Agents of SHIELD 1x03: "The Asset"
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tori_reviewsAgents of SHIELD 1x03: "The Asset"
This is probably the episode that came the closest to driving me away from the show when it was first on, or at least putting it on the back burner until I might hear that it had found itself a bit more down the road. And even though I do find more to like in it now than I did then, I still don’t like it. But it’s sort of an interesting episode to pull apart and see all the episode ideas that it could have been if they’d given a little more thought to what they were doing here. Because there are seeds of a really good story here, but the episode we get is not very good at all.
I’ll own up front that a lot of my frustration at the time was with it being another Skye focused episode, when I was getting really frustrated at the lack of development for most of the characters. And it’s why I still tune out decent chunks of this episode when I’m just watching it; but viewing it for this I have to note that she’s really not the focus of much of it. Part of what I’m diagnosing is ways that putting the seeming focus on her would have felt earned rather than just made her more annoying to me by getting the extra attention rather than spreading it around.
Hall
I don’t have any specific problem with Hall, but I do wish I felt more for him. I like the idea put forward by Hall’s action, it’s probably the saving grace of the episode, but it remains very much an appreciation rather than a connection.
If I have a complaint, and I’m not sure it’s a problem, it’s that all the way through Hall does seem a little off. He seems overly calm all the way through this experience, so when it’s revealed that he got himself captured and has really been the one controlling the situation it makes sense. It’s not entirely a surprise, but is an effective twist.
In the end, his explanation for why he did all this is worth reflecting on. I’m not sure the writers knew how they felt about this, and that’s okay if the moral ambiguity was the point. Because it is morally ambiguous if we should consider the call he made was that of a tragic hero or a deluded villain. And if his call is ambiguous, then isn’t Coulson’s choice to stop him also ambiguous? What separates Hall’s sacrifice of principles from Coulson willingly sacrificing Hall? There’s also a moderately subtle reminder that Coulson was the sacrifice for SHIELD’s ambition , and SHIELD hasn’t changed, only Coulson has.
If I had another objection to Hall’s story, it’s which of our characters is connected to it. FitzSimmons should have had more to do with that plot, especially since Simmons doesn’t even seem to have anything to do with it from the back end. And if they had thought this through a little more, or had their ducks in a row to set some things up, this is a parallel-to-May story waiting to happen. Hall made a hard call, they have to live or die with the choices they make; Hall and/or Coulson are very much joining the Cavalry here with the sacrifices they make to protect others.
FitzSimmons
These two barely even deserve a section in this review, because they basically don’t do anything. Which is a shame because they are set up to have the most connection to events. Even admitting that at this point in the series they’re very much not qualified for field duty, there could have been more done with them. It didn’t need to be their episode, but it could have included them better. We don’t see the revelation of Hall’s actions from their perspective or if it has any impact on them. Their connection to him doesn’t provide any help in finding him or impact his fate one iota.
And while that remains a problem with the episode, it was a big problem at the time. This episode is very driven by the guest cast; and though they don’t overwhelm it the way Mike did in the pilot, it continues to give the impression that this show isn’t really interested in its own cast, outside of Skye and at least in theory Coulson (and I found Skye and mystery around Coulson to be the most frustrating parts of the series at this point, so I all the more wanted to focus put somewhere else).
Ward
Like with other episodes it is relevant to consider Ward’s development here in both its context of the moment and in light of future developments. The story Ward tells about his family does take on a lot more meaning as it is and remains a fundamental part of his character. And the scene where he tells it is given a fairly appropriate amount of weight considering its impact on the character and our understanding of him. Which makes it all the more frustrating that it seems to be used for such cheap payoff in the episode.
This episode is a collection of setups; within the episode, for the season, and for even longer arcs. The obvious Chekov gun-taking is again only flawed in that it’s obvious; the big brother story is a bit more layered. When we’re told the story it feels like an exposition dump, a necessary one since Ward was still pretty bland and undeveloped at this point in the show; then as soon as Quinn starts referencing SHIELD as Big Brother, it becomes obvious setup for Ward’s story to be used in the counter argument; in some ways having it appear that its use in this episode was the point of the story buries the fact that it’s going to continue to be so important as we go forward, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. It’s perhaps quite telling that I find the obvious setup for Skye/Ward that happens through this story a lot more palatable when I know it’s not going to go anywhere (at least nowhere good); I found those scenes super annoying at the time (they were basically already my two least favorite characters on the show, why would I want to see more scenes involving both of them?) but now they feel quaint and comfortable even if I know they’re doomed.
