Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. starts this week with a scene showing the brainwashing of an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent by Hydra. We then get our first real look at Simmons, and what she is doing now that she has left the team behind. Simmons is shown going to work in a lab with a happy look on her face and after a conversation with her supervisor, the camera shows a Hydra logo on the wall in front of her work station. The next set of scenes show Skye doing target practice on Hydra targets, a nice connection with the apparent betrayal of Simmons. We then see two agents try to apprehend Donnie Gill, who contracted powers of ice in earlier episodes. He kills two men and escapes going after the people targeting him.
Coulson breaks into Simmons’ apartment, who has apparently been a spy for Coulson against Hydra. Simmons tells Coulson that she has been doing research for Hydra on Donnie Gill, who Coulson believes Hydra is recruiting as a weapon. Ward tells Skye that Hydra will either recruit and convert Gill or take him out as a threat. Simmons is called into security for questioning at the Hydra base she is working at, because she failed to inform them that she knew Gill from her time at S.H.I.E.L.D. She is then questioned about her loyalties, and the rest of her time at S.H.I.E.L.D. Gill freezes in the ship that deployed the agents to detain him, and this alerts both Coulson and Hydra to his location. Coulson sends in the team, and Hydra does likewise in what appears to be a race to Gill. Simmons is forced, along with Hydra.
Once the team heads out to try and reach Gill, Fitz goes looking for answers at the team base. He enters Ward’s holding cell and is taken back by his finding the man that tried to kill him. Ward tries to reason with Fitz that he was trying to save him, and that he was ordered to put a bullet in his and Simmons’ head but instead left them with a fighting chance. Fitz reacts by depleting the oxygen in Ward’s cell to make him suffer the same way he did trying to save Simmons. Once Ward figures out the team went after Gill, he tells Fitz that they do not know what they have gotten into.
On board the ship, Simmons has been sent in by Hydra alone to try and gain Gill’s trust for them. Fitz informs Coulson that Gill has already been recruited by Hydra, and that they are trying to retrigger his brainwashing, and that he is extremely dangerous. Coulson orders Hunter to take out the Hydra agent talking to Gill not realizing that it is Simmons. May intervenes after recognizing Simmons by shooting Hunter in his vest to prevent him from taking the shot on Simmons. Hydra successfully returns Gill to his brainwashed state and orders him to kill May and Hunter. Skye takes the shot on Gill and sends him over the edge with a gunshot wound to his chest.
In the closing scenes, we see Coulson come to Fitz and explain a lot of his actions in a very Nick Fury way of saying a lot of words but nothing important. Skye goes to Ward, who drops this season’s first bombshell and tells her that not only is her dad still alive, but that he is searching for her. Agent 33, who was in the first scene being brainwashed, is now fully converted and working for Hydra. The good thing is that next week we get to see Coulson and May tango, literally.
This week was a fast paced episode that reintroduced Blizzard as a villain and while it is clear he was shot, we do see his body freezing over in the water as if he is healing himself. Skye is progressing as an agent, but has her most sensitive subject hit with an eight pound hammer by Ward that may see her struggle in the next few weeks to remain professional. Fitz is making clear progress each episode, and when he was yelling at Ward, it seemed to pull himself together better than he has been before. Coulson plays the role of the director very well and is much more of an asset to the show when he has an air of mystery around him instead of being Fury’s lost, little puppy. Also, just to add on to expectations, Robert Downey Jr. said that the show he most wants to cameo is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. That would break television for sure.
Episode Rating: 7
