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So if the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot was all about assembling the team and the second episode about teaching said team how to play nice together, Episode 3, "The Asset," is really the first business as usual outing in the show’s young history, with Coulson’s squad tackling a straightforward mission-of-the-week case as a (mostly) functioning unit. It’s more or less like what The Avengers sequel will probably be like since they took care of the assembling/infighting stuff in the first movie. Only, you know, with more money and better actors.
This case of the week involves the kidnapping of a S.H.I.E.L.D.-affiliated scientist by the name of Dr. Franklin Hall -- not to be confused with the hawkish Carter Hall, who flies the friendly skies for Marvel’s Distinguished Competition -- retrieved from a disguised Mack Truck in a pretty great cold open that features lots of gravity-defying car flipping. Hall is than transported to the exotic European locale of Malta, where he comes face-to-face with former pal, Ian Quinn, a Rand Paul-meets-Steve Jobs entrepreneur with a taste for creating cutting edge technology and a firm belief in limited (or, better yet, no) government oversight.
Hall is none too pleased to see his old "friend," due to the fact that Quinn basically built his empire on Franklin’s work, but his interest is piqued when Ian reveals he’s finally harnessed an element that they had spent their collaboration looking for: Gravitonium, which apparently hails from the James Cameron Periodic Table of Elements. According to the crack Fitz/Simmons double act o’ exposition, this particular bit of phlebotinum "distorts gravity fields within itself creating an undulating amorphous shape," that solidifies when it meets an electric current and results in explosions that "change the rules of gravity." Got all that? No? Don’t worry, here’s the important part: stuff goes boom, down becomes up.
Our heroes’ mission, which they have no real choice but to accept: infiltrate Quinn’s compound (acting independently as S.H.I.E.L.D. apparently isn’t welcome in Malta) and rescue Hall, whom Fitz/Simmons hold in very high regard. The plan they hit upon requires Skye to do her best Sydney Bristow impression -- complete with the cleavage-baring outfit -- and invite herself to a big Quinn-hosted party and distracting the host by pretending to be a Rising Tide follower as opposed to a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative. (Though after last week’s text message, it’s still an open question whether that’s her correct job description anyway.) For a brief moment, she appears to go off book, blowing her cover and contemplating switching over to Quinn’s team, but that impulse quickly passes and she opts to run away instead. Clearly, her Sydney Bristow impression needs a lot of work. In everything but the wardrobe department.
Meanwhile, Ward and Coulson sneak onto the grounds and split up, with Ward coming to Skye’s rescue and Coulson confronting Hall, who has decided he doesn’t want to leave Malta without seeing the lovely beaches up close and personal -- by using Quinn’s Gravitanium device to sink the dude’s house and lab in the ocean, thus sparing the world the havoc it might wreak. Hall wreaks a little havoc himself, setting off an explosion that knocks Coulson to the floor ceiling and, in general, talking like the kind of mad scientist who, it turns out, would set his own kidnapping in motion. Coulson’s having none of it, though, opting to shoot out the window floor, causing Hall to plunge directly into the whirling, crackling Stargate-looking contraption below, from which he’ll probably emerge as Graviton just in time for sweeps. Or a lot sooner if the ratings don’t get a Gravitanium-assisted bounce.
On the personal front, Ward and Skye continue their chemistry-free foreplay by indulging in a little game of "getting to know you" in between punching bag sessions (He used to get beat up by his brother! She was an unwanted foster kid! They fight crime! No really, they do…); Fitz inadvertently reveals his favorite two things about Skye; Simmons continues her search for a personality; Melinda finally gets tired of having to stay on the plane all the time (and only having one facial expression) and volunteers for field duty; and Coulson talks a lot about being "rusty," which has nothing to do with the fact that he’s almost certainly a robot AT ALL. -- Ethan Alter
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open on a commercial truck speeding along a road somewhere in the Rockies, if its markings of "Rocky Mountain Office Supply: Colorado's Office Supply Superstore" are an indication. Kind of shocking that this show, with its budget, isn't courting promotional considerations from one of the Goliath triumvirate of Staples/Office Depot/OfficeMax, but as it turns out they have reasons to go generic here. The driver, who I'll say looks the part, sings along to a country song on the radio as he sips a Big Gulp equivalent. Then we get our first indication that all might not be as it seems when "Little Boy" gets a call on the CB from "Big Boy" requesting a status update, and the driver reports that they got through the weigh station and "the cargo" is secure; the reference sounds a little careful and important to be dealing solely with goldenrod paper and erasable pens. Two expected escorts in black SUVs move into positions to the truck's front and rear, but no sooner has that happened than does something cause the lead vehicle to shoot a rather spectacular distance up into the air with the result that it crashes upside-down with enough impact that one of the wheels falls off.
