Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Repairs – Guilt, Atonement, and the Birth of Hope!

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

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Hello and welcome to this week’s exciting episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

Continuing within the trend of the strange, beautiful, and intriguing world that creator Joss Whedon and writers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen have created for us, this week’s episode, entitled ‘Repairs’, takes an indepth look at how many members of the team deal with guilt, as well as a closer look at Melinda May’s (Ming Na Wen) past and an exciting and dangerous new ability!

Directed by Billy Gierhart, we follow Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team as they investigate a possible telekinetic named Hannah Hutchens (Laura Seay).

Repairs:

It is not too far into the episode before Hannah reveals she is being haunted by demons and God has forsaken her because of an accident at a plant where she worked that killed four people.

Ostracized by her town, Hannah is plagued with what appears to be uncontrollable telekinetic bursts – a fascinatingly cool concept until we realize that the bursts are something far more tragic.

One of the workers in the plant, Tobias Ford (Robert Baker), has set himself up to be Hannah’s ‘guardian angel’ after causing the very accident that she has been blamed for. Also Skye (Chloe Bennet) gets a larger dose of May’s history when Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Leo Fitz (Iain de Caestecker) tell her a wild story that Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) barely supports. Christopher Gehrman as Taylor and Josh Clark as Roger both guest star.

Guilt has several meanings in the dictionary and many different ways it can be applied to everyday life. In law, guilt is defined as the fact of having been found to have violated a criminal law. It is also the fact of being responsible for the commission of an offense (and sometimes associated with ‘blame’).

In these situations, guilt is a noun, almost a tangible object, evidential proof that yes – something was wrong and yes – you are responsible for it.

But guilt is not always an object. Sometimes, guilt is that sick, twisted feeling in your stomach or your chest that reminds you every single minute of the day that you are responsible for something that happened that was in some way very, very negative. The dictionary calls this “remorseful awareness of having done something wrong..” If you feel guilt, you know that that is the nice way of putting it.

Guilt is a popular emotion to appear in conflicts in media, mostly because humans do not like having anything ‘hanging over their heads’ as it were. Some people call it a weight on their shoulders or red in their ledger. It is a problem that needs fixing not just for some religious relief (though that can be the driving factor), but mental, physical, and emotional relief.

You have to be square with yourself because you have to live with yourself. Guilt is a dangerous emotion to have if you are susceptible to people’s opinions and emotions – or if you are just desperate enough to do anything to get rid of it – like Tobias Ford.

Guilt and the need to atone fills this week’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Riding on the wave of character development and newfound intelligence that the show is displaying, many of the characters this week have their own ‘demons’ that they are seeking to remove from their hearts – or at least find some kind of balance for.

Perhaps the one worst affected is Tobias himself, a mechanic working on a particle accelerator in the same building as Hannah Hutchens, the woman suspected of having telekinetic abilities.

While many viewers ( myself included at first), did a fine double-take at the ‘he did this all for love’ concept, I would like to point out a few things about that particular twist. When in love, do we not do crazy things to get noticed? In truth, have we not seen equally insane acts in order to gain someone’s favor in other films and shows?

Now yes, Tobias was very likely a bit mentally unhinged (to say the least) in that he deliberately damaged expensive equipment just to get a glimpse of Hannah, (a plot that might work in a film when that character is more fleshed out), but most of the things afterwards – the cop car, the plane, even the explosion at the plant – can be explained not in the context of overkill.

They are explained in the context of someone from another world trying to interfere in our own, (now the physically attacking human beings to protect her – that is just Tobias trying to be a guardian angel and doing a fairly bad job of it).

For example, Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson) from Stargate Atlantis overloaded a Puddle Jumper when she was trying to access Atlantis’ computers as an energy source.

Tobias comes across as this frightening, scary man who really is doing all he can do to protect the woman he wanted to gain the favor of because he screwed up big time in order to do it. We do crazy things for love- and guilt.

Another person seeking redemption this week (though in a more subdued manner) is Melinda May. We have wondered about her nickname ‘The Cavalry’ since the start of the show, and we finally have a little more of her backstory in which to find out what kind of character she is, was, and is becoming.

While we do not have a date on when this happened, it is evident that May is still mentally paying for whatever happened when she walked into the building to, as she puts it, ‘fix the problem.’

We can guess that at some point we will find out, but so far Phil Coulson is putting an air of mystery around it – as many things are with May (I personally suspect she is the agent that delivered Skye to the orphanage when Skye was a baby).

While Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons take a lot of delight in regaling Skye with fictional accounts of ‘the Cavalry’ riding in on horseback shooting from both hands, Coulson is much more realistic, revealing that May was ‘the welcome wagon’, something Skye has been pushing for on this kind of mission so far. The implication was that it went horribly wrong, and it is a lesson for Skye to learn for when she becomes a welcome wagon herself.

But more on that in a moment. Back to May, we know the woman is a complete ice queen – in fact I am sure many of us were surprised to see her offer of a drink (and bed) to Grant Ward at the end of last week’s episode.

This raises a whole slew of questions, primarily are they together secretly or is it just sex? The second one is a little more believable in my opinion but the writers will ultimately reveal.

Also, we discover that May was not always said ice queen, with her set face, no-nonsense attitude, and do-it-yourself actions. She is tough, hard, cold, and detached. We have really only seen her smile around Coulson (and a bit around Ward) – and we now know that she can be a sneakily impish prankster (having gotten her revenge on Fitz for making up stories about her).

This is the first real camaraderie moment we have seen from her, and I personally hope for more. But finally, May is also tormented by whatever she had to do in that building. The air of desperation and pain emanated powerfully from her (as powerfully as she can exhibit it), throughout much of the second half of the episode as she removed Hannah from the plane and then helped Skye talk Tobias down.

Her words of “let the girl go,” were an echo of what Coulson said to her when she was trying to deal with her pain at the onset of it. It seems as though May took his advice a little differently than he intended it. Coulson, most likely, was trying to convince her to forgive herself and let go of the monster she may have become behind closed doors. May instead let go of the ‘innocent’ woman she had been to become ‘the Cavalry’. Hopefully, she is reconciling herself now over the course of the series.

It was not heavily touched on this week (though definitely came up last week), but Leo Fitz is also having to deal with some guilt. While it was not his fault that Jemma jumped out of the plane (a brilliant, selfless decision on her part), his thunder felt stolen by Ward, who had enough experience to get the parachute on correctly and jump out afterwards to save her.

Fitz has been fighting guilt at his inability to act ever since, even having it manifest itself in a furious monologue two weeks ago as he went on his first field mission with Ward. In that mission, Fitz was tight as a bowstring, revealing a bravery and depth of character that we have not seen from him before.

He was also remarkably quick-thinking and adaptable, even if rather naïve with a sandwich (what with the dogs trying to hunt him down). It was a little strange to see him adapt to danger so readily, though the clues were there in the previous week with his willingness to jump out of the plane after Jemma.

Nevertheless, Fitz was reminded last week – harshly – by Ward that he did not save her – and this week he is again put into a dangerous situation in which he has to protect her. The writers did not choose to let him redeem himself, thus keeping his need for atonement as a character development. Fitz is still obviously bothered by this, being a little more protective of Jemma and standing a little closer to her.

Finally, we continue to watch Skye go through her process of regaining trust. I will not go so far to say as she is feeling guilt, but she is trying to atone. She clearly has a desire to stay in S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to locate information about her parents, likely stemming from an intense desire to know where she came from and what her place is in the world.

We all like to know our roots, and a foster or adopted child tends to feel as though they have none. Skye has been an outspoken advocate for Rising Tide – but finally, we are beginning to suspect that her mind is changing and her motives are real.

She showed some growth this week – instead of the snarkfest she usually employs, Skye revealed a rather personal side of herself and a strange intuitive ability to understand and empathize with people. This trait is possible and true – not a mutation or magic – and propels Skye into being a voice that Hannah understands and cares about, even opens up to.

She also helps convince Tobias to stop his rampage, and scores some points with Coulson, who confesses he thinks she will be good at identifying and aiding new people who manifest abilities. Skye has the potential to be great at this, in my opinion, and it is good to see her locating more of a ‘niche’ than ‘typical computer hacker’.

The pieces are coming together. The series is only nine weeks old, and still feels like it is trying to find its footing. But I think the stories are getting stronger and the characters getting more fleshed out. Hopefully again soon, the writers will add more of an overarching plot to get everyone focused – and then we can see Phil Coulson’s team really start to take off!

Thanks to Kenn for final staging, audio video embedding and image selection, and thank you for visiting our dedicated Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. web site!

Please feel free to share this article with your friends, co-workers and or family. Feel free to leave your comments and we look forward to you visiting in the future.

Or as many of our readers and visitors often do, visit WHR on Twitter, WHR on Facebook or visit me on Twitter by clicking the text links or images avatars in this news story. I and Team WHR look forward to Seeing You on The Other Side!”

Thank you.

Best Regards,

Nayari09 (Pam)