Back, and with 15% more snark! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to talk about the latest offering from our friends at ABC. It’s time for Marvel’s Agents! Of! S.H.I.E.L.D.! My sunny disposition about this show from way back when has faded under a sea of kind-of-mediocre episodes, and the fact that I’m so used to seeing these comic book storylines adopted for the big screen instead… with plots that need to be condensed down to fit a two-hour window. There are things I like about this show, however. They seem to be making an effort to explore the characters a little, giving them nice moments in the show… and not just Coulson, but the ensemble cast. Actually, today, I spent a lot of time with Agent Fitz and Agent Simmons of Agents Fitz-Simmons. Let’s talk about it, shall we?

Cold open: boyscouts. The troupe leader is telling a spooooooky stooooory… the ending of which he completely whiffs, doing a rather weak ‘cry’ for his crying man. Shortly thereafter, he goes off to investigate a strange noise or something, though nobody else heard anything. The kids are a little more creeped out than they want to admit, so it’s time for some s’mores. Or, it would be, except now there’s a pan floating in midair, and arcing electricity. Also some horrible screams from the forest. Maybe we better get out of here? Everyone gets in the truck, the battery of which promptly explodes out from beneath the hood and lands on the ground not far away. Uh-oh. Actually, isn’t this how a lot of these episodes start? It reminds me of a cold open for an episode of ‘Supernatural’ blended with elements of ‘CSI’.

It’s time for Act I!

Agent Coulson is on the treadmill, apparently having a physical with Agent Simmons. Not a euphemism for anything, sadly, Coulson claims that his physical therapist overreacted to a remark he made, and demanded that he get a physical. Simmons explains that he’s in great shape for a man of his age, a comment which makes Coulson bristle. Scene change!

Agent Ward is not happy. His cool futuristic gun is an once off on weight. Fitz is uncomprehending, Skye is disdainful. Ward describes an improbable long range scenario. Fitz points out that there are rifles designed for such a scenario. Ward woodenly demands that Fitz find a way to lose the extra once. Fitz does an impression of Ward, which Skye gives about 700% more laughter than is really necessary. Fitz decides this is a signal for him to flirt with her. Skye is not happy, but it has nothing to do with Fitz. She is now wearing her house arrest wristband. She has been roundly chastised for her loyalties. Fitz does not care about any of this, but rather is interested in the fact that Skye is very pretty. Somehow, the two are sending each other an endless series of the exact wrong signals, and nothing is getting through. The conversation ends with Skye commenting that Fitz and Simmons are so close, they might as well be ca… oh wait, we already call them Fitzsimmons. Huh. Simmons arrives just then and does another Ward impression. How cute! They even have matching Ward impressions! Just then Ward arrives, it’s time to gear up. Mission time. Simmons gives him back his super future pistol, claiming that the ounce was just a dummy round left in the gun, and now it’s fixed.

On the ground, there’s this electrostatic discharge thing going on. Like lightning strikes. Except there wasn’t a storm with sufficient intensity within a thousand miles last night! Skye is shadowing Ward as he goes all “CSI detective character” up on this scene’s business. Or possibly its grill. Oh, also, there’s a guy hovering in midair in a clearing. He appears to be dead. Fitzsimmons, after a false start, admit that they have no idea how this could be possible. Ward suggests that it could be a weapon (of course he does). Skye’s theory is metahuman. Ming-Na Wen is careful to avoid using any inflection in her voice was she explains that there is no such metahuman. Well, says Coulson, not that we know about. Better follow up on that. Simmons gets close to the body, gets a little jolt of juice, and the corpse falls to the ground. Well, that was weird.

Back on the plane, Skye has already google searched our dead troupe leader, and has plenty of basic biographical information for Agents Coulson and Ward. She makes a Big Lebowski joke that falls flat, crushing my hopes and dreams. Ward this guy’s – coach, troupe leader, volunteer firefighter – entire enemies list. Skye says she already facebook’d him too! He doesn’t have any enemies. People with a vague dislike of him probably don’t have the power to do something completely unprecedented in human knowledge to him. Coulson thinks something must be missing and Skye rolls her eyes out of the scene. Coulson wants to know why Ward is being so hard on Skye. I mean, he always is. But this specific time? Coulson is curious. Ward is mad because Skye lied to them. She’s going to have to earn his trust again, damnit. Coulson points out that she’s good at googling people, and cleverly segways into our next scene!

Ming-Na Wen glares across a table at the, what, assistant troupe leader? Apparently it’s a hard line interrogation, because her expression is extra stoic.