The truck driver mutters "Bitch" (I assume he's not talking about the possibly-dead woman in the SUV) as he tries to swerve around the wreckage and still maintain control; successful in that effort, he (Agent Mack is his name, which haha for a truck driver) then pulls up a computer display on his windshield and reports to S.H.I.E.L.D. that they're under attack -- at which point the other SUV, having moved to the front, also flies into the air as if suddenly caught in an impossibly powerful wind stream. The driver, understandably unable to comprehend what he's up against, doesn't come up with any sort of defense, which is just as well since it's only moments before the truck itself is pulled up into the air and then summarily dropped. Soon after, the cab is a smoking mess but the cargo hold seems relatively undamaged -- that is, until a forklift flanked by several men in camo gear, appears from off-road and quickly rips the thing open. The men toss aside the concealing office-supply boxes to get to the S.H.I.E.L.D. safe within, and after a quick shot of someone working with a blowtorch and welding gear, they cut through to reveal a bald, bespectacled man who wonders, "Are we there yet?" That is frankly silly no matter how you slice it, but it's still a pretty solid cold open with which to kick us off. Title card.
Later, on the S.H.I.E.L.D. plane (apparently fixed to the tune of however much more money), a sweaty Ward is hitting the heavy bag when Skye appears, hands wrapped for punching. He mildly tells her she's late, to which she complains that she's tired from the morning's workout. "I thought I was joining S.H.I.E.L.D., not 24 Hour Fitness." I suppose living in a van and eating on the run isn't great for your conditioning, but still -- you get one of those, Skye. Ward seems to agree as he tells her time, she'll do fifteen push-ups for each minute she's late and while she may not love training, the strength she'll gain could come in handy if, let's say, she finds herself hanging off the side of a building. Show of hands of those who think that set-up is going to pay off soon?
He starts her on a simple jab-cross combination and having done some martial arts myself it pains me to see her not turning her body into the cross as Ward instructed, although that's still better than her complaining about all the hard work and how Fitz/Simmons don't have to do this. Ward replies that this is the life of a field agent; he then shows her up by asking the techs what their morning rituals are like, and Simmons excitedly babbles about "atomistic attribute drills" which sends Skye back to her ineffective punching in less than three seconds. Heh. Ward then does some more obvious first-act gun introduction as he says that every field agent has a defining moment in which he or she either acts or bails, and Skye at least gets more into the rhythm of the punching as she asks what his was. The show really needs to set up its themes without writing them on a whiteboard and waving them in front of us, no? When he declines to reply, she suggests she get Coulson to give him more of that truth serum, to which he points out that his "Level One overshare" (hee) got her to cooperate? "I hate to tell you this, rookie, but we don't have a truth serum." Whether he's telling the truth now or he's putting her on, that's awesome. Ward has really grown on me since the pilot. Skye then gets a respite from further physical activity when May's voice announces that they're changing course (to Colorado Airfield North) and will have an imminent briefing, but she looks like she's too busy wondering if Ward even has a Gramsy to enjoy it.
Sometime later, in one of the plane's open lounges, Coulson announces that a S.H.I.E.L.D. transport with a "Priority Red" protected asset was attacked, and when he goes on that the asset is "Dr. Franklin Hall" the Canadian physicist, Fitz/Simmons have the world's saddest orgasm before Fitz tells them Hall was once their chemical kinetics adviser and was crazy enthusiastic about science. Skye is predictably the only one in the room to be favorably impressed with the invisibility of the attack, and then -- as we cut to them on Exposition Highway in Sterling CO -- Coulson explains that Hall is one of a select group of scientists S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps on the move to protect them from enemies. Furthermore, Priority Red means that security should have been -- Coulson sees one of the SUVs in a tree -- "heavy." Going to the trouble of putting an SUV in a tree for the sake of wordplay on a double meaning? That's money well spent in my book. That said, two ground escorts with no visible weaponry and no air support we could see was "heavy" security by S.H.I.E.L.D. standards?
The driver -- who's got some facial cuts, but otherwise seems okay -- relates how he saw nothing in the air, but his assailants clearly knew their route. Coulson disbelievingly asks if he's saying they were working with someone inside S.H.I.E.L.D., and I guess this is supposed to point us in Skye's direction given her little text at the end of last episode. But Coulson, if you're half the agent you think you are, this possibility should already have occurred to you so how about cutting down on the slow-class melodrama? Simmons, wearing the "full-spectrum goggles," Fitz takes pains to point out he designed, then calls the group over to demonstrate via a handful of dirt she tosses up that gets swept into a little maelstrom that there is an electrostatic field present -- one that's actually not easy to control. Fitz, however, manages to deactivate it with a little tech-fu, whereupon a small device clatters to the ground. Against both what seems sensible and what I'd think is S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol here, Coulson picks the thing up (although Simmons does grab it first with tongs), and Skye asks what it is. To me, it looks like a tiny gyroscope, but Coulson shows that he doesn't confine his wordplay to worthwhile efforts as he intones, "Something big." I realize this sentence is not the most painstakingly crafted either, but try harder, bro.