I also want to question Ward’s discussion of defining moments. Because moments from childhood that motivate you are not the same as moments that cement one’s commitment to a cause, and neither is necessarily a person’s single defining moment. What Skye and Ward talk about are very important moments that help us understand the characters, and explain the kind of people they are. But we already kind of know that May’s defining moment was in Bahrain and the implication is that Coulson’s was going up against Loki; those are much later in life defining moments, not what would have formed them into the people that made those decisions. What Ward is really talking about is the kind of thing explored in ‘Inside Out,’ with core memories the define aspects of a person; and a person has to have multiple ones or they’re just a one note person who keeps telling the same story about his awful family for years and years.
May
May does have a character arc in this one; a bit fast and not given a lot of weight in the moment, but at least it’s there. That she assumes Coulson is sending her on the op says she already kind of understands where this is leading even if she’s not ready to embrace it yet; but she’s also not the kind of person who likes sitting behind the scenes while others go out into the danger. It’s even possible to phrase that without making it sound like it’s 90% about protecting Phil’s dumb ass. Even though it is, and he even references why it is.
A couple small questions that stood out to me this time. Coulson tells May to go through records looking for the leaks that got Hall captured; May then hands the notebook to Skye to look through and find the leak. What does May end up doing once she hands the task off to Skye? Then of course later in the episode they can actually do the research on the computer, which would have made sense to hand off to Skye to go through since find data among computer records actually is what she’s good at.
I’m going to leave the mid-episode discussion of Coulson’s death for the Coulson section, because I feel it fits better there. But their last scene in the episode is May’s second defining character trait; the first being not to call her the Cavalry, but second is that watching Coulson’s back is her mission. People have pointed out over the years that this serves as a hint towards her mission from Fury; and she just straight up told Coulson that her mission was him. And while that is somewhat true, it’s less important than the fact that as she will one day say, she’s not doing this for Fury, she’s doing it for Phil. Long before the show made canon that she used to take or even request assignments that let her watch his back, this pointed in that direction, especially since Coulson barely bats an eye at her response.
A response that is kind of even more telling than if she had said it was because she was watching his back; she basically compared her devotion to him to his devotion to the cause, a cause he has died for once already. Her cause is to make sure he doesn’t do it again.
Coulson
This is where we start getting into a lot of ideas on what this episode might have been if it had gone further with some of its half-developed themes. This mostly applies to Skye and Quinn, but Coulson is an important part of that. At least, in something the episode is hinting at but doesn’t quite commit to.
A lot of Quinn’s talk about SHIELD being the enemy is self-serving; it may be how he sees it, but it’s really about how it impacts his business or his goals. But his talk with Skye about how SHIELD goes after vulnerable, isolated people has the ring on actual commentary on the organization, or at least a semi-valid reading. Still self-serving on Quinn’s part as he’s trying to lure her away from SHIELD, but based in truth about how they operate. And it’s no doubt meant to further make us watching question if Skye would fall for this, would consider this a valid enough train of thought to make her consider things from that perspective.
But...it’s not what we see. We don’t see anyone manipulating her or trying to coerce her towards anything. What manipulation is going on isn’t going to be clear for most of the season, when we understand that Ward is a lying sack of shit and what his family backstory is really telling us about his character. Ward doesn’t appear to be training her for his own reasons, either in the moment or with the benefit of hindsight, he’s doing it because Coulson introduced this unusual element into their team and somebody decided that Skye needed to be training to become an actual agent.
Which means that if Quinn’s accusations should be reflective on anyone, it would be Coulson. And yet there aren’t even any scenes between Coulson and Skye this episode; certainly not anything that parallels her discussion with Quinn. If they were going for a sense that Quinn was either a dark mirror of Coulson’s manipulative traits, or that at least for Skye the situations evoked a similar need to join and be appreciated, we don’t really have Coulson in the right focus to serve in that point.
There is, however, one area where Coulson being a dirty rotten bastard is brought into the story; it just has nothing to do with Skye, or even particularly evident without the benefit of hindsight. Because he is a manipulative asshole when it comes to May.
I don’t remember exactly how I would have read this at the time, and I know a lot of this is based on future reading of their relationship, but it feels like even in the moment one would think he’s pushing buttons with her to get her back in the field. That she is the type of person where sitting on the sidelines watching others go into danger is going to get her to think she should be out there. That whatever their relationship was before she went into semi-retirement in administration he knows that eventually (probably sooner rather than later) she will decide to rededicate herself to the cause and/or want to watch his back.
