“Yes Men”
Directed by John Terlesky
Written by Shalisha Francis
An action packed Asgardian episode, that was far from standalone. Lorelei invades earth, and Lady Sif shows up to stop her and bring her back to answer for her crimes. Along the way Lorelei charms Ward, and May is forced to fight him and hears his true feelings. While, Coulson has a heart to heart with Skye about what he saw in the Guest House.
Lorelei’s newlywed victim drives her to a biker bar. Rooster, the leader of the 1%, notices her as she gets out of the car, and pretty soon, he and his gang are in her control, while the newlywed gets backhanded over his convertible. Lorelei calls the motorcycles beasts. Which makes us think that the animals in Asgard are metally.
Simmons is babying Skye in the airplane ER (if you take massive amounts of blood from a baby while you take care of one), while Skye is practicing her Cockney for the SHIELD talent show, and humble bragging about how terrible she looks.
Coulson is taking a personal day in parking lots talking to a SHIELD agent who owes him a favor, but won’t pay it. Agent Fury is busy starring in the latest Captain America movie, so he can’t come see him. He isn’t getting anywhere in his search for information about the Blue Alien of LIfe.
The team gets a report from SHIELD that there is a high energy event above the CA/NV border signifying a visiting Asgardian. They go out to investigate, only to be met by Lady Sif in the middle of the road. She explains Lorelei’s power to charm guys with her voice and and touch.
Back at the motrorcyle bar the gang is bringing back all of the ill gotten gains to impress Lorelei. She’s not especially impressed. Going as far as questioning Ben Franklin’s manhood. That, and other things (mostly other things. Like wearing her clothes, and ordering her husband around) pisses off Rooster’s wife. Lorelei tells him to silence his wife, and I guess he kills her. Or, chokes her just enough to make her stop talking.
Lady Sif comments on how antiquated the system that SHIELD uses compared to other world’s she has seen. Most probably discussing the fact that all of their searches involve moving your hands around randomly, and hoping the correct file pops up. Hearing this Coulson starts grilling her about blue aliens she has dealth with. Sif goes through a list of all the Marvel blue aliens, and tells Coulson none have been to Earth recently. (Although, she did stop one group from taking over a millenium ago.)
Fitz gives out his new guns with more pop, and a better name. Finally, we get to hear what an acronym stands for. The new guns are called I.C.E.R.S. I forget what that stands for. But, trust me it stands for something.
Seeing that Lorelei uses her powers to charm men into follwing her they decide to use their most powerful man to help take her in. I’m guessing that they might have regretted that decision in retrospect. They get to the bar and have a gun fight with the police who first got there, and the gang. Sif kicks an Airstream aside to provide cover, and she goes in to take care of Lorelei. Ward goes to the back. Sif has to fight the motorcycle gang, and gets Lorelei’s collar shot and broken in the process. Ward fights and beats Rooster impressing Lorelei. Her voice isn’t enough to win him over, but her touch is. And, they leave on a motorcyle. Ward thinks Caesar’s Palace in Vegas is the perfect place to take her. I guess he doesn’t think much of the fountain show at Bellagio.
Back on the plane SImmons really gets into Coulson’s face about sending Skye’s blood to HQ to get answers about the mystery drug. He refuses, and tells her to concentrate on the case. Since she doesn’t have anything to do this episode she goes back to tell Skye to stay in bed and continue to track Ward.
Lorelei and Ward’s pillow talk revolves around the plan to kill Sif.
Because May is such a badass Sif doesn’t laugh at her when she asks to use her sword. Sif tries to prepare May and tell her Ward will not be himself any longer. May doesn’t need much convincing.
While May, Lorelei and Coulson go check out the suite Ward got in Vegas, Ward and Lorelei take over the plane. Luckily, Fitz had finished fixing the collar before he was charmed and in Lorelei’s service. He locks Sif in the cabin, and leaves her there with the collar. Lorelei leaves the cockpit and throws May across the room, and Ward ejects Sif from the plane.
Coulson encounters the charmed Fitz and plays along. He goes down to free Simmons and Skye and stops Simmons right before he is able to hit him over the head with a fire extinguisher. Skye tells him that Sif has been ejected from the plane, and he tells her to take control of the plane and get her back in.
Ward comes out to talk to May while Lorelei mocks her. She tells her that Ward isn’t even in love with her. I am assuming the show is taking the boring route of paring Ward and Skye, when May and Ward was ever so interesting. Oh well. She leaves the room and lets May and Ward fight it out. She goes to take control of Sif’s sword, but is surprised to find that Sif is back on the plane. Two fights begin.
While the fights are going on Simmons gets Fitz to chase after him and Coulson knocks him out.
Sif beats Lorelei and she begs for death instead of imprisonment. She tries taunting her in order to get her wish, but Sif puts the collar on her and takes her in. Meanwhile, Ward has seemingly defeated May, but when he tries to shoot it turns out May has stolen all of the bullets, so they get up and she punches him. She goes to punch him again when he exclaims that he is cured. Sif backs him up, but May still gets one last punch in.
As Sif is leaving with her prisoner he asks how she is able to follow orders when things are so personal. She responds that she did it because Odin ordered it. That’s the code she has to follow, much like he has to follow SHIELD’s code.
May tells Coulson that if she can’t tell her what is going on, he has a responsibility to tell Skye. And, Coulson tells her she has her own heart to heart to have with Ward.
Ward wants to patch things up. But, after hearing that someone else is her true love, she has no problem ending things, and she tells Ward that he was more truthful to Lorelei than he is to himself.
Coulson and Skye have a conversation about where their salvation came from. She isn’t as affected by the news as he would like, and she says she is used to living life in the dark. He asks her if she wants answers, and she says sure. He says no. It’s Skye and Coulson versus the World and they are going to get answers.
It turns out that May has been listening to everything, and has been a mole all along. I am not sure if she is a mole for The Clarvoyant, or for someone upper echelon at SHIELD. (Or if the two are the same thing.) But, since she reported it from a thumbprint phone hidden away I am assuming it was a SHIELD muckity muck.
This was a rollicking fun action packed episode. The dual fight scenes might have been the best action sequence of the show, thus far. I was a little bit disappointed/surprised that Lorelei only lasted one episode. I thought she would escape. This makes it somewhat implausible for her to return anytime soon. Then again, if she didn’t get captured she would only have been building up armies, so I guess that makes the most sense. I really liked Skye and Coulson having that conversation, and I like the intrigue that having May listen to the whole thing brings up. Even if it turns out that May is the baddest of bad guys (I don’t think she will.) it won’t matter because her character has been so much fun. TRACKS is still the best episode of the season, in my estimation, but this episode was good and it laid seeds for an excellent future. The sharing of a secret between Coulson and Skye tightens their bond, improves their relationship and makes for higher more believable emotional stakes.
My very favorite quotes:
“Awful accent”
“Ben Franklin used to RULE this country.”
“He might try to kill me. But. He won’t.”
“He’s always getting knocked out, isn’t he?”
“I forgive you.”
“I know nothing phases you. But, this should phase you!”
