the main plotline, we learn about May’s traumatic past in which she liberated a few SHIELD agents from an unnamed superhuman, thus earning her the nickname “Cavalry.”

VERDICT: Total “Smallville” action here.  A telekinetic who’s actually being haunted by a phase-shifting, disgruntled employee? I’m holding out hope that the possibility of shifting dimensions will eventually take us to an episode in which SHIELD finds a way into The Negative Zone—which is possible because Simmons theorizes that Ford’s idea of Hell was simply another planet or dimension. The details of May’s past have potential, and I thought it was a believable back story for her character.  Overall, this episode was a step in the wrong direction.

Hopes, Dreams, and Predictions

“Agents of SHIELD” is skating a fine line.  I realize that the first season of any TV show takes time to iron out the wrinkles and establish firm narratives for their characters, so I’m not hating at all; the show still has tons of potential.  However, “Agents of SHIELD” is struggling to assert itself as part of the same universe as the Marvel films.  If the showrunners are going to throw in storyarcs about pyrokinetic street magicians, they need to somehow make it feel relevant to the Marvel universe.  Otherwise, “Agents of SHIELD” becomes yet another police-procedural, a genre that has completely flooded prime time TV. 

That being said, there are glimmers of greatness in the show.  The tie-ins with the Dark Elf invasion and the Chitauri make me feel like I’m reading a comic book crossover, which should be the point of creating a TV show that takes place in the Marvel universe.  “Agents of SHIELD” is strongest when it sticks to its Marvel Comics roots.  When it deviates from those roots, it becomes hard to distinguish it from the zillion other examples of “freak of the week” sci-fi drivel that seem to multiply like bunnies across the networks. 

Hopefully, “Agents of SHIELD” will head in a direction that makes it do for TV what “The Avengers” did for movies.  Phil Coulson deserves a show worthy of his resurrection.