And him being a little manipulative, especially if it had better fit with the bigger themes of the story, is fine. It’s another shade of Coulson, and he is a trained SHIELD agent, a protégé of Nick Fury. That Coulson is pushing the exact same buttons with May and her need to protect Coulson that Fury has is a topic for another day.
Because in the end, that’s what he’s doing. It doesn’t quite start off that way, and my opinion on when it becomes deliberate can fluctuate, but he’s still doing it. This mission needs two people, and if she isn’t going to step up that means him; he’s not forcing her to step up, but that’s the reality, as long as she doesn’t he will keep going out there. You know, like with the Avengers.
I can acknowledge even now that as written that line is there more for the audience; another ding to remind us of where Coulson was and the questions around him now. And said to anyone else on the team it could seem like reassurance that he would be okay going on this mission, that they shouldn’t forget that he’s an experienced agent. But to the rest of them his time with the Avengers and his death are just backstory; they’ve known him a matter of days or weeks at most, had no relationship and little to no knowledge of him before then, as far as any of them (as far as anyone knows) have ever known or cared that death was a lie, at most they consider him to have been injured and only know him after he recovered. But for May, his death is not backstory; she lived through it, lives with it in a way even he doesn’t at this point. He doesn’t remember being dead and gone, but she remembers that he was.
Although there is a case for Coulson being less manipulative and more asshole, as using this for manipulation would imply he understood that she might have some issues with the idea of him in danger after he died. And that isn’t something Coulson ever fully acknowledges,
Skye
There are things I intellectually understand about why this episode would be done and why its placed here; but I still think it’s a mistake. People who were sold on Skye’s character in the first couple episodes, or at least didn’t mind her, would probably still appreciate getting to know other characters too; and people who were having trouble with Skye needed to see other characters explored to find something else to focus on. And this isn’t even as much a Skye episode as I remember it being at the time or it exists in my memory; it’s very driven by the guest stars and situation, but what room is left for the main cast primarily goes to Skye and I really needed someone else to get focus.
But this episode that – at least hypothetically – puts forth the question of what Skye’s loyalties are, needed to happen this early before they could deal with the issue head on and then move on to her being part of the team. The problem is that I never once questioned that she was going to stay on the team’s side; not last episode when it was set up that she was reporting on them and certainly not in this episode. This is an area her being the audience proxy works against the writing; because they were never going to make the audience proxy actually act against the organization the show is about. That would be like telling the audience we weren’t loyal to the cause, in which case why are we watching it if we are acting against it?
Also, she’s just not that dynamic a character and I don’t care; didn’t then, don’t now.
However, when I stop and think about it I can see what the episode is trying to do with questioning her loyalty. This is the exact opposite way it should work; I should in the moment be swept up and shocked to think someone might be a traitor and then when my brain gets involved say that no, there’s no way this person would have been acting against them (i.e. May). Or think about how much sense it makes if they actually are one (i.e. Ward).
Part of the problem with this episode is that Skye’s loyalties never feel divided. There’s a brief moment when she talks about how Quinn doesn’t make sense as the bad guy here, that he’s not that kind of person; but by the time she goes undercover she’s gotten on board with the rest of them that Quinn is behind it. This is part of a larger problem with Quinn, but also with Skye being still very much portrayed as the character we’re supposed to most identify with, like, and root for. She can’t be wrong once the audience knows Quinn is behind it. So she doesn’t go into the conference trying or at least hoping to prove everyone wrong only to find out Quinn is the bad guy the agents say he is. And because there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that she believes Quinn is at fault, there’s no tension that she would actually fall in line with him.
I can see what the writing was going for; that Quinn’s public image talks about the kind of stuff Skye believes in; and his one-on-one image is equally appealing to her ideals and desires; plus the doubt he casts on SHIELD’s motives in bringing her in contrasted against what he wants her to think are his more open motivations. But because we know that she already knows what he’s getting up to behind the scenes, her actually selling the team out would just make her an idiot, and again they were never going to do that.
Also, I don’t feel enough emotional connection between the story she tells about her childhood and her attitude towards SHIELD. With the benefit of the long view, I get what it’s going for about her seeking belonging and people who will keep her and stand by her (to be fair, Ward does actually explain that in this episode, it’s just not given any depth); but the writing doesn’t make the connection. Does she commit to SHIELD in the end because they did come in and pull her out of danger? Why did she even go in there if she doubted that? If the team had doubted her loyalty and come anyway it might have worked, but they never knew what was going on between her and Quinn.
