“Turn, Turn, Turn”
Directed by Vincent Misiano
Written by Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen
We get to see exactly why Hand was so eager to take out that plane, and (maybe) who May is reporting to. Exciting things are afoot! Perhaps a Captain America: Winter Soldier tie-in?
Unfortunately, (Or fortunately, for you folks who don’t enjoy long winded recaps.) I was at an Opening Day baseball game tonight and was unable to watch the episode. I just wanted to start the thread to give people a spot to talk about the show, and to advertise bienville’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Thread for those who have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier thread. Please go there to discuss matters that apply to both Agents of SHIELD, and Captain America. Let those who haven’t seen the movie a little bit of time to remain spoiler free.
And, a private message to those of you who haven’t seen the movie. Go see it! It is excellent and well worth your time.
I’m looking forward to watching this episode! Hopefully, I will get a chance to watch it tomorrow night, and then come see what you guys have to say.
Really, if you haven’t seen the movie, you should not watch the episode until you do. It will spoil major elements of the movie for you. And probably won’t make a hell of a lot of sense without seeing the movie, either. Not sure it is really possible to discuss this episode without spoiling the hell out of the movie…it is that tightly wrapped.
I didn’t realize this episode was going to contain movie spoilers. I mean, I read some comments that it would, but for some reason I thought that was just unconfirmed speculation. I was wrong.
Luckily for me, I allowed myself a few peaks in the movie thread, so I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t already spoiled for myself. I would definitely recommend people see the movie before seeing this episode if you’re trying to remain uncontaminated, however.
That said, I had no trouble following the show along, and neither did my wife, who knows nothing about the movie, contrary to Oakminster’s warning. The rest of his admonition applies, however: we’re going to have a very difficult time discussing this show from now on without spoiling the movie and vice versa.
I thought it was a very exciting episode. It’s been well worth sticking with this show for eps like this, IMO.
I’m gonna respectfully disagree with Oak and say that the episode is structured so that seeing the movie is not essential to keep track of what is going on in the show; having seen the film will certainly enhance the experience, however.
OTOH, I will agree with this: THAT.WAS.AWESOME.
Clever plot, and some really good acting going on there. I particularly liked the exchanges between Coulson and May. And against all odds, Ward has suddenly become an interesting character.
I’m coming around to the idea Bricker made on the other thread. Most likely, Hand isn’t really dead. It’s a plot to get Ward inside of Hand.
I’ll admit one reason I figured Hand couldn’t really be killed was because she’s an established character in the comic book universe. But checking Wikipedia, I see she’s currently dead over there.
But, overall, I still have a hard time seeing Ward crossing over to the Dark Side. If he does, it leaves the team unbalanced. Unless they make Triplett a series regular.
I don’t know at this point. I’m going to wait for next week’s show.
In retrospect, Ward’s last minute reveal seems implausible. After the team split up, he was alone with Skye and the computer disk in the middle of a facility full of Hydra agents. Why didn’t he just go to the first Hydra team he saw and turn Sky and the disk over to them? Why bother pretending he was still loyal for Skye’s benefit? As a bonus, if he had turned in Skye, she wouldn’t have been able to sabotage the power and Garrett would have been able to kill Coulson and May.
The worst part of this week’s episode were the cliches: “Look, those unidentified soldiers have taken our enemies prisoners. Let’s let them inside the command post.” and “I never told anybody that secret. So you must be the real double agent.” And Victoria Hand’s “come join the dark side” test - these are secret agents she was testing. Didn’t it occur to her that some of the people who “failed” the test were actually SHIELD loyalists who were playing for time in order to defeat HYDRA?
Best parts were May’s reveal that she and Fury had been manipulating Coulson all along, Skye’s reveal that she knew Ward had been screwing May, and Garrett’s scenes. Yes, he was a traitor but he had style.
Strongest performance to date from Ming-Na Wen. She showed some real emotional vulnerability in a convincing way, and I haven’t seen her do that before tonight.
