There’s also the (R) after his name when he was on TV. That’s enough for a big chunk of this board to declare him evil. 
Evil? Hell, he’s HYDRA. Probably turn out to be Red Skull with a electro-mask on.
Given the politics of most comic book writers and a good chunk of TV writers. that was either a blatant indication that he’s evil or a “clever” fake-out to make the viewers believe he’s evil and then switch it and have him just be a dupe or else good.
He’s not only a Republican, but his name is Christian. (His Christian name is Christian, too.) If he turns out to be evil, the network will hear about it from William Donohue.
He’s a senator?
But more seriously, turning Evil Ward over to his Even Eviler brother makes a better story than turning a Evil ward over to a decent guy who wants do the right thing. And if they are doing a redemption arc for Ward, part of that is going to require putting him up against someone even more twisted and fucked up than he is. Big bro seems the likeliest candidate for that.
Coulson, I suspect, doesn’t care. Either Christian is an upright dude who will make sure Ward is brought to justice, or he’s a secret psychopath whose going to torture him. Either way, Phil’s fine with it.
Phil’s kind of a dick sometimes.
“A Fractured House”
Directed by Ron Underwood
Written by Rafe Judkins & Lauren LeFranc
There’s so much happening in this episode it’s unfair to even try to summarize it in a paragraph. Suffice it to say that the episode starts running and never slows down. Between all of this action relationships are explored, and huge season plot points are shoved ahead.
Talbot rehashes The Avengers (2012) and Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) to the United Nations in order to sway them against SHIELD. The Italian ambassador insists on proof and gets turned into ashes by soldiers in SHIELD gear. (Surprise! They aren’t real SHIELD. Although, it’s concerning that so many real SHIELD agents need to ask Coulson to confirm that it wasn’t them.)
Ward gets up and exercises every day 5:30 on the dot every morning. Skye and Simmons have watched him to see this. His exercise routine include stretching his thumb muscles. It would be a good idea to use constraints that don’t involve dislocated thumbs to get out. Oh well. That will never be important.
The real SHIELD is alerted to what is going on and starts to put together forces. Bobbi, now back to having blonde hair, reports that the leader of the fake SHIELD group is named Marcus Scarlotti (Whiplash in the comics.) He’s an assassin for Hydra who has faced Hawkeye in the past. Simmons reports that the disintegration weapon comes from a demolitions expert named Toshiro Mori. Bobbi has experience with him in the past, so she is sent with Hunter (ex husband! Relationship drama!) and May to track him down, and Simmons is sent to investigate the weapon.
I didn’t see it mentioned in the show, but if I were Simmons I would investigate how vampires disappear when they are staked, compared to this new weapons. It looked suspiciously similar to me. Get Buffy on the line, I am sure she can help out.
Also, Bobbi wearing the Star Wars shirt? Sure, cynically I could say that’s simply a corporation cross promoting one of their other properties to try to get us to buy buy buy. But. I can’t help but not listen to the cycnic since it gives me such joy to see one pop culure thing I love appearing in another pop culture thing I love.
Back to the show…
We meet a new character. A Republican senator. Presumably, this is this is the senator with big pockets Talbot mentioned to Hunter earlier in the season. He’s angry, and he wants SHIELD controlled. He also has a notorious brother who exercises every day at 5:30. He goes on WHiH (have we ever found out what WHiH stands for? World Headlines in Heroland?) to rail against SHIELD and to suggest a multinational police force to capture them. He is debated by the Belgium Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Since the senator’s threats are so serious Coulson tells SHIELD affiliates outside of his base to go dark. He tells this directly to Agent Walters in the Netherlands. He sends Skye to talk to Ward to see if he has any brotherly secrets to reports.
May is flying Bobbi and Hunter to Tokyo. After a conversation fraught with marital tension, Bobbie goes to sit with May and to seek advice. May’s unspoken advice is to never speak to him again.
FitzSimmons relationship is going equally poorly. Simmons went to him for help in researching the hard drive from Hydra. Real life skin and bones Simmons is unable to finish Fitz’s sentences, unlike the subconscious version. By the end of the episode their interaction becomes almost hostile. It’s so real that it is heartbreaking to watch their interaction.