I’m not going to go into it, but I do want to ask, when was it decided Skye was supposed to be a SHIELD agent? She never expressed an interest in it. May made the suggestion last time, but we don’t see her accept the responsibility of being more than a consultant.
Quinn
This is why I like rewatching things as many times as I do, because it took until this time for me to realize that Quinn is basically an Iron Man villain, at least here. He’s a billionaire industrialist who is by turns amoral and thinks he’s the good guy while still very aware of his corporate interests. If there was ever a time for the show to reference the movies and comment of Coulson’s experiences with Stark it might have been here. And they might have if they had gone for a more questioning attitude toward Quinn through this story.
While the team is given evidence to suspect Quinn and try to investigate him, they really quickly latch onto the idea that he’s responsible. It stops being an investigation story pretty quickly and turns into an infiltration and extraction one. It wouldn’t have taken a lot for us to be told that SHIELD had actual problems with Quinn, hence why everyone is so quick to go “yeah that makes sense that he’s behind it.” Simmons problem with him seems to be that he’s greedy and doesn’t really care about the planet...does she suspect every rich guy out there?
I also think the casting on Quinn is debatable. Not that he’s a bad actor, and he’s going to continue doing fine with the part through the season, he just doesn’t quite fit what would have served this episode best. A little IMDB searching tells me the actor is a bit older than he looks to my eyes, but the problem is who he should be visually compared to here. He and Hall are supposed to be contemporaries, and the actor who plays Hall looks a lot older (they’re actually a lot closer in age than they look). Quinn should also probably evoke a mirror of Coulson in his attempted recruitment of Skye and he plays it much too slick and polished (and younger) for the mirror to be effective. His chemistry with Skye is much more seductive than familiar; their chemistry is actually pretty confused, and that kind of works for what the story is but not what it might have been with more craft.
Quinn isn’t really the problem here, it’s more the story shaped around him that doesn’t quite know how to make its point. And that a lot of the ways Quinn could have been used don’t come into play as he becomes a recurring villain; which is understandable as they would have only worked at the outset, but because they don’t use them here they go to waste.
Odd and ends
I can just about get my head around Skye’s choice of dress for the party. If we are going to think it wasn’t just a costuming choice to make her stand out from the crowd or because she looks good in that color. She was basically going undercover as herself, and herself is not particularly interested in blending in with this crowd. She’s there to be a bit eye-catching and different. I would like to think there was at least a debate among the experienced agents if this was the correct choice of attire. However, I am still going to be upset by her wandering around touching her ear continuing to talk to herself in obvious code; that is terrible undercover work.
I can’t tell exactly how Quinn water walkway is designed, but I can tell that it looks terrible to try and walk on in heels.
I’m willing to put this down to time restraints for the kidnappers, but why would they leave the mini-gravitonium doohickeys behind? Those things are super valuable, fairly traceable, and a lesser piece of evidence pointing at Quinn. It’s almost like Quinn only recently turned to the dark side as he isn’t any good at it if he used such traceable payment too. And yet for the team’s quick assumption of guilt it seems like Quinn must have been at this kind of thing before.
On the flip side, in the end, how did Ward find Skye? He was inside looking for her, she had turned her trackers off, then suddenly appears outside to rescue her. Quinn’s people can’t find super rare tech that probably has something they can track on it, but Ward didn’t even have to jump out a window to get to Skye at the right time?
Going back to my plane layout question last episode, there are more doors on the executive floor of the plane than make sense with the geography (also down the road something has to go to the outside). But I’m going to count it in favor of Coulson having an actual room. He has to be keeping his not-suit clothes somewhere.
Closing thoughts
Elements that should come back
For a long time the gravitonium would have been on this list; and I still wish it had at least been referenced a bit somewhere in the meantime. And I wish that Hall was a factor when it does come into play.
Coulson punches
There’s a flurry of activity, so I might have missed something, but I can see him using his right hand.
May’s fuck that noise meter
Let’s call it a seven. The cause for her is watching Coulson’s back.
Name Watch
May does keep calling Coulson ‘sir,’ and it’s a little weird. I retroactively conclude she is mentally editing herself not to call him Phil too much, keep it professional. With the exception of the closing scene they are more or less around the rest of the team, and there may be reason to keep some vestige of professionalism when having that last talk.