Dunno about Ward. Unless the shootings were faked, he’s now committed cold blooded murder 4 times in 2 episodes. The first such murder might have been committed to protect his cover. On the other hand, he did not ever say “Heil Hydra”, and he and Coulson did exchange a look prior to Ward escorting Garrett away. And there would be little point in mind-fucking Skye if he was going to turn heel…:eek::eek::smack:
I think we’re meant to think that Ward’s feelings for Skye are genuine – whether or not he actually turned. So it wasn’t so much that he was messing with her head.
It occurred to me that they probably could’ve hopped out of the Bus on Lola at some point instead of riding it into what they knew to be an ambush… if the show still has any cash left in the CGI budget for the season. That car shows up in so many shots of the back bay of the plane that it’s becoming a Checkov’s gun waiting to go off.
Well, I want to protect her. That sad-eyed, mouth-breathing-with-a slight-overbite look always makes me react like that, so I don’t think it’s some special power. She looked much more Chinese than usual from the angle that was shot. I’m less inclined to think Chloe Bennet (nee Wang) had her eyes done.
I don’t understand the logic of limiting the viewership of a show that is already having trouble with its ratings to those people who ran out to see the latest Captain America on its opening weekend, but that is, in effect what Marvel did here. I wanted to skip it because I haven’t seen the movie and I didn’t want that spoiled, and I fear others thought like me. But then I figured, I’m not Comic Book Guy, despite some unfortunate similarities, and just how badly spoiled could it be? Apparently, not that much, especially since I understand Genre Fiction and know that Hydra (and eventually Red Skull) are too fun to throw away and not even Joss Whedon can permanently kill Nick Fury and Samuel L Jackson.
It’s Marvel. “No-one stays dead except Uncle Ben.”
Nicely done, show-runners. You’ve ramped things up nicely and added a lot to the aftermath of CA:WS. Marvel may well have run a little game-changer here. Kevin Feige may be the new “King of All Media.”
But what they did do is have more story for the people who came out of Captain America and want to know what happens next. And I am hopeful that it will pay off for them. It really can now be a show that more directly bridges the movies.
No one’s mentioned that Garrett incriminated Agent Sitwell.
“Gentlemen, I know Agent Sitwell was in charge of filling your ranks, so at least some of you know what to do in this situation.”
(gunfire)
“Heil HYDRA.”
I liked Sitwell. Maybe now he’ll get some decent screentime as a baddie.
I avoided most info on Captain America, but even I knew about SHIELD being infiltrated by HYDRA. Glad I watched it, even though I haven’t yet seen the movie. Haven’t been to the movies in years, but I’m thinking about treating myself soon, and people are recommending it.
I don’ think that’s too hard to get behind, as a theory. The only thing I can think of that would disallow it would be the insistence that there are no psychic in the MU.
I enjoyed it also. Having not seen CA: TWS, I wondered about Hand’s comment that she and Coulson were probably the two highest ranking SHIELD agents that weren’t dead or HYDRA. Does that mean Agent Hill died or is known to be HYDRA?
I think it means that she and Phil don’t know. At this point they don’t know who is dead and who of the living are loyal.
There are going to be a lot of trust issues going forward, since Hydra is presumably clever enough to have some of their agents as ultra-deep cover who wouldn’t reveal themselves until they were in actual control. Kind of like Ward appears to be, although I assume he is actually a triple (or quadruple) agent, and still loyal.
I don’t think the shootings of Hand and the other agents were faked. There was a clear headshot with blood spray to the bald agent - not something that would be easy to fake outside a TV studio with special effects techs. Plus, a faked shooting plan would depend on Garrett, a top agent, not noticing that 3 people weren’t really dead for entire remainder of the flight.
But I don’t think Ward is Hydra either. He’s clearly extremely loyal to Garrett, and has a whole lot of weird shit going on in his head. I think he’s protecting Garrett, not behaving as a Hydra agent. Garrett even looked surprised when Ward shot everyone on the plane, and I don’t think Garrett wouldn’t have known his own protege wasn’t Hydra.