They have two options to get the information from Toshiro, the arms dealer. Go in with force, let Bobbi go in with her Hydra cover. They decide to let her use her cover. Hunter and May watch Bobbi flirt with Toshiro. Hunter attempts to get advice from May,and to bare his heart. Her advice is “You know I don’t like you, right?” Hunter finds out that her cover has been blown and rushes in to save the day. A fight ensues. After the fight is over Hunter and Bobbi bicker, while May steps in and expresses the thoughts we are all feeling - “Really?!”
They found out a lot in the meeting with Toshiro both for this episode and for future episodes: Hydra is going after Beckers, the Belgian Foreign Minister, Toshiro got the specs for the Splinter Bombs not from Sunnydale, but from Whitehall, and a lunatic delivered the obelisk (or the Diviner, as Skye’s dad calls it) to Hydra.
In something we haven’t seen much of since SHIELD went dark Coulson dominated Ward’s older brother. Taking over his office in every way possible. Coulson tells him that he has Ward in his basement and that he wants the senator to tell a story that is more positive towards SHIELD. And then a scene starts where the two brothers tell stories that couldn’t possibly both be true. Who is lying? Or, are they both lying? Senator Ward to Coulson, Prisoner Ward to Skye.
While Ward tells Skye either truths or lies about his brother Skye starts to pump him for information about her father. Once it is clear that he won’t have more information until he is out of the prison she walks away knowing the well is dry. (Dry of everything but bullied brothers, I suppose.) And lets him know that they are sending him to his brother’s custody in exchange for Ward reversing his position on SHIELD. Ward tries to convince Coulson that he still a part of his team. He forgets about attempting to kill FitzSimmons, killing Victoria Hand, and killing Patton Oswalt’s twin brother.
Mack and Fitz are working together well, as usual. Isn’t it such a breath of fresh air when Fitz is laughing and fighting about not spouting nonsense, and not struggling to get words out? They discover something something about the Red Skull and the fact that Becker’s grandfather designed old weapons. The young Beckers is still Hydra and he has been playing SHIELD Friendly to draw the agents out. We meet Beckers in a safe house with Agent Walters who loves weed and bicycles. May’s team is enroute right when this agent is found and we are led to believe she will be saved.We’re led wrong. So wrong. Scarlotti dusts her after she gets a good headbutt in.
The team arrives early enough to fight. Too late to save that particular agent. They do fight well, though. If you thought Bobbi was invited on the show to allow May to have less fight scenes you thought wrong. May takes on Scarlotti (when I say takes on I mean destroys), while Hunter and Bobbi take on the nameless minions. Their bickering is over, now they are fighting in love. Or at least in like. The Hydra agents taken down SHIELD is able to count their casualties and hand over the bad guys to Talbot. Talbot shows some sympathy to their losses. Hunter thinks about leaving, but Bobbi tells him that he is welcome to stay.
Mack is very protective of Fitz. He tries to tell Simmons that she makes him worse. But, Simmons already knows that.
The hand off of Prisoner Ward to the FBI takes place while Senator Ward talks about his little brother the bad guy who is now going to face justice. Coulson tells Prisoner Ward’s captors to not give him one inch. Unfortunately for Senator Ward one inch is given and Prisoner Ward uses his thumb technique to break out and go somewhere else. Where? Anywhere the Senator isn’t, I would guess, if his stories to Skye held a modicum of truth.
The episode ends with someone getting a tattoo of that alien writing. So. There’s another party to worry about.
An excellent episode. Action kept up from beginning to end. The plot was so dense with things that seemed important for the rest of the season it was difficult to pick what to talk about, and what to gloss over. The fact that there are so many enemies up in the air makes the rest of the season seen likely to be surprising. I agree with JesterX in that one of this show’s strengths is leading us somewhere, and then dealing with it in a way that we didn’t expect. They did it with the SHIELD agent in Bruges. They did it with Skye - they set it up pretty strongly all season that she had feelings for Ward, still, in spite of her anger. We all thought (cringed at the thought) that she would finally give in and let him out to help find her father. But, no, when she squeezed the last bit of information out of him she was able to turn him off heartlessly.
