Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Eye Spy or Why Did Agent Amador Go Rogue?

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Since this is a new series, it is important to introduce the characters to the viewers in a way that makes them sympathetic – people that we can identify with and route for as the series progresses.

Under the able direction of seasoned actress and gifted Director Roxann Dawson, the Eye-Spy episode has accomplished precisely that!

In this episode, we meet Akela Amador (Pascale Armand). She seems to have far too many unusual advantages to be an ordinary criminal. Will these advantages make her another candidate for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. team or a victim of her own abilities?

Eye-Spy:

The episode begins with a herd of men in suits and masks carrying briefcases taking a ride on the subway in Stockholm, Sweden.

A black woman follows them onto the subway, closes her eyes, the lights go out, an alarm goes off, everyone exits the subway in a panic, leaving chaos and a bit of a mess behind them. The men in suits are dead. It is time for our heroes to arrive to investigate.

Back at the “Bus” with faithful Melinda May (Ming Na Wen) “driving” the team to the mission, senior agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) is learning about a new weapon (which they will undoubtedly use in this episode), from geek scientist and fellow agent, Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker).

Computer hacker genius now turned agent, Skye (Chloe Bennet), is enjoying a little down time, playing with her computer inside the S.H.I.E.L.D SUV.

Series “Daddy” figure, back from the dead, Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) who has been checking on his agents, now finds Skye and asks her if she has ever robbed a bank, an armored car or a casino?

Why? Because someone is stealing millions of dollars in diamonds by cracking the security systems of the aforementioned locations.

We know who has been doing the robbing. We just do not know why Akela Amador has become involved with criminal activity. Since everyone loves a mystery, the rest of the show leads us on a merry chase of the perpetrator to discover why she is behaving as she is.

We also learn some other important information about her, which leads me to wonder if she was going to become another member of the group.

Pilot Melinda May (Ming Na Wen) is also along for the journey/operation/discovery.

If she is not the mother figure, and the jury is still out on that one, then she would be the odd aunt who remains somewhat aloof, but still finds ways to endear herself to the rest of the family.

At this point, May, Coulson and Skye (Chloe Bennet) are acting as any cops would, finding information by normal police procedure. In this case, they have simply accessed photos on the internet to identify their perp; one of their own. Things are beginning to fall into place as to why Coulson wanted this particular assignment.

In a hotel room somewhere, Amador opens her door and immediately begins beating on the man who has arrived. What a great way to begin a sale of diamonds. Amador has hidden the diamonds inside golf balls. Very clever.

Now, the Shield agents are driving through the countryside of Belarus in a rented van. Only Coulson and Ward are going to be the investigators in this one, says Coulson.

Everyone else, Skye, Fitz and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) get to hang out in the van and do their searching electronically. So, I ask myself, why did those three people not just stay with the plane?

Then I discover the answer as the episode moves forward – because then, they would not have the honour of being pushed over into a ditch by Amador.

We discover, as well, that Amador also has the ability to detect un-diagnosed cancer. That would be a neat trick. She cannot be all bad, since she has helped the sales person in the local shop.

Since we are learning about her super powers, we also discover that Amador is capable of seeing through metal. The three geeks in the van have unknowingly managed to pick up the signal broadcast from whatever Amador is looking at; in this case, themselves, inside the van.

Later, Skye has hooked up whatever technology Amador is using to watch the watcher. The camera is inside Amador’s eye. Shield does not have that kind of tech, says Fitz. Perhaps there is a new bad guy on the horizon.

While Amador looks at herself in a mirror, we discover also that she is being controlled by some outside source. Now, Coulson wants her watched by the team so they can find her location.

May offers to take first watch. Skye provides Coulson with an update that nothing has changed. She also mentions that she did not like watching, “mom and dad fight downstairs”. Now we know. May is the mom!

Suddenly Amador awakes and the trouble begins!

Not long after, as Coulson does his rounds again, he asks Fitz and Simmons where May is. Apparently, she is missing. Coulson orders the feed from Amador played back.

