Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E15: "Yes Men"

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E15: "Yes Men"

It's wrong to make assumptions, but I really have to assume that someone at Marvel is keeping track—preferably with something that looks similar to Carrie Mathison's wall of crazy on Homeland—of all the ways in which Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Marvel films feed into one another. In "Yes Men," Lady Sif told Coulson (Phillip, Son of Coul) that she was sent to Earth with orders from Odin to capture Lorelei and return her to Asgard. As of the end of Thor: The Dark World, Loki—believed to be dead—is masquerading as Odin. This brings up the question of continuity, and the argument here is that Loki, as Odin, would probably make this order to keep up appearances, but at the same time, it's still just an assumption, just as it's still just an assumption that someone somewhere is keeping track of these references in order to have the stories remain in sync.


Similarly, we have to wonder if Director Fury—whom Coulson has been looking for since the discovery of the Guest House and its blue humanoid inhabitant—is off-grid because it plays in to the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the next Marvel film and one in which S.H.I.E.L.D. will play a large role. The film hits theaters in the United States on April 4, meaning there are several episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. still to air after its release. These are important things to keep in mind, but they also have nothing—at least not directly—to do with the actual events of "Yes Men," so let's discuss!




As we saw in "T.A.H.I.T.I.," Lorelei (Elena Satine), a Marvel villain with the ability to seduce and persuade any man to do her bidding either through the use of her voice, or her voice in conjunction with her touch, had arrived on Earth. As we learned this week, Lorelei desired an army of men to conquer the world, which prompted Lady Sif's (Jaimie Alexander) arrival on Earth. One would think that if Lorelei's powers only worked on men, then S.H.I.E.L.D. would send a team of women to fight her, but heyyyy look there goes reality right out the window! Because there was no time to clone May, Handsome and Coulson were also sent on the mission and Handsome ended up under her spell because he was too slow to pull the trigger on his ICER (formerly known as the night-night gun).

I could argue that the subsequent trip to Las Vegas and Caesar's Palace (because Lorelei requested a palace, obviously) was unnecessary, but dammit if this little bit of nonsense didn't actually lead to some insight into who Handsome is and what goes on behind that pretty face. I'm not saying that I wanted to watch a mini-episode about May's feelings regarding her sexual escapes with Handsome during what was essentially a crossover with Thor, but I also can't ignore that Handsome and May are both being fleshed out a bit by this detour. A blind man could see that May was not okay with how everything went down, with the fact that Handsome had feelings for a member of the team that wasn't her. She may be a beautiful warrior with a heart made of ice, and she may have told Handsome that there was never a risk with her, but that didn't mean she didn't feel something for him. It just means she represses those feelings—no doubt because of her past—and puts her job first.



As unfortunate as this is for May, it's also what makes her so good at said job. Emotions are often said to cloud a person's judgement, and in a series in which the characters are constantly put in life-or-death situations (even if the stakes don't always feel real), emotions are believed to be a weakness. Which is why it actually surprises me that Handsome is exhibiting some. Despite my previous misgivings about the May and Handsome relationship, their sexual escapades made sense given how similar the two characters are. Handsome, for all intents and purposes, is a stiff robot of a soldier who always followed orders and never questioned the code. His time spent in the presence of the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team has changed that and it's also helped him to learn how to play with others.

Handsome felt the need to apologize to May for Lorelei dropping this bomb on her, (but he never apologized for pulling the trigger on her during their fight), but if May was not the person Handsome had feelings for, it's pretty obvious that the person Lorelei was referring to was Skye. You don't even need to do a process of elimination here; It obviously wasn't Fitz or Coulson, and Handsome hasn't spent enough time with Simmons to warrant even a crush. I'd still prefer to keep shipping of all kind off the Bus because it risks putting the actual stories—like the secrets of Coulson and Skye's magical healing potion, and their secret mission to discover the truth about where it came from—on the back burner. But I cannot also ignore the fact that emotional relationships between characters can lead to more development of said characters.





This "revelation" (we can't really call it that because let's be honest, we all saw this coming since the pilot) also paints Handsome's anger from the previous two episodes in a new light. It makes sense why he was so upset about Skye's shooting. He blamed himself, he blamed Coulson, he blamed Mike Peterson/Deathlok for standing by and doing nothing to stop it. So although this random crossover involving Sif and Lorelei stands alone and subsequently put a momentary stop to Coulson's search for what really happened to him and what could now also be happening to Skye, it also helped paint Handsome and May and their relationship in a new light. It also dropped the bomb that May is spying on Coulson, knows what happened to him, and she's just a big fat lying liar who lies!