This is probably the episode that came the closest to driving me away from the show when it was first on, or at least putting it on the back burner until I might hear that it had found itself a bit more down the road. And even though I do find more to like in it now than I did then, I still don’t like it. But it’s sort of an interesting episode to pull apart and see all the episode ideas that it could have been if they’d given a little more thought to what they were doing here. Because there are seeds of a really good story here, but the episode we get is not very good at all.
I’ll own up front that a lot of my frustration at the time was with it being another Skye focused episode, when I was getting really frustrated at the lack of development for most of the characters. And it’s why I still tune out decent chunks of this episode when I’m just watching it; but viewing it for this I have to note that she’s really not the focus of much of it. Part of what I’m diagnosing is ways that putting the seeming focus on her would have felt earned rather than just made her more annoying to me by getting the extra attention rather than spreading it around.
Hall
I don’t have any specific problem with Hall, but I do wish I felt more for him. I like the idea put forward by Hall’s action, it’s probably the saving grace of the episode, but it remains very much an appreciation rather than a connection.
If I have a complaint, and I’m not sure it’s a problem, it’s that all the way through Hall does seem a little off. He seems overly calm all the way through this experience, so when it’s revealed that he got himself captured and has really been the one controlling the situation it makes sense. It’s not entirely a surprise, but is an effective twist.
In the end, his explanation for why he did all this is worth reflecting on. I’m not sure the writers knew how they felt about this, and that’s okay if the moral ambiguity was the point. Because it is morally ambiguous if we should consider the call he made was that of a tragic hero or a deluded villain. And if his call is ambiguous, then isn’t Coulson’s choice to stop him also ambiguous? What separates Hall’s sacrifice of principles from Coulson willingly sacrificing Hall? There’s also a moderately subtle reminder that Coulson was the sacrifice for SHIELD’s ambition , and SHIELD hasn’t changed, only Coulson has.
If I had another objection to Hall’s story, it’s which of our characters is connected to it. FitzSimmons should have had more to do with that plot, especially since Simmons doesn’t even seem to have anything to do with it from the back end. And if they had thought this through a little more, or had their ducks in a row to set some things up, this is a parallel-to-May story waiting to happen. Hall made a hard call, they have to live or die with the choices they make; Hall and/or Coulson are very much joining the Cavalry here with the sacrifices they make to protect others.
FitzSimmons
These two barely even deserve a section in this review, because they basically don’t do anything. Which is a shame because they are set up to have the most connection to events. Even admitting that at this point in the series they’re very much not qualified for field duty, there could have been more done with them. It didn’t need to be their episode, but it could have included them better. We don’t see the revelation of Hall’s actions from their perspective or if it has any impact on them. Their connection to him doesn’t provide any help in finding him or impact his fate one iota.
And while that remains a problem with the episode, it was a big problem at the time. This episode is very driven by the guest cast; and though they don’t overwhelm it the way Mike did in the pilot, it continues to give the impression that this show isn’t really interested in its own cast, outside of Skye and at least in theory Coulson (and I found Skye and mystery around Coulson to be the most frustrating parts of the series at this point, so I all the more wanted to focus put somewhere else).
Ward
Like with other episodes it is relevant to consider Ward’s development here in both its context of the moment and in light of future developments. The story Ward tells about his family does take on a lot more meaning as it is and remains a fundamental part of his character. And the scene where he tells it is given a fairly appropriate amount of weight considering its impact on the character and our understanding of him. Which makes it all the more frustrating that it seems to be used for such cheap payoff in the episode.
This episode is a collection of setups; within the episode, for the season, and for even longer arcs. The obvious Chekov gun-taking is again only flawed in that it’s obvious; the big brother story is a bit more layered. When we’re told the story it feels like an exposition dump, a necessary one since Ward was still pretty bland and undeveloped at this point in the show; then as soon as Quinn starts referencing SHIELD as Big Brother, it becomes obvious setup for Ward’s story to be used in the counter argument; in some ways having it appear that its use in this episode was the point of the story buries the fact that it’s going to continue to be so important as we go forward, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. It’s perhaps quite telling that I find the obvious setup for Skye/Ward that happens through this story a lot more palatable when I know it’s not going to go anywhere (at least nowhere good); I found those scenes super annoying at the time (they were basically already my two least favorite characters on the show, why would I want to see more scenes involving both of them?) but now they feel quaint and comfortable even if I know they’re doomed.
