Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: The Well – The Place of Demons!

Welcome back WormholeRiders dedicated to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

I loved the opening to this episode! Written by Monica Breen and directed by Star Trek: The Next Generation legend Jonathan Frakes! (Behind The Scene photo below) it was so Sci-Fi, “space, the final frontier” like!

That is where the similarity ends and the minor tie-in begins. Agent Ward (Brett Dalton), Agent Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Agent Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) are on the scene, cleaning up after Thor, who was involved in a bit of a situation here on Earth as a result of the hit movie Thor: The Dark World.

The Well:

Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) gets to deliver some good lines: “It would be nice if just for once Thor and his people sent down the god of Cleaning Up After Yourself. They probably have a magic broom for this kind of thing.” It is a pity that we do not get any guest stars from the movie.

The title of this episode, “The Well”, made sense by the end, when we discover that the experience was Ward’s dark place. 

It feels predictable that Ward would not be the boy in the water but the boy at the top of the well, forced to make a choice by his aggressive brother. Clearly there is something dark in his past.

Skye (Chloe Bennet) sums everything up in her questioning of Coulson. Asguardians are aliens from another planet that visited us thousands of years ago.

Because we could not understand aliens, we thought of them as gods. Moving forward, Skye would like to check out a space ship, and Thor, who is dreamy, she says.

Meanwhile, in Norway, the cradle of the Asguardians, a protected forest is under attack by the bad guys. A male and his female accomplice cut down an ancient spruce and cuts into it with a chain saw to discover a rod, later found to be part one of three, and officially called the Berserker Staff.

It has some amazing powers with an unpleasant side effect. After all, with great power comes great responsibility – except, these are bad guys, who, despite the Marvel connection, seem to have no concept of responsibility.

Coulson and his team show up, take a digital impression of the staff markings in the tree and Fitz, back in the bus, converts it into a 3D model. It turns out the bad guys belong to a group of Norse Paganists. Petra Larson(Erin Way) and Jacob Nystom (Michael Graziadei) are the first Pagan haters we run across and the leaders of the group.

Enter Professor Eliot Randolph, the Norse Mythology/History professor in Seville, Spain, who is quite the randy fellow and not at all what he seems.

This is the “I never met Thor”, guy who only wants a quiet life, played by Peter MacNicol, who’s a familiar face to movie geeks everywhere.

At first, the character seemed like a lecherous old fart, but, later,  it became easier to feel for his plight as the episode wore on – particularly the contrast between the mythology of his story and the rather more relatable “I took a job to get out of my rut” aspect. It was interesting to consider the contrast of Randolph against Thor’s more regal look at Asgardian society.

With some cryptic information from Randolph, the team, who conveniently are already in Spain, find the next clue virtually down the street, under an old church. Skye and Ward look around a cob web covered creepy hallway and room. It turns out the Randolph is looking around as well. He says he has a wonderful explanation, which we never get to hear. Darn.

Things begin to get rather interesting as Agent Ward makes the mistake of grabbing the newly found piece of the staff and gets a dose of Berserker. He begins seeing the event of the child in the well.

When Skye arrives, Randolph is nowhere to be found. Randolph has reached the street and just happens to pass the two bad guys and their gang.

It seems as if they have some ability to sense the staff pieces because they zero in on Randolph, who is ill prepared to defend himself.

Coulson arrives to see Randolf picking up his belongings after his car has been tossed across the street.

Back at the bus, Fitz and Simmons are giving Ward a check-up. As they do so, he becomes more and more agitated.

As this occurs, he listens in on Coulson’s interrogation of Randolph.

Not finding the answers he was looking for, Ward takes his frustrations out on a punching bag.

He is interrupted by May (Ming Na Wen). Fortunately for May, Ward is able to pull back his punch in time.

While the bad guys are working at raising their own Berserker army, Ward confesses to Coulson that he may be a problem for the team. With the memories of his childhood that he is experiencing, he feels that he cannot stay focused on their objective. Coulson believes that Wards honesty makes him trustworthy.

Ward goes into the interrogation room at Coulson’s request. Randolph has not been talking. Ward is sent in to get the information. The big surprise is Randolph’s ability to bend the bade of the knife that Ward attempts to use against him. This makes it clear that Randolph is Asguardian.

Randolph provides Coulson and Ward with information for the last part of the staff. Now that pacifist Randolph is belatedly on board, the Bus stops  to pick up the last bit of the staff that he has stashed in a Irish church.

Naturally, with the bad guys so adept at showing up at about the same time, a routine operation turns into an almighty brawl and Randolph gets stabbed with his own weapon. Coulson saves Randolph’s life by using open heart massage to keep the Asguardian alive long enough for him to heal himself.

Ward can only battle a dozen bad guys at a time. He becomes overwhelmed. As this happens, May takes over. After it is over, Ward asks her how she managed to handle the dark images holding all three staff pieces. May answers that she sees the same images every day.

Coulson chats with Randolph later. Randolph says he will now have to find a new place to live. Coulson suggests Portland, Oregon. Since Coulson knows Randolph’s real identity, Randolph asks him to come and visit from time to time. “And if Thor is in town”, adds Coulson, “I’ll introduce you”.

The most interesting part of this episode is Ward’s unexpected hotel room assignation with Agent May. If this was not the first inter-team hook-up on the show, it was certainly strongly implied. Or maybe they just talked about past traumas over a couple of glasses of something as they have in past episodes?

All in all “The Well” is another great episode in a series that is taking the world of science fiction by storm! Make sure to see next exciting episode “Repairs” Tuesday November 26, 2013 at 8p E/P on ABC!

Thanks to Kenn for final staging, audio video embedding and additional image selection, and many thanks to you for visiting for stopping by the WormholeRiders News Agency dedicated Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. web site!

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Regards,

Thank you.

ArcticGoddess1 (Patricia)