The tag that revealed May's espionage honestly made my jaw drop. Although we don't know who May was talking to, if we assume (there I go again) that it was Fury, it would make sense. He went through great lengths to cover up the Guest House and what took place there—remember, it wasn't a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility—so naturally he wouldn't let Coulson go off on his own without a monitor. He'd plant someone with intimiate knowledge of Coulson and of what happened to him in order to keep an eye on him, to make sure he doesn't go off-grid himself. This is one of those times where you bang your head on your desk and ask God if you even deserve to have eyeballs because it's so obvious in hindsight. It remains to be seen how this will affect the remainder of the season and the rest of the team. Will May remain dedicated to the job or will she eventually also stop abiding by the code? Will Fitz? Will Simmons? She grew a backbone this week in her confrontation regarding sending the magical miracle cure to S.H.I.E.L.D. for further testing, and it's tough to tell if she feels so adamantly about this because she's a scientist, or because she's a scientist for S.H.I.E.L.D. and wants to follow protocol.





For a stand-alone episode involving two beautiful Asgardian women fighting each other, "Yes Men" is actually a very important episode. Lorelei's powers are useless when she no longer has the power to speak, and this episode spoke volumes about the wonders and dangers of communication. Handsome was more honest with Lorelei than he ever has been with himself or his teammates. Coulson and Skye are keeping the knowledge of the alien-origin of their cure a secret while they do their own research, choosing to not communicate any of this to the rest of the team. Simmons might very well go against Coulson's orders and secretly send Skye's blood off for analysis anyway. Silent and strong May has been been communicating with someone (Was it Fury? Was it someone else?) about Coulson. And Fitz, well, okay, we just learned that Fitz has a weakness for pretty ladies, though we knew that already. I doubt Lorelei even had to try very hard.

"Yes Men" also set the stage for what we all knew was coming: Coulson completely breaking away from S.H.I.E.L.D. and its code. I will once again make assumptions and say this will probably be the main storyline for the rest of the season. And I hope it plays into where S.H.I.E.L.D. is at in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. As an episode, "Yes Men" had action, it had drama, and it had a bit of introspection on the parts of several characters. I really liked "Yes Men" and everything it had to offer. I'm actually a little peeved ABC is airing a Marvel's special next week instead of a new episode, because I want to know what happens next.


DECLASSIFIED CASE FILES




– "Fitz, you have a couple of hours to fix this Asgardian piece of jewelry with whatever we have on this plane. You are essentially MacGyver. Good luck!" That's basically how that went down, right? I half-expected Fitz to come back with paperclips and gum as a solution. Fitz is brilliant, but come on, show. That's just silly.


– Skye's reaction to being injected with an alien substance was completely in character, and I actually like that she was basically like, "Yo, I'm alive, right? I'd call this a win."

– Lorelei mentioned the rage of a Berserker inside Handsome. Look, continuity! (I still wish this was explored more.)

– Sif was going to tell Thor that Coulson was alive, but Coulson asked her to keep it quiet because he wants to tell Thor himself. I see what you're doing S.H.I.E.L.D. and it makes sense; The Avengers can't know Coulson is alive, because then it might be harder to explain why Robert Downey Jr. won't stop by the show as Tony Stark. But it's still a little frustrating for fans at this point.

– Ben Franklin was called a woman in this episode. That's rude. Also, Ben Franklin was never president. I guess it makes sense a guy named Rooster would not know this, but it's a personal pet peeve of mine. Go back to fourth grade social studies, bro!

– "I'm not saying you were weak..." Poor Fitz, he really is weak when it comes to beautiful women. The discussion about men having a weakness has a point though.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E14: "T.A.H.I.T.I."

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E14: "T.A.H.I.T.I."

I won't waste any time beating around the bush: "T.A.H.I.T.I." was not the return episode I was hoping for. It's not that it was bad—I enjoyed it and I think it was far better than some of the series' earlier episodes—but looking at it from a critical perspective, there were some flaws. I could blame the show's ill-timed month-long hiatus after a really wonderful episode like "T.R.A.C.K.S." for building up ridiculous expectations that the series could never live up to, but it's probably more accurate to say that my complaints about "T.A.H.I.T.I." go deeper than that. The episode didn't work the way it should have, because despite all of the characters proclaiming otherwise, this team of agents is not yet a family.

The idea of an unconventional family unit is a staple of Joss Whedon shows, andS.H.I.E.L.D. has often tried to sell Coulson's team as being a weird and wacky family in a way that doesn't quite fit everything we know about the group at this point in time. If S.H.I.E.L.D. was in Season 3, I think the sentiment would have made sense. But Simmons said it herself: They've only been working together as a team for a few months now. I've known people for years and don't like them enough to call them family. I don't even care enough to send them Christmas cards (I don't send Christmas cards). Sure, my friends and I don't work for a super-secret organization and haven't faced any life-or-death situations together (except for that time with the fireworks), but the point is: How can S.H.I.E.L.D. really be considered a family after only a few months on the job?





Coulson has known May for a very long time, and Fitz and Simmons feel like they grew up together, so there are some instances where the series' longer-term relationships give off the appearance of a deep familial bond. But at the moment, those relationships don't include Skye. I'm not quite so heartless to say that the team wouldn't or shouldn't react to Skye's failing health in a desperate way—they're human, after all—but statements like Coulson's "We're her family" ring false on account this so-called "family" having only known each other for a few months.