I also want to question Ward’s discussion of defining moments. Because moments from childhood that motivate you are not the same as moments that cement one’s commitment to a cause, and neither is necessarily a person’s single defining moment. What Skye and Ward talk about are very important moments that help us understand the characters, and explain the kind of people they are. But we already kind of know that May’s defining moment was in Bahrain and the implication is that Coulson’s was going up against Loki; those are much later in life defining moments, not what would have formed them into the people that made those decisions. What Ward is really talking about is the kind of thing explored in ‘Inside Out,’ with core memories the define aspects of a person; and a person has to have multiple ones or they’re just a one note person who keeps telling the same story about his awful family for years and years.
May
May does have a character arc in this one; a bit fast and not given a lot of weight in the moment, but at least it’s there. That she assumes Coulson is sending her on the op says she already kind of understands where this is leading even if she’s not ready to embrace it yet; but she’s also not the kind of person who likes sitting behind the scenes while others go out into the danger. It’s even possible to phrase that without making it sound like it’s 90% about protecting Phil’s dumb ass. Even though it is, and he even references why it is.
A couple small questions that stood out to me this time. Coulson tells May to go through records looking for the leaks that got Hall captured; May then hands the notebook to Skye to look through and find the leak. What does May end up doing once she hands the task off to Skye? Then of course later in the episode they can actually do the research on the computer, which would have made sense to hand off to Skye to go through since find data among computer records actually is what she’s good at.
I’m going to leave the mid-episode discussion of Coulson’s death for the Coulson section, because I feel it fits better there. But their last scene in the episode is May’s second defining character trait; the first being not to call her the Cavalry, but second is that watching Coulson’s back is her mission. People have pointed out over the years that this serves as a hint towards her mission from Fury; and she just straight up told Coulson that her mission was him. And while that is somewhat true, it’s less important than the fact that as she will one day say, she’s not doing this for Fury, she’s doing it for Phil. Long before the show made canon that she used to take or even request assignments that let her watch his back, this pointed in that direction, especially since Coulson barely bats an eye at her response.
A response that is kind of even more telling than if she had said it was because she was watching his back; she basically compared her devotion to him to his devotion to the cause, a cause he has died for once already. Her cause is to make sure he doesn’t do it again.
Coulson
This is where we start getting into a lot of ideas on what this episode might have been if it had gone further with some of its half-developed themes. This mostly applies to Skye and Quinn, but Coulson is an important part of that. At least, in something the episode is hinting at but doesn’t quite commit to.
A lot of Quinn’s talk about SHIELD being the enemy is self-serving; it may be how he sees it, but it’s really about how it impacts his business or his goals. But his talk with Skye about how SHIELD goes after vulnerable, isolated people has the ring on actual commentary on the organization, or at least a semi-valid reading. Still self-serving on Quinn’s part as he’s trying to lure her away from SHIELD, but based in truth about how they operate. And it’s no doubt meant to further make us watching question if Skye would fall for this, would consider this a valid enough train of thought to make her consider things from that perspective.
But...it’s not what we see. We don’t see anyone manipulating her or trying to coerce her towards anything. What manipulation is going on isn’t going to be clear for most of the season, when we understand that Ward is a lying sack of shit and what his family backstory is really telling us about his character. Ward doesn’t appear to be training her for his own reasons, either in the moment or with the benefit of hindsight, he’s doing it because Coulson introduced this unusual element into their team and somebody decided that Skye needed to be training to become an actual agent.
Which means that if Quinn’s accusations should be reflective on anyone, it would be Coulson. And yet there aren’t even any scenes between Coulson and Skye this episode; certainly not anything that parallels her discussion with Quinn. If they were going for a sense that Quinn was either a dark mirror of Coulson’s manipulative traits, or that at least for Skye the situations evoked a similar need to join and be appreciated, we don’t really have Coulson in the right focus to serve in that point.
There is, however, one area where Coulson being a dirty rotten bastard is brought into the story; it just has nothing to do with Skye, or even particularly evident without the benefit of hindsight. Because he is a manipulative asshole when it comes to May.
I don’t remember exactly how I would have read this at the time, and I know a lot of this is based on future reading of their relationship, but it feels like even in the moment one would think he’s pushing buttons with her to get her back in the field. That she is the type of person where sitting on the sidelines watching others go into danger is going to get her to think she should be out there. That whatever their relationship was before she went into semi-retirement in administration he knows that eventually (probably sooner rather than later) she will decide to rededicate herself to the cause and/or want to watch his back.
