Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The Magical Place Must Save Coulson!

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What happens when the leader of a group who focuses on chain of command decisions, suddenly disappears?  How will the group dynamics be affected? Can someone else step in and take over seamlessly, or will there be tensions and problems as a result? Will other long term members of the group cause problems?

Although this series is about solving problems, in this case, the loss of Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), suggests that the writers also want to explore the interactions of the team members when a key figure is lost. Team dynamics can be tricky. When Victoria Hand shows up to run things while Coulson is away, we learn just how complicated team interaction can be.

The Magical Place:

The bad guys are meeting. While a female representative from Centipede examines an alien looking device, a high tech flash/bang slides into the room. She clearly does not know what it is, assuming it is a Rumba. It is not. Agents of Shield burst into the room during the confusion and generally kick butt.

One guy gets away, only to run directly into the path of some Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), high powered, high tech, floating flashlights. Very cool. The bad guy, who obviously is not the brightest bulb in the box, shoots at the floating lights. He then runs to the elevator which is also under the control of Fitz and Simmons. He pushes the buttons, and ends up on the roof and into the waiting hands of Shield.

It seems that it is “crowd on a plane” time and the regular members of the crew are not happy about it. As Victoria Hand (Saffron Burrows), explains the situation, someone hacking the system is detected. We all know who that is; Skye (Chloe Bennet) has been doing what she normally does when she feels threatened by a crowd of Agents.

Skye tells Ms. Hand to follow the money, which, to me has always been good advice. However, Hand is not listening. In fact, she is of the opinion that Skye is not only a nuisance, but a problem. She wants Skye gone, and for some odd reason, Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) agrees with her. Skye thus, loses her laptop as her restriction level is increased and she is kicked off the bus.

I assume that the only reason Skye is still part of Shield is because Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) spoke up for her. This rarely happens in real life corporate situations. Coworkers are afraid they will be tarred with the same brush, so will not speak up for the person being targeted. Agent May, who obviously has her own reasons for not supporting Skye, is most often the kind of co-worker found in corporate businesses.

Meanwhile, Coulson has his own problems. He is being drugged so that he can remember  whatever it is Centipede is looking for. We do learn that his tormenter, Po (Cullen Douglas) is connected to a clairvoyant who saw Coulson die, “My friend can see that you died. You went cold. Your heart was torn to pieces. What the clairvoyant can’t see, is what happened after. How they brought you back from the dead. For some reason, Agent Coulson, you’re different”. Now, we, the viewers, need to find out the mystery of how he is different.

Skye is doing her best to break into Shields secure network, but is having little luck doing so. The natural solution, according to Skye, is to ram the nice Cadillac SUV she is driving. Her OnStar system activates. She asks them to tow her back to her house. When she arrives, she breaks in to the house. This is obviously not her place. That is one way to do it – break and enter to use someone else’s computer.

While Ward uses some very persuasive methods to question the prisoner, Coulson uses a pair of tweezers to escape his manacles, then eliminates his guard. When he gets outside, Po is there waiting for him. The location of his imprisonment was part of a town that was supposed to be used for nuclear testing. When it was passed over for that purpose, Po chose to use it for his own purposes. It is out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert. In other words, there is no escape.

Skye is waiting for the owner of the house she has just broken into to get home. She then identifies herself to him as Melinda May, from Shield. Rathman (Rob Huebel), claiming he is a legitimate business man tells her he is calling his lawyer. Skye offers him immunity for information, then walks into his office. Unbeknownst to her, he pushes a silent alarm.

It seems that Ward’s unique questioning got the information wanted. Despite Hand’s opinions about Ward’s technique, the operation is moving forward. Hand is confused why the directors of Shield want an update on Coulson. She says, “no single agent is that important”. Ward responds, “Coulson is”.

The girl in the flower dress, also known as Raina (Ruth Negga) arrives to witness and disagree with Po’s methods of getting information from Coulson. Then Po’s cell phone rings. It is the clairvoyant, who, obviously knows the two of them are together and wants to talk to Raina. She agrees with whatever has been said to her. When she gives the phone back to Po, poor Po gets the treatment given to all the bad guys who disappoint their leader. He gets killed remotely.

Well, well, May is not after Skye after all. She wanted Skye off the plane because, “outside the system, that is how Skye works best”. How about that.  While chatting with Ward, she gets an update to head out into the desert after Coulson.

