Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D S02E05: A Hen in the Wolf House (open spoilers)

“A Hen in the Wolf House”
Directed by Holly Dale
Written by Brent Fletcher

Action.
Intrigue.
Stress.
Action
Intrigue
Surprise.
Action.
Intrigue.
Stress.
Character regression.
Heart warmth.
Hilarity.
Heartbreak.
Hilarity.
Violent evil team up.

Incredible episode. Full recap tomorrow or Thursday. (This 9pm start time makes timely recap writing more difficult during busy weeks!)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D S02E01: Shadows
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D S02E02: Heavy is the Head
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D S02E03: Making Friends And Influencing People (open spoilers)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D S02E04: Face My Enemy

“If that Mockingbird don’t sing, Coulson’s gonna carve you a map-py thing…”

OK, Ray Charles coulda seen Bobbi being Hunter’s Ex, but I still like it. Wonder how May will deal with being the second toughest person on the team?

Thought the team-up with Whitehall and Skye’s Dad was a little contrived. I wish they’d left it a three way dance for a while longer. Still not sure who or what Skye’s Dad is supposed to be.

Tight episode, served mostly to introduce Mockingbird, but gave us some interesting tidbits to ponder as well.

Loved the scene with Coulson and Raina in the restaurant. Loved the intro of Agent Morse (Call me Bobbi!). Got all sniffly when Fitz and Simmons finally met up again.

Yeah, that ep was a cracker.

My bet: Skye’s father (Kyle MacLachlan) is Maximus the Mad.

I for one, was getting a Bruce Banner vibe from him.

Declan

If google translate is to be believed, the restaurant Coulson & Flowers met in was “The Furious Countess”. I was a little disappointed in the mundane explanation of why Skye’s father always has blood on his hands, but his actions in the rest of the episode completely made up for it.

Since I’ve got Marvel Unlimited, they send me email updates of “exciting” news. Yesterday’s email mentioned Bobbi Morse showing up, and warned to stay tuned after the show for “exciting news”… which was apparently the Avengers: Age of Ultron preview to be shown next week.

Marvel promoting their movies in conjunction with the show that exists to promote their movies isn’t exactly high excitement.

I did mildly wonder if we’d get a desultory reference to Bobbi as “Mockingbird” like we did to “Absorbing Man”, but not so that I noticed.

I like that idea, although I’m beginning to think they may only be pink Kree instead of Inhumans, which would be a bummer.

They seem to be pushing the whole Inhumans-in-place-of-mutants angle, so I think there has to be an Inhuman tie-in. That said, it may be a while before anyone CALLS them “Inhumans.”

I see a plot arc at the end of the first half of the season where our heroes have to recover the Obelisk to keep Coulson from going full-Garrett, but lose Skye to her father in the process. There will be a tie-in with Agent Carter. Then the second half of the season in the spring will deal with Inhumans as a lead-in to Avengers 2 in May.

I quite like the way that, at this point in the series, everybody understands Raina’s waif-ey femme fatale thing, and they’re just not buying it. Whitehall lampshaded it at the end of the last episode (“I’m not easily confused”), and the Shield team seems sort of amused/slightly queasy at Raina’s obvious attempts to flirt with Coulson.

Oh, don’t get me wrong - Ruth Negga is all kinds of lovely. But in the real world, Raina’s schtick just wouldn’t work on folks who knew who she was, and she’d come off as desperate and clumsy if she tried it. It’s fun to see it play out that way here.

I liked how Coulon’s plans are multi-layered. That feels like the type of plan a SHIELD director would come up with, and the writers are making him look smart.

Then he doesn’t think that Skye might break ranks and go run after her father who is just a few blocks away. That makes him look stupid. May takes some of the blame there as well.

I did like the scene where Coulson broke the news to Skye that she might be alien. Major fail.

Well, I suppose they could have done a guest shot with Jeff Foxworthy. “If you get shot full of blue goo and DON’T freak the fuck out, you might be an alien…”

Personally, I think that Coulson was relying on Skye to keep her faith in him, and in his plan. She’s been a good soldier, publicly, and he may have been giving her credit.

This made me think of one of the gripes I have with the scenes between Skye and Coulson: the way she talks back and questions his authority and judgement in front of the team.

Is this a special ops team or high-school?

Special ops teams aren’t as deadly or creative as high schoolers.

Yeah, this bothered me also. What was May doing anyway?

Did anyone else see the blue lights in the background on the rooftop scene? It looked like the lights on the Zakim bridge in Boston - I couldn’t get a good freeze frame.

Yeah, would someone please clue me in on Kree diversity?
In Guardians of the Galaxy, Ronan the Accuser looked like the blue alien corpse from TAHITI, so did the Kree leader who was Skyping with Nova Prime. But Korath the Pursuer looked a whole lot like Djimon Hounsou, enough so that he could pass for human.

We still haven’t been told what Skye’s dad is, but popular speculation had been that he is a Kree. If he is, it would seem he’s more of the Djimon Hounsou kind of Kree instead of the TAHITI kind of Kree.

That was some seriously bad acting by Kyle MacLachlan in this episode.

[Futurama]

Great job, Calculon! You Shatner’d all over that scene!!

[/Futurama]