Back on the plane, Coulson tasks May with reviewing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s communication logs to make sure Hall's route wasn't inadvertently leaked. Skye then pipes up that she could run some computer searches on the tire treads at the scene, but Ward enters having done that and more -- he determined the model and checked any sales of it within a 500-mile radius to people with priors, financial troubles "or a propensity for risk-taking." Brains, brawn and the ability to apple-polish when necessary to show up a trainee? That's hot, Ward. There are three suspects on his list, so Coulson tells him to check out whether any of them might have sold their equipment to the kidnappers. When he's gone off to be even more efficient, Skye is like, so I hear you don't have a truth serum and Coulson's Mona Lisa smile in response is a great complement to Ward's casual assuredness earlier. May then dumps a huge amount of communication records in Skye's lap, and it's good to know she's as good at delegating as she is at martial arts.
At "Barnroof Point, Colorado" (really), a guy on a horse comes to a stop in front of Coulson and Lola and asks who the hell he is; Coulson smoothly replies that the guy sold his excavator to some bad people, and now he's hiding out until things cool down. The guy's response to Coulson's queries is to draw a double-barreled shotgun, which seems like overkill in addition to being just plain inhospitable, but Ward appears out of nowhere and flips the guy out of the saddle by grabbing the gun, noting that the whole scenario feels like the Old West. Coulson asks who paid the guy, but he says he never got a name or saw a face. He does, however, gesture to his saddlebag, so Ward grabs it and shakes the contents onto the ground -- several gold bars. Ward: "Now it really feels like the Old West." You obviously only said the former line to set up the latter, Ward, but you've been on your game lately so I'll allow it.
Back on the plane, Simmons reports that the gold is in Doré bars, meaning they were made at the mine rather than in a refinery and as such aren't pure. Coulson wonders if said impurities will allow her to determine which mine they came from, and Fitz reports they already have. Skye, you'd better up your game, and not just with the heavy bag. They're from a mine in Tanzania that Coulson immediately realizes is owned by "Quinn Worldwide" -- the CEO, Ian Quinn, is someone he thinks they probably both studied in chemical engineering and have seen on the cover of Forbes. And where does said gold tycoon make his residence, you ask?
Why the Republic of Malta, as a chyron so helpfully informs us. The presumed Quinn utters some impatient words into a cellphone in regards to a nervous/unsatisfied client, and then, in case we weren't already convinced by the kidnapping that he's evil, he hands the phone to the silent female assistant who's been walking in step with him without so much as a thank you. He then enters a room and berates Hall's guards for restraining him, as he's not a threat, and these two obviously have a history as Hall, with fake cheer, tells Quinn that it's one thing to steal his ideas, but to actually steal him? (Hall, by the way, is played by British actor -- although he's concealing his accent here -- Ian Hart, who has a credits list a mile long, but you might best remember him as Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone.) Quinn tells Hall he'll thank him, but Hall isn't impressed as he sniffs that Quinn was smart to choose Malta, as S.H.I.E.L.D. can't come after him there. Quinn informs Hall that he's gone one better than just hanging out there as he's actually now a citizen. This is all very important I'm sure, but I'm on a schedule here so you'll forgive me if I skip ahead to Quinn producing a gizmo suspiciously similar to the one S.H.I.E.L.D. retrieved in Colorado and asking if he recognizes the design. Without waiting for any answer other than Hall's rapt look, he goes on that they were just out of school when Hall sketched the blueprint, and this is a prototype being "powered by a theoretical substance." Hall: "You found it?" Found what? WHAT?
"Gravitonium." Check, please! All right, I guess since this was already in the Marvel universe I can't blame them for making up something that sounds straight off the James Cameron Periodic Table, but I don't have to be happy about it, do I? Anyway, this is what's powering the device, and Simmons goes on that it's so rare, most people didn't even believe it existed. I find it hard to believe no one takes the bait on that one, but after some Fitz/Simmons technobabble Skye tells them to dumb it down for her, so at least she's been listening carefully to some of Ward's teachings. I'm not going to get into too detailed an explanation of fake science until I know it's needed, so for now suffice it to say that the device causes the gravitonium is to distort the behavior of gravity around it. (Even that sounds like too much now that I've written it.) Also, Hall wrote extensively about gravitonium when he was at Cambridge -- where Quinn was a classmate of his. Skye skeptically tells the room that Quinn's charity endowment is worth eight billion dollars, so he can't be such a bad guy, but Simmons counters that he made said money by leeching the earth of its resources, and if that's the case you'd think an open-info bleeding heart like Skye (who, you'll remember, keeps up with mining concerns in Peru) would already know it.