Simmons is performing a full autopsy. Fitz doesn’t like the corpse stank, so he’s outside. Coulson wants to know what’s going on, but Simmons really hasn’t discovered much yet about this event that is completely unprecedented in the human experience. Ming-Na comes in to ask a question. Stoically. Suddenly it’s time for a scene change, get the action running again… Fitz is tracking another electrostatic signal! It’s going nuts! Then it suddenly pulses… and it’s gone. Better check it out.

In their actionmobile (it’s another totally inconspicuous black SUV with heavy tint) Agents Coulson, Ward and May arrive at a barn. It’s barred from the inside, but while Coulson and Ward pointlessly argue about how to enter the structure, Ming-Na just kicks the damn thing. Well, that’s one way. Unsurprisingly, there’s a hovering dead guy in the barn. But there’s no sign of vehicles in the area, so whoever did it… couldn’t have gone far. Skye’s got the satellites moving in for surveillance. Also, she’s on Google again. This second guy was a firefighter too! And he and our first unfortunate victim were first-responders to an alien crash in New York City (remember that little thing with the Chitauri?). Anyway, it’s super weird, but with the possibility of alien involvement, now we can’t rule out the possibility of an alien weapon being used to kill… firefighters? Coulson’s got the right idea: get to the station house before anybody else turns into an electrostatic bomb and dies.

Scene change!

At the stationhouse, the actionmobile disgorges our Agents again. Meanwhile (they keep slipping in these quick cuts!) back on the plane… Simmons says something weird is going on. I don’t know how else to describe some of these scenes with pseudo-science dialogue. They feel like padding. It’s kind of annoying. At the station, one of the firefighters isn’t feeling so hot. Coulson deduces this isn’t good. Back on the ship, Simmons has real information for us: she doesn’t think they were shot with some kind of a weapon, the wounds on their bodies are actually exit wounds. They were killed from within! Well, what does that mean? Coulson confronts our sick firefighter and draws a gun when he sees a hovering pan. It all comes together now. Agent May has spotted a Chitauri helmet in the station. Tony the firefighter says they cleaned the helmet, a souvenir they took from the alien crash site. Simmons has the answer: it wasn’t dirt or rust on the helmet, it didn’t need cleaning, and by stirring up those alien particles, the firefighters exposed themselves to an alien virus. Well, shit.

Coulson orders everyone else out of the station and sits down for a heart to heart with Tony. Our firefighter is terrified, and now appears to be staring down his own inevitable doom. Coulson wants to know if Tony wants to call anyone, notify anyone. If there’s anything he can do. Trying to empathize, Coulson tells a story about that time that he was killed by Loki. He really was dead; they said it was only for 8 seconds, but Coulson felt that it was much longer. He saw something beyond, he says, something beautiful. Ming-Na almost has a facial expression at this revelation. Though I’m not really sure how she can hear him. Tony starts to arc lightning, and suggests that Coulson make himself scarce. You know, before they all die. Outside, all the S.H.I.E.L.D. guys watch grimly as there’s a flash of light… and Tony’s gone.

Fitz comes down with a medical scanner and examines everyone from the ground team to make sure the virus hasn’t spread to them. The remaining firefighters are going into quarantine. The plane is going to be used to transport the alien artifact to “The Sandbox”, a place I imagine looks like this.

Aboard the plane, May is concerned about Coulson. Why did he get a routine physical? Does he want to talk about it? He’d talk to her if something was wrong, right? By the way, it wasn’t his fault that Tony died horribly.

Scene change!

In the lab, Simmons is really excited about what she’s discovering about the Chitauri pathogen. She’s examining the remaining brain cells of the deceased. Her discovery? Apparently this is a virus that does not spread through the air, or fluid transmission…but through electrostatic shock! Such a thing doesn’t exist on earth! She didn’t think it was possible. Also…something’s floating behind her. Coulson apologies, then puts Simmons into quarantine.

Shortly after, Fitz is sitting back up against the quarantine window. FitzSimmons collectively look miserable. Coulson explains that Simmons has only two hours to live, but the plane also has nowhere to land in range in time. If Simmons explodes, it will knock the plane out of the sky. Skye obviously feels helpless, and it’s angering her. Coulson has confidence in Simmons’ ability to figure out an antiserum before her time is up. With Fitz’s help, Simmons begins working on a cure, but their information is still limited. She’s trying out her experiments on laboratory rodents, but the results so far… aren’t so good.