And him being a little manipulative, especially if it had better fit with the bigger themes of the story, is fine. It’s another shade of Coulson, and he is a trained SHIELD agent, a protégé of Nick Fury. That Coulson is pushing the exact same buttons with May and her need to protect Coulson that Fury has is a topic for another day.
Because in the end, that’s what he’s doing. It doesn’t quite start off that way, and my opinion on when it becomes deliberate can fluctuate, but he’s still doing it. This mission needs two people, and if she isn’t going to step up that means him; he’s not forcing her to step up, but that’s the reality, as long as she doesn’t he will keep going out there. You know, like with the Avengers.
I can acknowledge even now that as written that line is there more for the audience; another ding to remind us of where Coulson was and the questions around him now. And said to anyone else on the team it could seem like reassurance that he would be okay going on this mission, that they shouldn’t forget that he’s an experienced agent. But to the rest of them his time with the Avengers and his death are just backstory; they’ve known him a matter of days or weeks at most, had no relationship and little to no knowledge of him before then, as far as any of them (as far as anyone knows) have ever known or cared that death was a lie, at most they consider him to have been injured and only know him after he recovered. But for May, his death is not backstory; she lived through it, lives with it in a way even he doesn’t at this point. He doesn’t remember being dead and gone, but she remembers that he was.
Although there is a case for Coulson being less manipulative and more asshole, as using this for manipulation would imply he understood that she might have some issues with the idea of him in danger after he died. And that isn’t something Coulson ever fully acknowledges,
Skye
There are things I intellectually understand about why this episode would be done and why its placed here; but I still think it’s a mistake. People who were sold on Skye’s character in the first couple episodes, or at least didn’t mind her, would probably still appreciate getting to know other characters too; and people who were having trouble with Skye needed to see other characters explored to find something else to focus on. And this isn’t even as much a Skye episode as I remember it being at the time or it exists in my memory; it’s very driven by the guest stars and situation, but what room is left for the main cast primarily goes to Skye and I really needed someone else to get focus.
But this episode that – at least hypothetically – puts forth the question of what Skye’s loyalties are, needed to happen this early before they could deal with the issue head on and then move on to her being part of the team. The problem is that I never once questioned that she was going to stay on the team’s side; not last episode when it was set up that she was reporting on them and certainly not in this episode. This is an area her being the audience proxy works against the writing; because they were never going to make the audience proxy actually act against the organization the show is about. That would be like telling the audience we weren’t loyal to the cause, in which case why are we watching it if we are acting against it?
Also, she’s just not that dynamic a character and I don’t care; didn’t then, don’t now.
However, when I stop and think about it I can see what the episode is trying to do with questioning her loyalty. This is the exact opposite way it should work; I should in the moment be swept up and shocked to think someone might be a traitor and then when my brain gets involved say that no, there’s no way this person would have been acting against them (i.e. May). Or think about how much sense it makes if they actually are one (i.e. Ward).
Part of the problem with this episode is that Skye’s loyalties never feel divided. There’s a brief moment when she talks about how Quinn doesn’t make sense as the bad guy here, that he’s not that kind of person; but by the time she goes undercover she’s gotten on board with the rest of them that Quinn is behind it. This is part of a larger problem with Quinn, but also with Skye being still very much portrayed as the character we’re supposed to most identify with, like, and root for. She can’t be wrong once the audience knows Quinn is behind it. So she doesn’t go into the conference trying or at least hoping to prove everyone wrong only to find out Quinn is the bad guy the agents say he is. And because there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that she believes Quinn is at fault, there’s no tension that she would actually fall in line with him.
I can see what the writing was going for; that Quinn’s public image talks about the kind of stuff Skye believes in; and his one-on-one image is equally appealing to her ideals and desires; plus the doubt he casts on SHIELD’s motives in bringing her in contrasted against what he wants her to think are his more open motivations. But because we know that she already knows what he’s getting up to behind the scenes, her actually selling the team out would just make her an idiot, and again they were never going to do that.
Also, I don’t feel enough emotional connection between the story she tells about her childhood and her attitude towards SHIELD. With the benefit of the long view, I get what it’s going for about her seeking belonging and people who will keep her and stand by her (to be fair, Ward does actually explain that in this episode, it’s just not given any depth); but the writing doesn’t make the connection. Does she commit to SHIELD in the end because they did come in and pull her out of danger? Why did she even go in there if she doubted that? If the team had doubted her loyalty and come anyway it might have worked, but they never knew what was going on between her and Quinn.