Back in Malta, Quinn is saying "twenty years, twelve mines, six continents" like he's auditioning to take over hosting duties on The Amazing Race, but the point is he found some gravitonium, "and now we get to play with it." Hall is like, if you'd maybe stop twirling your invisible mustache for two seconds you'd recall the part where it's extremely dangerous, but Quinn is like, well if that's the case it's just too bad for all of us. Then he pushes a button that brings up a wall to reveal a full-size version of the teeny prototype. "But I need you to tell me how to control the gravity fields. You can complete your life's work." Hall's probably wondering how much life he'll have left once his life's work is finished, and that's a good question from both a figurative and a literal standpoint. Also, how did Quinn get the prototype to behave so well?
Ward is telling Coulson that there's no way into Quinn's compound without having a man inside first (there's a big fuss about pulse lasers), and Coulson adds to the bad news by saying S.H.I.E.L.D. can't send a strike force into Malta. If they try to act on their own, they'd run the risk of being disavowed -- especially with Quinn Worldwide's annual shareholders' meeting happening. Amid some jabbering of futile plans, Skye offers to go in, and on her second attempt she gets Coulson's attention -- she's not an official agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., so she's not bound by the same restrictions they are and they said themselves they need a man inside. May, taking her seriously, asks if she really wants to be that man, so Skye replies that Hall means a lot to Fitz/Simmons and he could be enduring torture right at that moment like "making him do strength training." I admire the noble instincts, girl, but you still need to give it a rest. Ward protests that she doesn't have the training or experience necessary, but Skye, who's been typing away on her phone all this time, now displays it as she says she knows, "But I've got an invitation." Well, I told her to up her game, didn't I?
As the plane continues through the night sky, Ward -- although he concedes he's impressed with Skye's hackery -- still thinks it's a huge risk to send her in with no training. Coulson, yet again defaulting to that one-note brand of casual confidence, wonders if Ward is worried about her safety or her loyalty. Ward, with more patience than I might have, says it's both -- she's Rising Tide, remember? Coulson asks if that's all it is, so Ward admits that it isn't -- Skye is holding back. "She says she wants to be an agent, but she won't commit." He asks for a new strategy and Coulson offers this: "Try no strategy." Well, at least you practice what you preach, Coulson. He goes on that Ward should stop thinking like an operative and start thinking like a person and I was hoping that my issues with this character would dissipate rather than deepen, but "Coulson teaches his team about life with his refusal to take it too seriously" is not going to work for me as a core theme. Everyone else on this show can turn a funny line while still believing in something -- what does Coulson believe in? (Doesn't matter if he's a clone; he needs to be a passionate clone, and obsession with retro equipment doesn't count.)
Sometime later, Ward is running a disarm-the-opponent drill, but Skye doesn't take it seriously enough for his tastes, so a frustrated Ward tells her she's going to get herself killed along with their mission, then wonders how she got so good at computer science without committing herself to it. Skye tells her it came naturally for her like his physical skills came naturally to him, so he comes clean about his past: he had an older brother who beat the crap out of him and their little brother simply for eating a piece of his birthday cake, so he learned to protect them, "the way I am trying to protect you. That was my moment." If I were Skye, I might wonder if he's putting me on given his smooth lies earlier, but Coulson's remark about Ward's family history in the pilot suggests he's being truthful here, and Skye is suitably chastened as she apologizes for pushing him. They go back to training and he asks, "What's first?"
A solid call-and-response (the show, as usual with Whedon offerings, is generally good at these transitions, if also over-reliant on them) has Coulson telling the team that the operation will begin with Skye walking through the front door. He goes on that the only external access point to Quinn's underground facility is a beach cove (which is very Bond-ian, it occurs to me), and while a two-man extraction team could slip in, it wouldn't be easy. Fitz announces that the place is guarded by a twenty-foot laser grid that would render anyone who touches it a sizzling meal for any local carnivore, and Coulson adds that while cracking the system and triggering a reboot would result in a three-second opening in the grid, Quinn has forbidden any wireless access on his property. Wait, he's blocking all his shareholder guests' data service? How are they going to change their flights to Ibiza if the meeting runs long? Fitz/Simmons give Skye a compact that will pass an X-ray scan and has a hidden wireless computer in it (I guess it also generates a small wireless network; if my phone can do it, I assume S.H.I.E.L.D.'s gizmo can) that will give her a green light if she's in close enough range to a computer, whereupon she can drop it in a safe place and they'll do the rest.