Fitz's reaction to Simmons' apparent death in "F.Z.Z.T." was a perfect example of how this sort of situation can lead to a great emotional arc and become a story that really resonates with the audience. But I can't say the same for what happened with Skye—a character that many fans of the series have taken issue with—as she lay dying in a hospital bed aboard the Bus while the rest of the team attempted to track down the surgeons and the medications used to bring Coulson back to life.

Of course, "T.A.H.I.T.I." was not about saving Skye—it was about discovering yet another piece of the complicated Coulson puzzle. Ian Quinn admitted that he shot Skye because the Clairvoyant told him to, and we all know the Clairvoyant only wants to know what happened to Coulson. This development severely undermines the Skye Is Going to Die situation, because it's not even about her. Once it became clear that Skye was simply a pawn in this really screwed-up game of I Spy, we had to look at the entire situation in a new light. If the team saved Skye, they would potentially be giving their unseen omniscient enemy exactly what it wanted. If they didn't save Skye in an effort to keep their enemy at bay, well then they'd all be a bunch of assholes, right?





Coulson and Skye share a bond that borders on a father/daughter relationship (although that's still a stretch at this point), and he feels responsible for her, which makes his reaction to Skye's predicament—and the role he indirectly played in putting her there—completely within reason. Fitz's guilt over letting Skye go off on her own to search for Quinn in "T.R.A.C.K.S." also fits the story, even as Simmons correctly pointed out that there's not much to be done once Skye sets her mind to something. Oddly enough, it was almost as if Fitz's guilt gave him a certain confidence at the Guest House that we haven't seen in awhile, and I'd like to keep it around. When he walked out of the elevator like he didn't care what would happen to him (even if he rightfully assumed that nothing would happen until they made it through the bulletproof glass), it made me respect him a little more. Even Simmons' reaction to Skye's situation was acceptable, because she's the one with the medical training, and she'll ultimately blame herself if Skye dies.


As for the rest of the team, I buy that Handsome is angry, but that's also his default setting. I was hoping we'd get more out of this than Handsome begging for a fight and throwing mean-girl stares at Coulson's back. S.H.I.E.L.D. had an opportunity to give his character some shading, but instead, it just rehashed everything we already knew about him. May's reaction was perhaps the most out of character; the woman has never shown more emotion than a toothpick, and yet she went to town on Quinn's face for putting Skye in that life-threatening situation. Puh-leeeze. All of these reactions were perfectly normal responses to knowing that a member of the team as dying in the next room, but we need more time for S.H.I.E.L.D. to really coalesce as a family before "We're her family" is anything more than a platitude.





Even though it may not sound like it, I did enjoy "T.A.H.I.T.I."—just not as much as I thought I would. And now that I've got my bitching out of the way, let's quickly run through the rest of what happened this week and all the questions that've arisen as a result. Coulson, Handsome, and Fitz, alongside Bill Paxton's Agent John Garrett, were able to find the medication used to save Coulson and administer it to Skye, thus saving her life. No one actually thought Skye would die, right? Unfortunately, saving her life life came at a price. Who and what was the alien in the tube at the Guest House? Was he Kree? Was he a member of the Blue Man Group? And what effect, if any, will this have on Skye, who we already knew was an 0-8-4? Will it unlock some dormant part of her biology? Will it give her powers as a result? More importantly, what has it done to Coulson, if anything? I'm very excited to see where this goes, but I can't stop thinking about the mysterious blue-skinned humanoid in the Guest House. The G.H. couldn't have stood for Guest House at that point, right? And BTW just WTF does T.A.H.I.T.I. stand for? Because I'm so over typing it at this point that if it's going to become a real thing, I need to know right now. Knowing it's a real acronym and not just a randomly selected destination to implant in Coulson's memory makes me slightly less stabby at having to write it out, but still.


It's unclear whether S.H.I.E.L.D. had always intended to take this route with Skye, or if the writers have simply come to understand that many viewers aren't happy with a comic book series that doesn't include anyone with superhuman powers, but even thepossibility of introducing such powers, and the introduction of more alien lifeforms, will never be a bad thing. And now that Lorelei has arrived on Earth, and knowing that Lady Sif will appear in next week's episode, I think we might actually be looking at a series that's far more exciting than the one we previously knew.





DECLASSIFIED CASE FILES




– Everyone kept saying how Skye was an integral member of the team every time a computer-hacking issue arose, but they eventually found a workaround every time, which ultimately undercuts the Skye Is an Important Member of This Team mentality that everyone seems to have. I don't subscribe to the notion that S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to write her off, but the show certainly isn't doing itself any favors in that regard.

– Thoughts on Bill Paxton? I love Bill Paxton. I'm very happy he'll be around for several episodes this season. But can we trust Bill Paxton?

– Coulson wasn't treated by S.H.I.E.L.D., which is very interesting. Who were those guys, if not S.H.I.E.L.D.? And all of this talk about Director Fury means he has to appear again, right?

– I personally really enjoyed the scene in which Fitz and Simmons were going through all those documents. But it looked kind of tiring. I can go through a lot of documents on my computer and sit on my ass. They had to do full body movements and stuff. OMG I am tired just thinking about it.