It reveals a table with an eaten meal and the receipt with the name of the hotel written on it. It looks like that is where May went.

The next question for me is, why would May take that on by herself? Is she, like Amador, not a team player or does she know something about Amador from the past to help contain the situation?

May has indeed found Amador. They have a brief discussion before Amador tells May that she will have to kill her, “Either I kill you, or they kill me”.

A fight ensues. Amador uses a dirty trick. She breaks a lamp, plunging the room into darkness so that only she can see what is going on. She reaches for her gun.

As she is about to fire it at May, Coulson breaks in and uses that cool gun we saw earlier in the show to knock out Amador.

Fortunately for Amador, she gets rescued by Coulson who tells her that they hijacked the feed. Ward is driving around with glasses that are mimicking her eyes. Naturally, Amador wants to know why Coulson is helping her. He does not exactly answer her question. Instead, he tells her that he is just glad she is alive. She, in turn, offers, “I should have listened to you.”

When Ward has reached his destination, Skye removes the link-up to her computer. She does some tinkering with the equipment. Ward receives new directions, and they are off and running, so to speak.

Back at the bus, Amador tells Coulson that she was held prisoner in the bottom of a mine for 4 years. The team who arrived to ‘rescue’ her, she thought, at first, was Shield.

To this day, she does not know who they are. She was taken to a clinic and received several surgeries. When she realized what they had done to her, she began receiving orders to steal and follow people.

When she ignored the orders, she would get severe pain in her head. When she thought back to her time in the mine, she misses it, she tells Coulson. She could sleep in peace and not have to deal with demands. Obviously, she has never been a young mother.

Coulson tells Fitz and Simmons that they will need to remove the tech from Amador’s eye. Simmons, naturally, complains that she is not trained to do surgery. Coulson tells her they have no choice.

The grand pooh-bah leader, Coulson decides that he is going to go after whoever is responsible for causing all the difficulties here. Since Ward is otherwise engaged, and May has been ordered to stay behind and monitor things, it looks like Coulson is taking this by himself. Is this a smart move?

Meanwhile, with Ward pretending to be Amador, things have gotten a little weird. He has been ordered by the anonymous bad guys, to seduce a guard. Since that does not work, he does what every man does in this situation – beats the guy until he passes out.

On to another room with a couple of scientists inside, working on science type stuff. What was he there for? Ward looks at a chalk board of data. As soon as he does, his glasses seem to take an image of the board and he receives a message that the mission is complete. Then an alarm goes off. Time to run.

As Ward runs and shoots at security personnel, he accidentally comes across a mirror, reflecting his real identity and identifying that he is not Amador.

Now that the jig is up, there is no choice. In the midst of the operation on her eye, Ward orders that the wire be cut to her eye, killing the kill switch. Fitz and Simmons do that just in time. Yay!

Coulson is looking for the bad guy. When he finds him and introduces himself, the controller, who, himself has a kill switch, falls to the ground, dead.

Once the smoke clears, Coulson talks to Amador, telling her that they do not know what was on the chalkboard that was worth thirty million dollars, but they will figure it out. Coulson offers that he will testify in the trial that Amador will face. The episode ends with Amador, in a jail cell, is finally getting the peaceful uninterrupted sleep she was craving.

Minor issues with this episode are, that for the man in the suit to have his hand ripped away from his arm, there was not enough blood.

Of course, it is a family show, so that may be why. Also, Amador would require tremendous strength to pull that off (pardon the pun). 

I also had a problem with Coulson ordering Simmons to do surgery on Amadors eye. Surely they have members of Shield at H.Q. capable of doing the surgery. This decision by Coulson is wreckless.

Okay, so Amador is not going to be a new member of Shield. Well, maybe not this season, but I think she will be back. They have all white people in this series. In my opinion, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. need someone of colour to add to the team.

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ArcticGoddess1 (Patricia)