So it doesn't seem like this mission involves any hackery; is it really such a political distinction that Skye is on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s payroll, but isn't a formal agent? If they're worried the other agents might be known to Quinn, that would be a much stronger reason from my point of view. Since the plan is to send a S.H.I.E.L.D. team in any way to rescue Hall, though, I'm not sure it's worth putting Skye into the lion's mouth even with Ward and the show telling us she needs to COMMIT. Speaking of Ward, he reminds Skye to stick to the plan, and then May has an aside with Coulson in which she reminds him that she's already seen way more combat than she signed up for (which, you'll remember, was zero), so Coulson tells her not to worry -- the two-man extraction team will be Ward and… him. "You forget, I saw plenty of action with the Avengers." After he walks away, May replies to the air, "And you died," so it looks like Fury isn't the only one capable of using Coulson's death to bend people to his will.
Night has given way to day and Skye, dressed in a simple short-sleeved solid magenta dress that's decidedly out of step with the rest of the guests' attire, no sooner has taken a glass of champagne and an hors d'oeuvre than does an older Middle Eastern gentleman positively bark "Who are you?" at her. His younger companion apologizes for the brusque question and explains that his English is quite limited, but Skye introduces herself and holds out a hand, which the older guy somewhat reluctantly shakes. He tells her his name is "Qasim Zaghlul," and Skye smoothly recites that he built half of Dubai, including the Arabian Blade, of which she's a big fan. As she goes on to talk about his family, the guy smiles in delight and we then see that Skye's getting all her information in her ear from May and the others back on the plane. From the timing, it's possible that Skye recognized the name on her own -- she certainly knew who Moneybags Quinn was -- but she appreciates the help regardless as, after she's stepped away from Zaghlul, she tells her support, "I could get used to this. It's like Siri if it worked." And another product-placement bridge burned! Skye then gets into what she thinks is spy jargon like how she sees "top dog" and that "the eagle is landing," but when Simmons basically asks if she's having a stroke, she apologizes and says she sees Quinn, so she's going to make contact. I'm not sure that's necessary to the mission, but they have to get all the scenes they can out of a top-billed guest star.
As promised, Skye accosts Quinn and introduces herself, and Quinn also pauses before introducing her, the reason for which becomes clear when we learn that she identified herself as a member of the Rising Tide, an organization he tells the circle of people around him has "gotten some pretty big secrets out to the public." However, he goes on to say that he's a fan, as he believes in more open information and less government infringement. And by the way, it sure was nice work accessing the encrypted back channel by which you requested the invitation! He goes on to offer her a job on the spot, and this seems like an odd conversation to be having in front of several random guests, but I suppose when you're worth as much money as he is you expect people to forgive a few eccentricities. Besides, he is paying for all this. Still, how does he suppose Skye got to Malta? In her van? Quinn doesn't wait for an answer as he rushes off to address the crowd, and when May says in Skye's ear that that went well, Skye at least sounds wary as she agrees, a sentiment of which I'm betting Ward would approve. Quinn tells the crowd that Malta is a place they can pursue progress without interference from meddlers like the US government, the EU, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Skye does look a little discomfited, but she might simply be wondering -- as I am -- if Quinn glued his hair to his head. (It may be his real hair, but it seriously lies on his head like he's Stan Sitwell from Arrested Development.)
As we see a quick shot of Ward and Coulson landing their inflatable boat on the nearby beach, Quinn goes on to bring up gravitonium. As Skye slips out of the crowd, Quinn talks about the implications of controlling gravity as we see a montage of Hall working with the device with what appears to be eager anticipation. As if to drive that point home, Coulson tells Ward that Hall may not be the same when they find him, and what they don't need is Ward setting him off. Ward grimly replies that if Skye can't get them in, his people skills will be the least of their problems. True, but they still won't help!
