Written by: Lauren LeFranc and Rafe Judkins
Directed by: Paul Edwards
Plot: Hot on the trail of the Clairvoyant, Coulson and his team board a mystery train that seems to be headed for certain death.
Review (SPOILERS!!): I don’t know about you guys…but I LOVED this episode.
If you’re one of the people who still hates this show, you might accuse me of Stockholm Syndrome since I’ve dedicated myself to seeing every episode and reviewing it….but no.
I honestly thought this was a pretty damn good episode. Might even be one of my personal favorites.
One of the things that started picking this episode up for me was how they laid it out. Once I started figuring out how they were going to structure this episode (we basically flash back to different point of views, using the commercial breaks as a way to jump back and fourth in the narrative.) it became a great deal of fun seeing what happened to each character.
There were legitimately GREAT twists in the story (the answer of what the grenade does and how the train disappeared was excellent) and each character got to shine in their own different way in this episode.
From Simmons over planning her undercover persona, Sykes terrible Scottish accent and Fitz pretty decent American accent, everyone got a great bit in the beginning of the episode (The shows longest cold opening yet, going all the way till the 9 minute mark before we even got the title card.)
This episode also contains my favorite Melinda May fight in the entire series. It’s not that the fight scene was well shot or choreographed, but it was because it was character based. I finally saw May loose her step and get one upped for once. May has always been portrayed to be a nonstop terminator like presence in the show, so to see her actually get knocked down, and to be challenge, even for a bit, was worth it. She was not prepared, and that pissed her off, and I dug seeing her struggle and learn how to get out her situation.
Flat out favorite moment is, HANDS DOWN, the scene in which Ward and Coulson are trying to figure out how to use the fancy hologram desk. I love seeing my heroes get a small bit of humanity by showing them to be totally lost in a very humorous scene. It’s moments like these that does reminds me that the show is a Mutant Enemy show, and that this does have SOME of Joss Whedons’s flair, even if he’s not really working on it as much. (Also, love the reference to the Abomination in this scene.)
Sadly, the much anticipated inclusion of Deathlok was….disappointing. I mean, how could it not? Marvel/ABC/SOMEONE decided to let the cat out of the bag early, and I think that did them a disservice in this episode. The reveal of how Mike Peterson is “Deathlok” was in the end tag, and had they not told us about it so early, that would have been a great “HOLY SHIT” moment in the show for the fanboys. A true Marvel Movie moment that the studio is so good at doing with their films. Instead, thanks to the way they announced it, they made it seem like J. August Richards was going to come out looking something like this in the end….
BUT, he did not.
Not to knock down the storyline they are using Mike Peterson though, because it IS really good, and incredibly tragic. Looking forward to seeing how that turns out…and hoping that Mike EVENTUALLY looks like Deathlok.
Of course, the big dramatic moment came when Skye gets shot, and I pretty much thought she was done. This IS a Mutant Enemy show…but, need I forget this is actually a Marvel show, and there just happens to a magic/sciencey tube near her. So no Skye haters, she’s still around.
We’ll see were this leads us. Seriously, I think this episode was working for me on all cylinders. The pacing, the action, the character moments (both comedic and dramatic) the continuing development of the ongoing plot, and much more.
This episode continues to show that they are truly picking up steam in the second half of the season. Yes, we ALL wish they figured this out earlier, but better late then never. It may not be my favorite show of all time, but I can honestly say that it’s becoming a show that I am enjoying as oppose to tolerating.
SIDENOTE FOLKS: The next episode won’t be out till MARCH 4TH!! That’s a whole month from now! See you guys then.