Gamersledge Reviews – Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Ep 104 “Eye Spy”

So my wife looked at me after this episode and said “OK I liked that one.” This seems to be a recurring theme I have heard from people, and I thought this was definitely a great episode so maybe we can get on a roll? This review is a bit on the late side, so it will probably be a little on the short side.

Head by Head Faces of Red

This episode finds the team on a new assignment, of Agent Coulson’s picking, to try and track down a string of robberies. The latest is shown in the show’s setup with all the dudes in red masks. We soon find out that the mystery thief has a history with Coulson and he is intent on recovering her.
So off we go to another exotic location, this time in eastern Europe, or maybe western Asia….I never know where that line is. Here is where we finally start seeing the team really gel. Are they perfect yet, not at all but you can see the growth. Everyone is filling out their roles, taking their strengths and learning how to rely on the strengths of their teammates. We start to see what this team can do because of its members, not in spite of them.

What are we looking at?

In addition the actors are becoming more confident and “burned in” in their roles. Chloe continues to fill out Skye, and builds on the rhythm established in the previous episode. Brett really starts to grow on Ward this episode. Ming-Na is finally being allowed to use some of her acting ability to tackle May and Clark Gregg is ….well Clark Gregg. There is one section I want to address in the spoiler section that didn’t make sense, but it didn’t detract from the episode much. The one person who seems to be lacking is Fitz. I still think there is something going on with the editing that made changes to his character. He is great one line, and then the next is feeling kinda weak. Elizabeth Henstridge is holding Simmons fine, but we really need a Fitz-Simmons centric episode before these two can really come into their own I think.

The TARDIS room with master and student

Visually, this series really rocks it. There aren’t as many effects this episode, but the main one is pretty nice. But sets, framing and the general look of the show are great. I really need to see who the cinematographer on this series is and see what else they have done. But that would involve time….and effort. So yeah, not much else to say.
Overall the story was a fair romp. It does play to the “issue of the week” formula, but there has to be a bit of that with the show format. There are still ties to the larger arcs though. The references to events of the movies have let up a bit, but there were still a couple here. There were no strong comic universe references I picked up on in this episode.

Not the Water bottle

Overall it was a very strong episode, and for those that have stuck with it so far, it feels like this may have been the episode where there is a feeling of payback for the investment. Especially off of the low point that many had off of episode 3, this may have been just the shot in the arm it needed. I am especially excited for the next (Today’s episode for Pete’s sake) episode because it looks like we may be getting the explanation of……uh, uh, uh Spoilers!

********************SPOILERS – LEVEL 7 ACCESS ONLY – SPOILERS****************
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MUTANTS! Or rather the mutant replacement explanation since that is all mucked up with the X-Men movies and Fox Studios. I may be wrong, but it sure looked like the promos are about Sunfire, a mutant in the comic universe. With two relatively high profile mutants being in Age of Ultron, maybe this sets the piece of how they exist even though the licensing prevents Marvel from using their most lucrative concept. Or it may just be another Extremis experiment.

OK, while I get the scene with Ward infiltrating the building to be a building thing for him and Skye, May should have been the infiltrator. Akela was what 5’2” max? Ward was at LEAST a foot taller than her. If this handler had been watching her this entire time, he should have noticed the perspective shift. Also the op was designed around a female infiltrator, it just made more sense. Now maybe timing wise it didn’t work out, but still.

The “x-ray vision” was very inconsistent. See through some things. Not others. May was a blob on the vision, but in the stinger we get that Skye could “See thorugh” clothes, but Ward could only see the outline of the guards when he shot them through the wall. Previously he could see though a car and through engine components. Finally we get that Akela saw “something” in Coulson.

So there is our next big what with the Coulson mystery. What did she see? It must have been big to make that reaction.

Super Spy is tickelish

And the big bad. I think we can safely assume the people who manipulated Akela are the same big bad we have had hints of so far this season. AIM is still a prime candidate, however, I am not sure the timeline from Iron Man 3 and Akela’s kidnapping line up. Was AIM militarized that long ago? Maybe they just hired the muscle? Maybe it is an entirely new group? Or, it could be Hydra. The weapon from 0-8-4 was Hydra. My money is still on AIM or some offshoot of AIM.

Super spies can be ticklish too. 🙂

Oh and A.C., because he’s cool. My 14 year old laughed for a full minute.
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