Inside, Skye tries a set of double doors and finds them inaccessible with no visible lock, so Fitz tells her to look for a keypad, but that's also unavailing. May asks if there's a reception desk, and the answer's yes -- but when Skye asks what she does now, Quinn, appearing out of nowhere, asks what she's trying to do. Look, I know it can't be that easy for Skye from a dramatic standpoint, but once Quinn wrapped up his boring speech wouldn't Skye have heard some kind of warning noise? Maybe some polite applause… or at least a run on the bathroom? Skye tries to say she was looking for a pen, but that doesn't fly, so she retreats behind a lie she can sell, which is that she was snooping around on behalf of the Rising Tide. Quinn is not mollified, though, as he doesn't appreciate being treated like "another corrupt institution" and starts to call security, but Skye pours on the charm as she points out with all these rich people he has to be very guarded, and her tone gets very pointed as she writes something down while going on about being careful what you say. She concludes that she was hoping they could be honest with each other as she holds up the paper, which reads "S.H.I.E.L.D. IS LISTENING." The intentional blown-cover gambit! That's not in Ward's Field Agent 101 playbook!
On the plane, May and Fitz/Simmons are unwise to Skye's apparent defection, but after Fitz suggests to Simmons' disgust with a universal gesture that Skye's twin frontal assets made the difference, they lose the signal and realize Skye must have sabotaged it herself. And indeed, an artful close-up of her earpiece sinking to the bottom of a glass of champagne confirms that before Skye goes on to give an essentially truthful recitation of what's happened to her -- S.H.I.E.L.D. picked her up in LA and recruited her, and as such she's had access to a ton of inside information. Quinn asks why S.H.I.E.L.D. would trust her with an operation such as this, so Skye reiterates the bit about international law and says S.H.I.E.L.D. had no other options. "Whereas I like to keep mine open." It's kind of too bad Ward isn't hearing this. The steam that would be coming out of his ears!
Coulson and Ward come to a sign warning of lethal radiation, and just to confirm, the former takes a handful of dirt and throws it forward, which causes the laser grid momentarily to become visible. I'd think that would alert Security to their presence, but I am not a highly-trained S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, nor even someone who complains incessantly about physical conditioning. Ward notes that the patrol will be coming any minute now, although I suppose they might chalk the dust up to the wind, but the news gets worse as May reports that they've lost communication with Skye. However, they realize that Skye is still their only option, so they settle in to hide just before a patrol appears down the hill.
Back inside, Skye has gotten the opinion from Quinn that S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited her because she posed a genuine threat and also because she fit their profile -- she's a criminal with a specialized skill set and no family. At the "no family" mention, Skye's face visibly falls to the point where Quinn apologizes, but goes on that S.H.I.E.L.D. preys on fear and loneliness. "They offer a home to those who have no one else to turn to." He says he can offer something better, which I guess is a home unfettered by the rules of gravity?
Outside, Coulson and Ward confront the patrol team, and I'm sorry to say the fight choreography is terrible, like, at one point you can see Coulson's fist entirely whiff a dude's jaw. May, get over your trauma and get back in the field, please. Ward amusingly dispenses with one of the enemies' guns by casually tossing it into the laser grid, disintegrating it, while inside, Quinn tells Skye that, essentially, all this can be hers, but she's got to tell him first what specifically her mission is. It seems obvious that he'd know why she's there -- after all, he kidnapped Hall from S.H.I.E.L.D., right? However, Skye -- first checking her look in her compact and getting the literal green light -- tells him she was merely supposed to bat her eyes and get him talking. She places the compact on the table in front of her, and just like that, machines come to life on the plane and the team gets to work.
Outside, Coulson and Ward come under fire, and Coulson desperately tells Fitz they need a reset as he's already died one too many times (I may have embellished there a bit). Simmons tartly informs Coulson that saying Fitz's name repeatedly won't increase his productivity, but then Fitz comes through and Ward and Coulson hurl themselves inside the protected area before the grid comes back on line. Sass in service of being wrong, Simmons? You'd better redeem yourself quickly or you'll be fired twice. With the grid now protecting them, Coulson and Ward split up, the former heading for Hall and the latter going for Skye; meanwhile inside, Quinn realizes that S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't settle for just sending in a pretty face. On cue, three burly dudes enter to report a security breach, and Skye can't resist gloating: "The timing on that was perfect!" Quinn disgustedly breaks the compact, but he then gets Skye's attention by pulling a gun on her. Philanthropy ain't what it used to be, hon. And speaking of things changing, when Coulson reaches Hall and tells him they have an exit strategy, Hall informs him he's right where he's supposed to be. Coulson: "I'll be honest -- our strategy did not take into account you saying that." But… you just told Ward it did! I mean, you didn't know he was the mole, but you said yourself he might not be the same, so stop trying to tap into the Whedon whimsy with lines that make no sense, Coulson!