Speaking of Skye, she gives Rathman orders to hack into a Swiss bank account. However, that silent alarm has done its work. The rent-a-cops show up and are easily taken out. That is what happens when you pay security people minimum wage. You get what you pay for.

Coulson, now in the hands of Raina, has a nice long chat with her. She tells him that all she wants to know is what he wants to know, the secret that Shield is keeping from him.  Raina is either very clever or she has accidentally hit upon the truth, because Coulson tells her to turn the machine on again.

Skye and Simmons attempt to use code words to relay information but this does not fool May. She discovers Skye’s information about Centipede’s purchase of some land. Hand enters, putting everything together. Coulson’s team has not exactly been on her side, following her every command. She accuses May of playing her. Ward tells her that he is taking his team to find Coulson despite her wishes. There is no trust here. The group dynamic, in this case, is falling apart.

Skye is the first to arrive at the desert hideaway for Centipedes people and the holding area for Coulson. As she looks around, she is discovered by some security people. They are obviously paid better, because Skye runs from them.

The team arrives, ending up in a fight with the local security as Coulson is realizes that he was not ever really in Tahiti after he died. In fact, what the Shield science or medical team are doing to him causes him to beg them to let him die. He asks over and over, “Let me die”.

Fortunately, Skye and May find Coulson about the same time. Skye knocks Raina’s lights out, May unplugs the equipment that is assisting Coulson to remember what actually happened to him.

Once safe back on the plane, Coulson is relieved to hear that Centipede’s network has been not only uncovered, but taken apart by Shield. They have not found the clairvoyant, but they have seriously hurt his or her operation. Coulson thanks Hand for her work.

While everyone heads back to work, Coulson gives Skye special attention. He thanks her for what she did for him, and tells her it is time that her bracelet is removed.

The happy ending is not quite yet. Coulson has found Dr. Steiten (Ron Glass), the doctor responsible for Coulson’s medical horrors. He wants to know, as any of us would, exactly what happened to him. Dr. Steiten tells him that he was dead for days, “Director Fury moved heaven and earth. He had a team of doctors working around the clock using procedures that no good doctor would ever allow. Fury brought me in during the seventh operation. We kept you conscious to monitor brain activity. But you were in extreme pain. The neurological damage – it was catastrophic.”

“After what you’d been through, we wanted to restore the man you had once been. So we gave you a pleasant memory of a beautiful island. We didn’t want you to be…that thing”. Coulson perhaps should have let it rest at that point, but he chose not to. He asks what he had become. Steiten tells him, “you lost your will to live. We tried to give it back. I’m sorry Agent Coulson. If you only knew”. Coulson does not answer. Instead, the car door slams. Coulson is gone.

It turns out that, for some, there is no happy ending. Mike Peterson (J. August Richards), who we saw get blown up in the previous episode (The Bridge) wakes up in a stark cement walled room. He is badly burned and missing a leg. He calls out hoping to get some answers as he sits up in bed and looks at his reflection in a mirror, only to be able to read a text message. Someone has implanted technology in his head. It looks as if he has become a Centipede soldier.

The verdict? Thanks to Centipede’s interrogation of Coulson, we find out that he wasn’t in Tahiti at all. Instead, he was a SHIELD guinea pig, or he was the subject of someone powerful who refused to let him die. Skye also gets booted off the Bus and goes rogue, because that is what she is good at. Her independent, take no prisoners attitude is just what the team needs to track down the Centipede base so that SHIELD can raid it. It appears that there is no Skye in team.

The two best things about it are: Skye masquerading as Melinda May; and the startling, grizzly image of that spidery machine digging into Coulson’s brain. Okay, Peterson not being dead and now playing for the other team was kind of cool too.

The scene with the bot performing brain surgery is creepy. But we do not learn why Fury thinks Coulson is worth all of this or why his resurrection is kept so secret from all but the highest levels of SHIELD. There is no team building for Hand. She states that Coulson’s situation, working in a flying office, is not her thing. It would appear to me that working with a team of independent thinkers is not her thing either. She is not a very good supervisor. She should be demoted or moved to another department – head of sanitation, maybe.

Hopefully we will discover more about Coulson’s background in the next episode of Agents of Shield.

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ArcticGoddess1 (Patricia)