I’m not going to go into it, but I do want to ask, when was it decided Skye was supposed to be a SHIELD agent? She never expressed an interest in it. May made the suggestion last time, but we don’t see her accept the responsibility of being more than a consultant.
Quinn
This is why I like rewatching things as many times as I do, because it took until this time for me to realize that Quinn is basically an Iron Man villain, at least here. He’s a billionaire industrialist who is by turns amoral and thinks he’s the good guy while still very aware of his corporate interests. If there was ever a time for the show to reference the movies and comment of Coulson’s experiences with Stark it might have been here. And they might have if they had gone for a more questioning attitude toward Quinn through this story.
While the team is given evidence to suspect Quinn and try to investigate him, they really quickly latch onto the idea that he’s responsible. It stops being an investigation story pretty quickly and turns into an infiltration and extraction one. It wouldn’t have taken a lot for us to be told that SHIELD had actual problems with Quinn, hence why everyone is so quick to go “yeah that makes sense that he’s behind it.” Simmons problem with him seems to be that he’s greedy and doesn’t really care about the planet...does she suspect every rich guy out there?
I also think the casting on Quinn is debatable. Not that he’s a bad actor, and he’s going to continue doing fine with the part through the season, he just doesn’t quite fit what would have served this episode best. A little IMDB searching tells me the actor is a bit older than he looks to my eyes, but the problem is who he should be visually compared to here. He and Hall are supposed to be contemporaries, and the actor who plays Hall looks a lot older (they’re actually a lot closer in age than they look). Quinn should also probably evoke a mirror of Coulson in his attempted recruitment of Skye and he plays it much too slick and polished (and younger) for the mirror to be effective. His chemistry with Skye is much more seductive than familiar; their chemistry is actually pretty confused, and that kind of works for what the story is but not what it might have been with more craft.
Quinn isn’t really the problem here, it’s more the story shaped around him that doesn’t quite know how to make its point. And that a lot of the ways Quinn could have been used don’t come into play as he becomes a recurring villain; which is understandable as they would have only worked at the outset, but because they don’t use them here they go to waste.
Odd and ends
I can just about get my head around Skye’s choice of dress for the party. If we are going to think it wasn’t just a costuming choice to make her stand out from the crowd or because she looks good in that color. She was basically going undercover as herself, and herself is not particularly interested in blending in with this crowd. She’s there to be a bit eye-catching and different. I would like to think there was at least a debate among the experienced agents if this was the correct choice of attire. However, I am still going to be upset by her wandering around touching her ear continuing to talk to herself in obvious code; that is terrible undercover work.
I can’t tell exactly how Quinn water walkway is designed, but I can tell that it looks terrible to try and walk on in heels.
I’m willing to put this down to time restraints for the kidnappers, but why would they leave the mini-gravitonium doohickeys behind? Those things are super valuable, fairly traceable, and a lesser piece of evidence pointing at Quinn. It’s almost like Quinn only recently turned to the dark side as he isn’t any good at it if he used such traceable payment too. And yet for the team’s quick assumption of guilt it seems like Quinn must have been at this kind of thing before.
On the flip side, in the end, how did Ward find Skye? He was inside looking for her, she had turned her trackers off, then suddenly appears outside to rescue her. Quinn’s people can’t find super rare tech that probably has something they can track on it, but Ward didn’t even have to jump out a window to get to Skye at the right time?
Going back to my plane layout question last episode, there are more doors on the executive floor of the plane than make sense with the geography (also down the road something has to go to the outside). But I’m going to count it in favor of Coulson having an actual room. He has to be keeping his not-suit clothes somewhere.
Closing thoughts
Elements that should come back
For a long time the gravitonium would have been on this list; and I still wish it had at least been referenced a bit somewhere in the meantime. And I wish that Hall was a factor when it does come into play.
Coulson punches
There’s a flurry of activity, so I might have missed something, but I can see him using his right hand.
May’s fuck that noise meter
Let’s call it a seven. The cause for her is watching Coulson’s back.
Name Watch
May does keep calling Coulson ‘sir,’ and it’s a little weird. I retroactively conclude she is mentally editing herself not to call him Phil too much, keep it professional. With the exception of the closing scene they are more or less around the rest of the team, and there may be reason to keep some vestige of professionalism when having that last talk.
