The Bridge
Directed by Holly Dale
Written by Shalisha Francis
The Bridge might be the most action packed episode of SHIELD since the pilot. There is feint talk about May and Ward’s relationship, and a bit about Skye. But, mostly, we are treated with super humans throwing train cars at each other, and shit blowing up. The episode ended with a delicious cliffhanger that sets things up very well for when the show returns next year.
Remember the end of “Girl in the Flower Dress” when Raina visits the mysterious guy in prison and he talks about the clairvoyant. Yeah. Him. His name is Edison Poe. He’s a tactical strategist. Well, the start of this episode has him eating a meal in the prison and a group of superhuman cannonballing in to save him. He eats his meal throughout the fight and insists on being called ‘sir’ by his saviors, but, he escapes successfully.
Back on The Plane, while Skye is looking for her Mother, and May is avoiding pillow talk during her spar with Ward Coulson is putting together a meeting to discuss how to handle the breakout. The video reveals that Centipede is behind the breakout, therefore they are going to need extra firepower to fight them. Mike Peterson, the super powered guy who almost blew up in the pilot is recruited by Coulson to come help.
Peterson gets on the plane and after the initial bickering about whether they can trust him he is sent to the lab where Simmons gets giggly while she measures his chest. Peterson gives them plot Red Herring #1 when he lets them know that their weapon from the pilot is what enabled him to keep his powers without exploding.
A member of Centipede is recognized and they track down his sister to the University of Ohio. Or wait. Is it The University of Ohio. Or is that distinction just for real colleges? I realize it’s the height of nitpicking to complain about a fake school in a show where there are humans with superpowers and flying cars. But, come on! University of Ohio? Such a boring choice for a made up school! How about good old Empire State University? Or Buckeye University. Does it have to be in Cleveland, Lake Erie State? Something fun! Ok. Enough dumb complaining about nothing. I don’t really care, I just thought it was funny.
Now that rant was really worthless if it turns out that there is an University of Ohio in Cleveland that I never knew about.
I’m not sure if we really need to meet the cellist from Portland, or if it works better as an unseen character that Coulson avoids from afar. Whatever the case, he talks about her to great extent while he and Ward go to the university. Ward is obviously digging for a reason to expand his relationship with May, but Coulson quickly nips that in the bud.
Meanwhile, back on The Plane Skye is asking May for help in finding her Mother. She’s quickly rebuffed and told not to ask while on a mission. She then shows the video of Raina meeting with Poe that i mentioned earlier. They’re able to use fancy lip reading software to hear that Poe (creepily) mentioned The Clairvoyant. According to Coulson there are no psychics on the list, so it must be a codename.
Raina tells Poe that they keep having to change headquarters because SHIELD continues to track them down. Poe responds that it is time to stop running.
They use a business card (Coulson loves how amongst all of the technology and gadgets sometimes the old fashioned stuff is the best. I’m not exactly sure what he was referring to, since it turns out the business card is a tracking device) from the Ohio Gaming Commission to track the sister’s phone call and track Centipede to a warehouse in Oakland.
Ward, May, Coulson and Peterson are ambushed in the warehouse. These super powered guys have the same eye implant that we saw in “Eye Spy”. Through an implant Coulson and Peterson’s picture is sent back to Raina and Poe and with Red Herring #2 we’re lead to believe that Peterson is the key that they are looking for. (Spoiler Alert: It’s not.) Later they meet in a car after Poe had seen the Clairvoyant. They have a creepy conversation about him, and the fact that Raina cannot know more, and then romantically kind of sort of touch hands.
May gets in Ward’s face about protecting her during the fight. He replies that the protection was practical, and not romantic. Skye shows up at the end of this and May jumps down her throat, telling her that she has to decide whether or not she wants to be there.
Coulson and Peterson have a heart to heart about Peterson’s son. It turns out his son, Ace, is being visited by Raina. He tells the SHIELD team they need to set up a trade Peterson for Ace. When Coulson and Peterson get out to the appointed place Coulson finds out he is the one being traded. Ace is returned safely, but a truck blows up next to Peterson as he runs after Coulson and his captors. Briefly, no one watching the show thinks Coulson is dead, but the chracters might since the car exploded. Next a helicopter takes off and shoots at Ward in his sniper’s nest. Up in the air Raina asks Coulson “What happened the day after you died?”
First off let me get this speculation off of my chest. I think Centipede is run by fans of Agents of SHIELD who desperately want to know what happened to Coulson. They will stop at nothing to find out.
Another fun episode and an excellent cliffhanger to stew on until the show returns. One of the best things I did in this episode is complicate relationships among the crew. May wants to protect Skye from the secret, but the only way she could do that was to angrily tell her to let go. The May and Ward romance has some legs left, and it seems like both Coulson and Skye might know that something is going on. Not much movement on FitzSimmons, but they were funny, that has to count for a lot. And, of course, most importantly, we are going to get some answers about Coulson soon. I was glad to see more of Centipede. I’m looking forward to seeing how the team works when May is in charge, and what we can find out about The Clairvoyant. It’s still not clear if he is just a smart rich guy, or someone with powers. We don’t even know for sure that it isn’t Poe. As far as I am concerned January 7th can’t come fast enough!
Stuff I wanted to bullet point:
[ul]
[li]Peterson’s training really rips up the grass! Do they have to resod once a day?[/li][li]“Other People. People with QUESTIONABLE track records.”[/li][li]“We have equipment to take measurements. No need to take it manually.”[/li][li]FitzSimmons seemed so proud of Peterson’s suit. It’s a shame it barely lasted an episode.[/li][li]Whatever knocked out Coulson didn’t last very long. He seemed wide awake on the plane.[/li][/ul]