Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back for a second episode but is it worth sticking around for the third?
By Trevor Dueck — Staff Writer
Here is my quick recap and review of episode 2 “0-8-4” for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show began with a bang as an explosion happened on the pimped out S.H.I.E.L.D. plane which created a large hole that nearly caused Agent Coulson to be sucked out of the plane mid-flight. Before we could find out what happened, we realize it was a flash forward and the show goes back hours before the shit hit the fan.
This week our band of S.H.I.E.L.D. misfits were off to Peru to investigate a “0-8-4” which we find out that means “they have no freakn’ clue” and the last time Coulson went out on one of these special missions he found Thor’s hammer. If you don’t know what Agent Coulson is talking about watch Iron Man 2 and wait for after the credits.
Skye, who is a hacker and continues to be easy on the eyes, is brought into the gang as a “consultant.” Have you noticed that for a woman who lives in a van she has great clothes and her hair never gets messy. Crazy.
Agent Ward is not thrilled with the consultant idea because she is so good looking. Oh and he mentioned something about her being untrained, unreliable, and unnecessary…there were a lot of “uns.” I think he has a crush because that is what happens in TV shows when you have two good looking people who aren’t happy with each other to start the series. It’s usually the formula.
No matter how much Ward complains, Coulson acts rather uninterested. He spends the majority of this episode and so far the series as being rather indifferent…what did “Tahiti” do to this man?
They call the S.H.I.E.L.D. super airplane “The Bus.” They arrive in Peru at the mission site and find that there is some strange device attached to a wall in a Peruvian temple. Well of course the Peruvian army shows up led by a super model, who cares what her name is. They immediately start shooting at the S.H.I.E.L.D. crew. What happens if that was just National Geographic or a friendly bus of Asian tourists? Shoot first and ask questions later I guess.
We find out Coulson and the super hot Peruvian model..er commander, knew each other from a previous mission years earlier. They appear to be good friends. They most likely shagged in the yesteryear. Meanwhile inside of the temple, the bickering science kids Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz, or the “Fitzsimmons” did a few little gadget type tests, spoke in techno’ese and identified the strange glowing blue object in the wall as something that was of German origin…probably something to do with Nazis. Before they could get more into it, right on cue, the team and army are attacked by a handful of Peruvian rebels.![tumblr_mtse1l9rj71rw6hzpo7_1280](?srun="https://nerdcoremovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/tumblr_mtse1l9rj71rw6hzpo7_1280.jpg")
Agent May and Ward take on the rebels and kick some ass. Along with the S.H.I.E.L.D. crew, the Peruvian army members led by “captain hottie,” end up escaping and board “The Bus.” Everything seemed normal including the bickering amongst the S.H.I.E.L.D. members. However, all of that was cut short after they found out that the dangerous weapon they brought onto their plane was identified as a piece of equipment that acts in a similar manner to that of the “Tesseract.” If you don’t know what that is, it’s similar to the alien device that was featured heavily in ”Captain America.” Basically it’s an extremely powerful weapon that emits a large amount of gamma radiation. It would probably blow a hole right through the plane…foreshadowing? The real question is what was a Nazi World War II weapon doing in an Incan pyramid?
Of course the Peruvian army was not on the plane to be friends with the S.H.I.E.L.D. crew but to steal the weapon and take it as their own. The sexy army leader went on about using it to help her country or something?
Next thing you know Coulson is tied up by the Peruvian babe, and why not. The rest of the team is also tied up by the military. The plane gets hijacked and it appears the army has the upper hand. After an explosion or two, a scuffle, and rubber dingy, our heroes are triumphant finally beginning to show that they can all come together. There is a moral lesson here – it takes teamwork to get things done properly. It proves to Coulson that he made the right choice in handpicking everyone for his S.H.I.E.L.D. team. Aww…Full House moment.
The episode ends with the whole crew sitting on the hangar drinking beers. Some of them do not look over the age of 21, someone should really check their ID. It is revealed that Skye hasn’t exactly dropped her work with the “The Rising Tide” organization. So we now know that Skye is working as a double agent. Maybe Ward was right…we can’t trust her. Duh. I expect that will change once she sees the good in her teammates. You know how it goes.
Just when we think the episode is over we wait for the ending of the credits. Why? because Marvel and ABC mentioned there was going to be a cameo. It was pretty easy to figure out days ahead of time that it was going to be Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson. I mentioned in my episode one recap that I expected for him to have a cameo at some point and there he was. Fury gave Coulson crap for destroying the plane and their little banter between each other was fun. I really don’t know what the point was, but this was a way they could bring Fury into the fray.
That was an okay episode. The show is still working on getting it’s legs. Yes some things are a tad over CGI’ed like the plane. I really hope that they stop with the references to Thor and Iron Man. I read somewhere that this could be a great idea for a drinking game.
Honestly, the show should be able to stand alone without continuing to make past Marvel movie references. I’m curious if at some point the S.H.I.E.L.D. team ends up going somewhere other than a country on planet earth. What about Asgard? I expect things to get weirder. With only being two episodes in, I’m not sure how each of these storylines connect yet, but I’m sure it will make sense…I hope.
Overall I’m not going to say the show is bad or good. I’m sort of indifferent at this time, but we will see if it gets claws into me. So far, I find the stories to be pretty simplistic and rushed, I also find the character development to be pretty cliche. I’m not taking any of that seriously because we are dealing with a comic book TV show. It’s all supposed to be a tad campy and family friendly. It’s Disney after all.