On the plane, May finally figures out who leaked Hall's route -- Hall himself. Meanwhile, in the lab, Hall tells Coulson that neither Quinn nor anyone else can be permitted to have control of the gravitonium technology, so he's going to bury it at the bottom of the ocean, along with Quinn. He adds that Quinn just grows more powerful every day and won't heed sanctions from governments or anyone else, and Hall's actually sounds like a pretty solid plan. So surely Coulson, representing an agency that has to make morally questionable choices to protect the masses, should see the logic behind it, right? Instead, Hall pushes a touchpad in front of him, and Coulson says that something tells him it wasn't the "off" button before getting blown camera right and off-screen. Again, Whedon is all about comic relief, but Coulson's supposed to be the leader; is every line of his going to be accompanied by a rimshot?
After the break, Coulson recovers amid a roomful of upended furniture; he then checks in with Fitz/Simmons, who tell him that given the size of Quinn's machine, it'll take down far more than the entire compound. He charges them to find a solution before we realize he's upside down, and the camera angle then inverts so we don't have to be tempted to sing "Dancing on the Ceiling." Hall, grabbing a bottle and a glass, tells Coulson there's nothing to be done -- soon, the machine will reach an exponential acceleration state. Coulson, wide-eyed, says his team of good people is nearby, but Hall is like, they're sworn to protect all mankind, right? Because that's just what I'm doing! Again, it doesn't seem like Coulson's even considering letting this play out, but shouldn't he? He can hardly guarantee that the device won't eventually be brought to bear on the entire world; aren't these tough calls the kind of things he's supposed to think about?
Upstairs, Quinn has a hand around Skye's throat and the gun still pointed at her as he makes the all-too-familiar villain mistake of talking too much; he tells her S.H.I.E.L.D. is Big Brother, but Skye's like, yeah, "but they're the nice big brother who stands up for his helpless little brother when he's getting beat up because… he ate a piece of cake." I'm no fan of literal metaphors, but to her credit Skye realizes the sentence isn't going anywhere, and it does at least have the effect of producing a WTF look on Quinn's face. Skye, with renewed force in her voice, then points out that Quinn kidnapped a dude, but Quinn is like, I saved him! "And I could have saved you." And this is a perfect setup for a fairly stale version of the call-and-response with Ward showing up to save Skye -- only when we cut to him, he's still wandering the halls and muttering, "This place is massive." Ha! Fun successfully poked.
May begs him to tell her he's got things covered, foreshadowingly adding that she can't do anything from the plane, but Ward, with the ground starting to shake from the effects of the machine, can only reply that he's working on it. Luckily, the tremors also buy Skye some time as Quinn asks her what S.H.I.E.L.D. is doing; when she stays mum, he points the gun at her and tells her S.H.I.E.L.D. sent her in with nothing -- whereupon she grabs his arm and relieves him of his piece with the little spin move Ward taught her. It's a little on the nose, sure, but I'd rather this than have Ward save her. Besides, it's not over yet, as Quinn's security guys have arrived and have her covered and Quinn asks if she's got what it takes to pull the trigger. Skye thinks about it for a moment, but then is like, "Nope!" and runs outside to jump off the balcony and into the pool. Hee.
The security guys move to pursue, but a more violent jolt rocks them to the ground, from which vantage point Quinn can see that gravity is starting to bend. He calls for an evacuation via chopper, stat, while underground, Coulson is still wrestling with the gravity distortions when Hall pulls a gun on him. I'm not sure he's got what it takes to kill a man with a gun either, but he probably hopes to dissuade Coulson from interfering. He talks about how he dropped hints in his communications he knew Quinn would pick up on, as he loves to solve puzzles -- but in the end, he's an addict ("addicted to exploiting opportunities," which seems tenuous at best), and addicts can't be reasoned with. Coulson is like, yeah well your disciples Fitz and Simmons are going to die because of you, and as you can imagine given my lack of shutting up about it I'm not so much a fan of his moral posturing, so I'm kind of glad that Hall spits that S.H.I.E.L.D. is just as guilty as Quinn of experimentation without thought of consequence, as their pursuit of an unlimited power source that led to an alien invasion amply demonstrates. Thankfully, Coulson concedes the point, and a little introspection on his part will go a long way with me; Hall then reiterates his position that gravitonium is far too powerful for anyone to have, as shown by what's happening around them at this very moment. Upstairs, Quinn's chopper takes off with no thought of his panicked guests or his staff, and I hope one consequence of this is that his company's stock price tanks even harder than his complex is about to. Despite their boss having ditched them to die, Quinn's security guys manage to capture Skye, but Ward finally catches them and puts on some extended Ward-fu that knocks all three of them out. Skye understandably comes rushing up to him, but he keeps it all business, saying that if she follows his orders he'll get them out of there. She's shivering with cold and the shock of the near-miss too much to speak, but even if she could I think she'd toe the line for once.