The FitzSimmons stuff is so well done it’s hard to believe these are the same characters from last season. The juxtaposition of subconscious Simmons with real-life Simmons emphasizes how realistic they are treating this relationship. Simmons is in the role of a caretaker who can’t find the right way to deal with a friend who is hurt. Fitz knows things are wrong, but can’t help that, and also can’t help that Simmons isn’t who he wants for himself. She doen’t finish his sentences. Simmons is too close to help, and she’s too close to truly walk away. The scene where she says “Oh. I can’t look at you know?” was perfectly written and acted. So far they haven’t made it easy, and I like that. But, the continued use of Mack as a translator for Fitz is fun, and it takes a bit of the sadness away.
Oh yeah. Tim Dekay is really good as Ward’s brother.
[ul]
[li]Grumpy cat mug: “Somebody bring this from home?”[/li][li]“Guess being a douchebag runs in the family.”[/li][li]“Sames as always, sir, lots of bikes, lots of weed”[/li][li]“She can handle. Deception’s her forte… … I mean that sincerely! Not passive aggressively. I mean that as a spy you have to… bloody hell.”[/li][li]“Still like Option 2?”[/li][li]“Good, because you had a hickie for a week after that job in Miami.” “Excuse me for doing my job thoroughly, and with style!”[/li][li]Bobbi’s method of using that fabric to take out Toshiro was inspired.[/li][li]“I assume this is for your speech. I made a few changes. It’s funnier now.”[/li][li]You might know Tim Dekay, the guy who plays Senator Ward from White Collar. But, judging by the rate of reruns his role as Bizarro Jerry will last much longer. [/li][li]Every time Hunter says sweetheart, I think he is saying sweet tart. Must be Halloween whispers.[/li][/ul]
So. Bored. Might have to rewatch the ep.
Thanks for the awesome recap, pricciar. I forgot they were skipping this week, and was in withdrawal. Will probably rewatch last week’s episode.
Did anyone actually see the Marvel comics special they were going to air last night in place of AoS, or was it preempted by election coverage for everyone else too?
Preempted. Better a special with nothing new to offer get tossed than a new episode.
I looked up Lance Hunter last night and found out he’s a character from the comics too. He’s a former British naval officer and I guess the British counterpart to Nick Fury. I hope he doesn’t keep waffling about staying with the team.
We got it in Chicago. It wasn’t too bad but it was essentially an hour-long infomercial for Marvel Comics. It did have Jack Kirby’s son in it, so that was nice. They showed a little bit of the new movies and TV stuff coming out, so that was cool to see as well.
The wife just told me it Tivoed (in two pieces) sometime last night, so it might have run after I turned in. Now I have something to watch this weekend.
I figured I may as well mention this now, since it’s my view on the whole affair. Obviously, this is just opinion and guesswork.
*Ward is dangerous. That’s exactly why Coulson slipped off the leash. He intends to win every which way, because:
*He’s low on manpower. He doesn’t have a lot of agents. Ward is available and…
*Ward is Hydra. Yes, this is Coulson’s advantage. He (Coulson) just lost his two backdoor agents in Hydra. Ward can reasonable join up with that very organization, but he’ll never be loyal to them, because paradoxically…
*Ward’s defining characteristic is his loyalty. People think of him as a traitor, but he’s exactly not that. Instead, he’s incredibly loyal to people. Further, he was exactly what SHIELD wanted, only they misunderstood exactly to whom he was loyal. But he won’t hurt Skye, and I suspect he’d have a real hard time bringing himself to hurt FitzSimmons again.
*No, I don’t think he’s redeemed. I do think he has the capacity to fully sign on if he so chooses. He’s not a remorseless character whatever he is.
On the subject of his brother:
*Senator Ward is almost certainly more than he appears, and I don’t buy his good-guy act. If he’s a Hydra agent himself, however, then he’s not aligned with the current enemy cell. In any case, there are other dangerous people in the world.
*Agent Ward may not be totally honest with himself over the issue, but I don’t think he’s lying - at least not the way he sees it.
Ward’s escape sure did look easy. I just can’t decide if the writers did that on purpose.