11.26.2013

Television: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., "Repairs"

Well, that answers that question. Yes, May and Ward "hooked up."

Meanwhile, a woman named Hannah Hutchins has seemingly developed some kind of telekinesis after a particle acceleration accident that killed four people. S.H.I.E.L.D. comes by to pick her up when the people in her hometown become an angry mob. They blame her for the accident because she was safety inspector at the site.

And Fitz and Simmons start hazing Skye because she never went through S.H.I.E.L.D. school or academy or whatever the hell they run. They feed her lies about why May is known as "The Cavalry" and fuss at her for touching their holograms because she hasn't had two years of training like they have.

Hutchins tells May and Coulson that she's not doing all the telekinetic stuff; it's demons. They're haunting her. Skye wants to talk to her, make her feel better, but Coulson deems it too dangerous since Hutchins is unable to control these powers, is unwilling to even admit to them.

Cue the "ghost" of one of the guys who died, a man named Tobias Ford who had filed three safety complaints against Hutchins' department. He now seems to be existing in a subatomic form that comes together and disperses, and he is perhaps the "demon" (or one of them) that Hutchins is talking about. He comes into the lab to terrorize Simmons a bit as she discovers something interesting about the particle accelerator explosion.

And then the power on the plane goes out and the plane starts to nosedive. May and Ward bring it down safely. In the middle of nowhere. It's the S.H.I.E.L.D. version of the horror movie where the car breaks down on a dark dirt road. We even get the guy with the knife walking down the dark hallway, and the broken radio so there is no hope of help.

How does anyone in the Marvel universe continue to believe in a Biblical God when aliens are known to exist? Godlike aliens, even. But no, you know, "Almighty God."

As for our "ghost" he seems to be more like Nightcrawler in the way he appears and disappears. And he's really, really angry. About all the safety violations?

Coulson gives Skye the true story about May, which in short is: "No one knows what happened." She went in one way to save some people and came out changed. No gun, and certainly no horse.

And now May has taken Hutchins off the plane. She wants to use Hutchins as bait to draw the "ghost" off the Bus.

And then Skye realizes Tobias Ford wasn't trying to cause trouble for Hannah Hutchins; he had a crush on her. Which is why he kept finding reasons to file with her office and come see her or have her on site. And also why he's haunting her now. He's trying to protect her because he thinks S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to hurt her.

Ford admits he loosened some bolts on the accelerator in order to see Hutchins. Unfortunately, it caused the big accident and Hutchins got the blame. Ford died . . . Kind of. May tells him he has to let go. And he does.

Because no one doesn't do what May tells them.

Not even a ghost guy caught between the known world and whatever hell he thinks awaits him.

I kind of wish they'd taken the pranks further in this episode, since on the whole it was kind of dark and maudlin and could have done with a bit more levity. And I'm not 100% content with this backstory for May. Nor am I 100% sold on the "ghost" thing when it would be completely within the purvey of the show to pseudo-science their way into an explanation. But whatever. It was what it was. Which is to say, it was an okay episode but not great.

1 comment:

Christine Rains said...

I think they could've done a lot more with the episode. And I wasn't happy with May's backstory either. I still watch the show, but I half watch it when I do.