Upstairs, Ward is watching the lab through the video monitor. Skye pokes her head in, asks why he doesn’t just go down there. Ward shrugs it off, “They don’t need an audience.” Skye stays, angry at her helpless feeling. Ward has it even worse. In a rare emotive moment, he opens up, his frustration actually fairly tangible in the moment. Good work, Ward! Then he really brings the temperature in the room down to freezing with our scene outro, Ward’s warning to be ready “For whatever we’re called on to do.” I think we all know what that means.

…But let’s have Coulson talking to headquarters, and get his order explicitly spelled out anyway: Simmons needs to be jettisoned from the plane so she doesn’t explode and kill everyone. Coulson bails on the transmission, then has a terse (and stoic) exchange with Ming-Na.

In what is really probably the strongest bit of the episode, Fitz and Simmons are working on borrowed time. They start arguing, pretty much about nothing, trying to make it about something, and it’s by far the most genuine moment we’ve gotten out of either character so far. They both grow a lot for me right here; I suddenly wonder why they’re being underused as comic relief when the characters have some range, some background, some chemistry! Down with the Ward and Skye fighting scenes! Up with FitzSimmons! …what it all boils down to, is that human antibodies just aren’t properly developed to fight alien disease. There’s no one to make a new antiserum from. Wait, what if there are some cells in that alien helmet? Fitz is off to take some scrapings. And he’s off at a sprint. Over Coulson’s shouted objection, Fitz bursts into quarantine, and FitzSimmons resolve to work together to fix this damn thing. Yay!

Despite his earlier comments, Ward joins literally the entire team as they stand in the cargo bay and watch FitzSimmons work. They do stuff. Feels like padding. Finally, they have a new antiserum! Fitz applies it to the last lab rat, who uh… begins hovering in the air. There’s a moment of stunned silence. Simmons approaches Coulson, and asks him to notify her father, first, and let him tell her mother. Then she asks them to clear the room. Fitz is still working furiously, but Simmons has lost hope. She clubs Fitz in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher.

Upstairs, headquarters is calling again. They probably want Coulson to go ahead and put a bullet into the back of Simmons’ head and dump her body. Coulson’s not into it. But apparently SImmons has opened the cargo ramp and jumped out of the plane. Tragically, just before Fitz awakens and discovers the rat still alive… it was only knocked unconscious by the pulse, which was much weakened by the antiserum. Fitz goes for a parachute, but is shoved aside by Ward, who takes both the cure and the ‘chute and jumps. After a long fall sequence where we get many shots of the ocean drawing ominously closer, Ward, of course, catches Simmons, cures her, and deploys the ‘chute. Yay!

On the plane, Coulson yells at Simmons, though it’s obvious he’s more relieved than angry. Ward plays it cool. Simmons for some reason goes for a callback on the pistol: it’s still an ounce off. Ward knew that. Then he does an impression of Simmons’ impression of him, which she critiques. It’s kind of a weird moment. But then Skye is there too, and practically breaks Simmons with a hug. Emotional plot resolved!

Ming-Na is in Coulson’s office. She wants to know about that physical again. Coulson explains that he ordered the tests on himself because he doesn’t feel fine, even though all the tests claim otherwise. After he got killed by Loki, he’s just never felt right again. Ming-Na seems to actually be acting harder to not assume a facial expression, which I’ll count as progress, as she forces Coulson to examine his scar from Loki’s staff. It’s pretty gruesome. Ming-Na points out that he could not possibly have had that experience and come away totally unchanged. He has scars other than just the physical one. She implies something like that happened to her.

Bonus scene change!

FitzSimmons are talking. He was going to come for her. He’s obviously a little embarrassed that Ward shoved him aside and did the death-defying resdcue bit. Simmons points out that Fitz gave her hope when she had none, that he helped create the antiserum, that he’s the real hero of the piece. Then she bounces. Fitz doesn’t look entirely convinced. Sad face.

And then in our final scene, Agent Blake comes aboard to take possession of the alien artifact. He’s concerned that Coulson disobeyed a direct order, and that S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to yank his team out from under him. Coulson is assertive. Blake delivers a really cheesy line I won’t reprint. Coulson’s character is having growth because this short scene showed him parroting the lessons he took from Ming-Na Wen! We’re moving forward!

Well… my takeaway from this episode is… I found it mostly to be lightly entertaining fluff, but with a nice sequence for the characters of Fitz and Simmons. When the show explores its stronger characters, it’s at its best (since we’re obviously not going to get a small-screen version of the Avengers). I still feel like something is missing. I don’t know that the show is achieving the goal of showing us what life is like for people in a world that has superheroes and aliens and blah blah blah. I hope Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finds its momentum, because while I was fairly entertained by this episode, it was in a more “this could be on in the background and I wouldn’t be mad” than a “I’m totally engaged in the story being told here”.