Downstairs, a big jolt causes Hall to lose his gun and after Coulson manages to punch him (making contact this time!) and grab it, Hall tells him he sees the future and it's a catastrophe. Coulson, however, dramatically replies that he just sees a lot of people in trouble before theatrically yanking some cables out of the wall… but nothing happens. He urgently tells Fitz his attempt to cut the power failed, so Fitz and Simmons pipe up in unison that he's going to need a catalyst to create a chemical reaction in the core. Coulson then tells Hall it's not too late to do the right thing and, as he sees Ward and Skye at the window (if Coulson were really that concerned about their safety, he would have told them to leave him behind, no?) whitters on about killing innocent people, and Coulson, again, you can make your choice without convincing everyone it's the right choice. I'd think you'd have made your peace with that in your line of work. Also, I guess Hall's intransigence is going to make Coulson's upcoming action seem justified, but I would have found it much more interesting if Coulson were forced to sacrifice a cooperative Hall to save the rest of them. Probably not going to happen on ABC, though, at least not this early in the series. Anyway, you can see where this is going; Coulson concedes that Hall made a hard choice, but now he has to make his -- and he shoots the glass protecting them from the machine (although I have no idea how that thing was protecting them even partially up to this point) and grabs a metal beam, whereupon Hall gets sucked into the gravitonium. It does not look un-painful, but eventually the viscous material envelops him like black oil, whereupon as Skye and Ward finally make it into the room, the machine shuts down. Taking in what just happened, Skye gives what looks like a bit of a scared side-eye in Coulson's direction, and I'm starting to think her retaining some qualms about S.H.I.E.L.D. might be both necessary and good.
Sometime later, Coulson is confirming that S.H.I.E.L.D. is sending what's left of the experiment to "the deepest levels of the fridge," which surely means it's going to get to wave hello to the Ark of the Covenant. However, Coulson specifically adds that he doesn't want the thing flagged for the Slingshot, and I was wondering if he thinks there might be a possibility of eventually saving Hall from the element or possibly if he thinks it might be too unstable to risk sending into the sun. He adds, "It's what Hall would have wanted," which given that you sacrificed him rather than allow him to act on his principles seems really flimsy. Coulson then struggles to empty his gun of ammunition (this same issue is what precipitated Ward to toss that other piece into the laser grid), whereupon May, from the doorway, tells him he's making a habit of it. He supposes he's "a little rusty," and is that supposed to tip us off that he's a robot rather than a clone? That certainly is in the Whedon wheelhouse, and it might explain why he's not feeling like a real person to me; come to think of it, I'd find that a lot more interesting than him being a clone. May, however, steps up and tells him she wants back in the field after all, and when Coulson asks if it's for the cause or just to watch his back, a hint of a smile breaks through on May's lips: "Same thing. And you are a little rusty." Heh.
Hey, look who reevaluated her view of the value of physical training! Skye, on her own, is working the heavy bag with more effort and proficiency than before when Ward joins her; she asks where he and his brothers grew up and he tells her Massachusetts. She confesses that she was in and out of foster homes as a child, but there was one family she wanted to like her who sent her back after month, saying she wasn't a good fit. Ward exhibits some stoic sympathy as Skye goes on that she tried calling the foster mother "Mom" once to try it out. "Guess it wasn't a good fit." I'm actually fine with the dialogue and acting in this scene (although I'd really prefer the show not to push these two together romantically), but the maudlin music sounds like something appropriate for a reluctant mother seeing her baby for the first time and realizing she wanted her all along. Some subtlety from the supervisor wouldn't be unwelcome. Ward tries to assure her that S.H.I.E.L.D. won't abandon her, but Skye cuts him off and tells him it doesn't matter. "I've made my choice. I want this… bad." The camera pans out as Skye adds that she knows there's a truth serum, and despite its flaws this is a stronger dramatic effort than the "Yay, team" offering of last week. I'm impatient for this show to work out the kinks and for the network to trust it to be smarter, but despite my criticisms I think it's doing all right. See you week.
Oh wait, I forgot! In the depths of whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. location this is, a huge safe door is closed on the gravitonium -- but inside, a hand reaches out from within the substance. When Graviton makes his way out of the vault, that's going to be a shock for the S.H.I.E.L.D. custodial staff.
John Ramos is a writer and film producer living in Los Angeles. His new film, a documentary on online privacy and the exploitation of personal data called Terms And Conditions May Apply, a New York Times Critics' Pick, is now on iTunes here. You can get news on it from the film's Twitter accountor website, or check out trackoff.us to learn how to protect your privacy. Also, you can email John at couchbaron@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/couchbaron, or check out his blog, "Pull Up A Chair," which he'd just love for you to stop by.
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