Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 122 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT An Alien's Forcibly Taken Blood And Other Drugs
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 14 | Aired on 03.04.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.So as we remember despite the fact that the show last aired a new episode in the Mesozoic Age, Skye's life is hanging in the balance. The team gets her to a S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility, but when the news comes that Skye, due to irreparable damage to her intestines, is going to die, May beats Quinn to a pulp until Coulson stops her – he wants to get the doctors who brought him back from the dead to do the same for his surrogate daughter. To that end, as they head to Bethesda, where his own treatment allegedly happened, he defies an order to bring Quinn to the Fridge and bucks clearance protocol by letting the rest of the team in on the truth about what happened to him after the Loki attack.
This results in them being boarded by Agent BILL PAXTON, who's also been after Quinn for ages. Coulson, however, uses his shared history with Agent Bill Paxton – who by the way was also Ward's CO back in the day -- to convince him to interrogate Quinn aboard the plane as they head to Bethesda, especially since Agent Bill Paxton also wants Skye alive for any Quinn-related information she might have. Agent Bill Paxton then interrogates Quinn about the Deathlok program, but the first thing Quinn gives up of note is that the Clairvoyant told him to shoot Skye – and he's been guiding Quinn to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s detriment for quite some time. However, Quinn goes on that the Clairvoyant still can't see what happened to Coulson – so he had Quinn shoot Skye in the hope that Coulson would do the very thing he's doing in trying to save her.
Fitz/Simmons wonder about the ethics of using the horrible Coulson treatments on Skye, but they soon have bigger problems, as it turns out the doctors listed in the file as having treated Coulson don't exist as listed, and Streiten, the only one they actually know about, has vanished. The team has a little confab in which they present the difficulties to Coulson: Even Fitz/Simmons don't understand everything in the files; they don't know where the treatments actually happened; and possibly most importantly, they're not sure they should put Skye through the same pain Coulson endured. Coulson, however, won't be deterred, so Fitz uses Technology to access a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D. records, and before you know it, they're at the "Guest House," which apparently holds a wonder drug they're looking for. Once inside, they get into a little firefight, after which they learn the place is rigged to self-destruct, so while Agent Bill Paxton looks for a way to get them out, Coulson and Fitz locate the treatment. Coulson lingers, however, to try to get some answers, so Agent Bill Paxton goes back for him while Fitz and Ward deliver the drug. Seeming almost in a trance, Coulson desperately tells Agent Bill Paxton that they can't give Skye the drug, but when they escape the Guest House just ahead of it exploding, they find it's too late – Simmons has already injected a just-about-dead Skye with it. She has a severe initial reaction but stabilizes, and it doesn't seem like Coulson remembers what he said down below, so Agent Bill Paxton happily hauls Quinn off to the Fridge.
But in the end, although he doesn't reveal it to May, we learn why Coulson didn't want the drug to be used on Skye; it wasn't out of concern for her, but because of his discovery that it was being drawn, it seems, from a captive blue-skinned alien in a medical tank missing the bottom half of its body, and I don't know if there's a clear indication from the Marvel mythology of what the creature is, or was, but the question could certainly take us to some interesting places. Also, in Death Valley, the redheaded Asgardian woman named Lorelei shows up talking about Midgard, and even if the previouslies hadn't confirmed it this could only mean the casting spoiler I've been most psyched about is coming next week.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!In what will soon be revealed to be Zurich, the team has gotten Skye to a S.H.I.E.L.D. trauma unit within two hours of her taking Quinn's bullets, and after a quick and standard montage of her intake and prep, we cut to a waiting room, in which the rest of the team waits nervously and silently as Coulson tries and fails to get Fury on the phone. Fitz then berates himself for not stopping Skye going in after Quinn, but Simmons won't hear such talk, and Ward adds that it wasn't his fault; he takes the blame as her SO, but the pointed look he gives to Coulson's back suggests his actual assessment of responsibility. May, however, sensibly and firmly pipes up that the one to blame is Quinn -- the one who actually pulled the trigger -- and then Coulson fairly lividly gets off the phone and stomps out. I thought the other guy's name was Fury!
Sometime later, everyone is doing waiting room things like drinking coffee and trying not to fall asleep when a doctor emerges and grimly announces that the bullets perforated Skye's stomach penetrated both her intestines. And, as May and Ward both look severely stricken, she concludes that there's no hope and that they need to call Skye's family. Coulson desperately replies that they are her family, but there's no relief coming: "In that case, I'm very sorry." Everyone slowly sits back down, distraught – save May, who marches into the plane's interrogation room on a tidal wave of rage and beats the smug right off Quinn's face (while, by the way, he's still cuffed to the desk) until Coulson calls her off and into his office. May agitatedly seethes that Quinn, not Skye, deserves to die, and Coulson hardly disagrees but tells her right now he needs her to pilot the plane. May reminds him that the doctor can't do anything, but Coulson's like, "True, that's why we're going to hit up the doctors who saved me." I'd remind him that he begged them to let him die for like days on end, but if I remember right other people are going to do a good enough job for me.
After a huge forklift loads Skye's entire medical cube onto the plane, Ward reports that Big S.H.I.E.L.D. has ordered them to hand over Quinn and transport to the Fridge. Coulson, however, is like, denied on both counts, so Ward asks him if he's sure about taking Skye all the way to Bethesda. It's an oddly phrased question (if it's the only place to treat her, who cares how far away it is) but I suppose Ward could be getting at the idea that Skye might die on the way and then Coulson's defiance of his orders would be for nothing. Doesn't seem likely, though. It's probably just to set Coulson up to tell us that his file says he was treated in Bethesda. Ward starts to say that he knows S.H.I.E.L.D. saved him there, but Coulson cuts him off: "They did a lot more than save me. It's time you know the truth." Indeed!