Seeds
Directed by Ken Fink
Written by Monica Owusu-Breen & Jed Whedon
FitzSimmons brings Skye and Ward to the academy to solve a “cold” case while Coulson and May head down to Mexico City to get further information about the mystery behind Skye’s origin.
The episode opens with some coeds going underwear dipping in a indoor pool while a nerd skulks away. The pool rapidly turns to ice while two of the people are in it and the nerd has to use a pool tool save the long haired guy. It turns out these people weren’t at a regular school, but at the Science SHIELD Academy.
We learn that SHIELD has three academies. Operations, where Ward went, Science and Technology, where FitzSimmons went (and graduated earliest of anyone), and Communications, where Skye would have gone.
May finds Coulson moping over his autopsy and all of the information he learned from last episode. He convinces him to join her on a search for information about Skye’s origin in Mexico City, while the rest of the team investigates the freezing with technology created by FitzSimmons at the Academy.
The team learns that a classmate is probably responsible for the freezing incident. FitzSimmons are treated as returning heroes on campus. They are asked to give a speech. I’m not exactly sure why they are supposed to give a speech. But, they make some jokes, and then the nerd freezes in the middle of it, and gets tapped out and saved. Ward asks FitzSimmons if there is any place private students are likely to go. They go to the Boiler ROom. Which is a very private night club in the middle of campus. The fact that it is so big, popular, and is obviously well known by the staff kind of defeats the purpose of a private place to meet. But, what do I know? I only have an IQ of 15, or so. Fitz is sent to talk to and befriend the nerd. Who’s name is Donny, by the way. Down in the Boiler Room Ward is using tricky offers to slip up one of the Academy’s top students. You’d think they would teach their top students to see through such transparent offers, but I guess that is the difference between Operations and Science and Technology. She says that Donny and the long haired guy have been talking about talking to Fitz for weeks. Meanwhile, Donny shows Fitz his ideas, and then he shows him his big idea. A battery capable of producing 1.21 gigawatts. Or something. There’s one flaw with the design that Fitz is able to fix in a couple of seconds. Walking to the boiler room Simmons tells Fitz that it was all a trick to get him to come to the Academy. Fitz poohpoohs this idea and then realizes it’s true, so runs back to the room to confront Donny (without backup [Another difference between Operations and Science and Technology]). The long haired guy shoots him when Fitz sees that they are using the battery to power a huge version of the freeze device.
While all of this is going on Coulson and May are in Mexico City staking out the agent who’s partner was killed while protecting Skye. They have a heart to heart about the value of truth while waiting for him to show up. They spot him and May follows and Lumley and May have a fight sequence. He tries to take cyanide, but that is stopped. He is able to get away from May, but Coulson uses his flying car to stop him. He is relieved to hear that they are from SHIELD and goes along willingly. Back on the plane he tells the story about what happened to his partner. They were on a mission about an Object of Unknown Origin. An entire village was killed protecting the object, as was the SHIELD agent in charge. The object was baby Skye and they put her into the foster system with orders to have her moved every few months. May thinks this information shouldn’t be shared with Skye. They drop Lumley off somewhere on there way back to the academy.
FitzSimmons and Skye meet up back at the plane and report what happened. Coulson is ignoring Skye while they are there. But, when she asks for a couple of seconds to talk he agrees and gets a case of the Truths. He tells her everything he found out from Lumley. He might have waited until after the mission. But, no hacking was needed at, so I guess it is ok.
Donny and Long Haired Dude are in a truck in a local parking lot talking to Bad Guy CEO Ian Quinn trying to convince him to come buy the machine. Quinn’s spooked by SHIELD’s awareness of the project. So, he turns his plane around and asks long haired guy for a demonstration. Donny doesn’t especially want to do it, but the long haired guy convinces him. So, they turn the machine on. At first, it seems like the machine didn’t work. But, surprisingly, the device created by greedy scientists surpassed their expectations and put their lives in trouble. They hid out in the truck for awhile, but the huge chunks of ice slamming into the windshield convinced Donny that he needed to find a way to reverse what was done. While they worked on that lighting struck. Sending the long haired guy flying, and destroying the machine. Fitz realized that the only way to get to the two guys was by flying through the eye of the storm and picking them up. They tried unsuccessfully to revive the long haired guy.
Donny is sent to the Sandbox to be watched and on the way there he discovers he somehow ended up with an ice power that he smiles slightly evilly at. With Gravitron that makes two possible bad guys indirectly created by Ian Quinn.
Coulson tells May that Skye’s reaction to the news about her bloody origin helped restore a piece of his faith in humanity. Instead of tearing her apart, it made her feel good that SHIELD was protecting her all of those years.
The episode ends with Coulson giving Quinn a phone call to let him know he will get blown up if he comes to SHIELD territory. In this call Coulson finds out that Quinn is in contact with the Clairvoyant.
As usual, I liked it. I think the trip to the Academy did a good job of keeping Skye as an outsider, and it told us a little bit about FitzSimmons. Skye’s story got more interesting, but we found out enough that it wasn’t a frustrating small leak of information. I couldn’t understand why Coulson would call that an end to her search, since we still don’t know why she was an unknown object. It’s going to be pretty cool to see how they handle that. And, I hope we are going to get more information about Coulson’s rebirth. The explanation that it was a bunch of doctors working over time isn’t nearly interesting enough. But, I did like that they showed how understandably upset he is with SHIELD. And they beefed up his relationship with May. I also like that they have a couple of super powered bad guys stored up for future episodes. I hope they don’t waste them.
Fun Stuff[ul]
[li]“Far easier to get into.” “That’s where you would go, Skye”[/li][li]“Bad Seed isn’t a SHIELD term”[/li][li]Skye is really in love with SHIELD. She even noticed Bucky Barnes name on the wall. I hope she’s not too upset if it turns out SHIELD isn’t always good.[/li][li]Is this the first time we find out Fitz’s first name is Leopold? If not, I’m not sure how I missed that. Leopold.[/li][li]“You’ll be jealous. Jealous wrinkly old hags.”[/li][li]“Agent Ward and I have been having sex.” “I got em…”[/li][li]“Whereever she goes death follows.”[/li][li]“Simmons is probably smarter. Technically. But, that’s because she likes homework more than life itself.”[/li][li]“It can’t be worse than what I imagined.” “It is.”[/li][/ul]