Eye Spy a show starting to hit its stride. Also, "Eye Spy" second chances. Everyone gets one, according to A.C. Well, not everyone, but people A.C. thinks deserves one. And A.C.'s a good judge of character. All right, enough of "A.C." It's too cool for me to use; best to leave it as Skye's nickname for Phil. Just stick to Agent Coulson from now on. "Eye Spy" is literally about a spy with a robot eye, after Coulson and May make a big deal about shooting down the existence of telepathy or ESP in the Marvel Studios Universe. (Skye understandably doesn't get why when aliens and wormholes and all those other crazy things exist.) But it should be noted that outside of Thor, a "god", and his "magic" - and Thor himself explained to Natalie Portman that he comes from a place where magic and science are one and the same - Marvel Studios and now Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. go to lengths to explain how the superpowers appearing in this universe are science-based. Even, it looks like, the flaming throwing Asian man who pops up next week. Is that Sunfire??
Coulson picks this week's op for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to tackle after a million red masked man march in Stockholm ends with a subway car of dead masked bodies and a stolen briefcase containing $30-million in diamonds. Boy, were their faces red. Coulson's investigation points to his former protege Akela Amador, a former Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. herself once thought dead after an op years ago went sideways. She's reappeared as a super spy/thief/assassin under the thrall of a shadowy organization that shall as of yet remain nameless. She was given a night vision-equipped robotic eye that lets her handler, a stout, mysterious British man, see through her eye and levy instructions. May and Ward directly challenge Coulson on his belief that Amador must be brought in alive and even helped instead of taken out, but when they discover Amador is merely a puppet being used, even they relent and allow Coulson his will. Skye is on Phil's side; she has some sweet moments with A.C. about how much he values her and how cool he is. Plus Coulson "lives outside the box". Although Skye lives on The Bus. So. Uh. Carry on?
May, having volunteered for combat last week, finally gets unleashed. When she is able to identify Amador's location, May sends in The Cavalry to Amador's hotel room for a bad ass girl fight. When the lights go out, Coulson makes the save and drops Amador with Fitz's new invention, the Night Night Gun (which really shouldn't be its name, according to Ward. Ward in turn names the S.H.I.E.L.D. van the Short Bus, and Coulson doesn't like that either.) For Coulson and Ward, it's probably a little dismaying to learn they can't leave Skye and Fitz-Simmons alone in the Short Bus and trust them not to break radio silence asking for restroom breaks or snacks or not to have the Short Bus rammed off a cliff by Amador so that they are all nearly killed (but no, miraculously, they're all perfectly fine).
The final gambit is for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to send Ward, with Skye as his extra eyes, off to fulfill Amador's original mission to penetrate a Russian stronghold and photograph a mysterious set of blueprints to what could be an alien weapon of some sort. The Ward and Skye Marvel Team Up generates plenty of laughs, especially when Ward is ordered by Amador's handler to "seduce" a burly Russian guard. The weakness of this entire enterprise is how Amador's handler didn't know it wasn't Amador. Ward is probably a foot taller than Amador and surely that would have been noticeable long before Ward accidentally saw his own reflection in a mirror. Meanwhile, Fitz and Simmons perform ocular surgery, complete with squishy sounds, on Amador, mostly with Amador's help. They do manage to remove the robot eye and drop it into one of those containers the Ghostbusters use for ghosts like Slimer before it exploded or whatever happened to it.
Skye is beyond useful this week with her hacktivism - without her, pretty much none of this op could have been pulled off. Hacking is her strong suit; using a gun without dropping the magazine is not. (She also yells "BANG!" when shooting a gun, but Ward, "BANG!" has authority. At least she doesn't say "Ptew! Ptew!") Professionalism is also not Skye's strong suit, when it comes to having X-ray specs and not using them to look at Ward naked after a poker game with Fitz. Finally, we learn despite her bunk on The Bus, Skye likes to camp out for her Me Time in the big black ground transport because it reminds her of her van. As for Amador, she gets turned over to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a promised "fair trial", after becoming the second African American on this show to need an eye patch. However, Amador, who can't help but compare the Coulson she knew to the A.C. who rescued her, knows Coulson is different. "What did they do to him?" she asks a bewildered May. More importantly, what Vision (hmm?) did Amador's robot eye see in Coulson? She's not telling.
What I think I liked best about "Eye Spy" - besides when Amador turned golfballs into diamonds, which kind of one ups when Superman turned coal into diamonds with his bare hand - is the ending where Amador finally got to get some sleep. Sleep is important. Sleep is good. We should all get more sleep.
Last night, I tried to get some sleep and was awoken by this awesome, awesome tweet.
Originally posted by John Orquiola"Eye Spy" is literally about a spy with a robot eye, after Coulson and May make a big deal about shooting down the existence of telepathy or ESP in the Marvel Studios Universe.
And by extension, you can make the conclusion that mutants don't exist in the Marvel Studios Universe, which sounds crazy until you realize that the X-Men rights are probably staying with 20th Century Fox for years to come.
This episode was a joy to watch and is probably the best of the show's run so far. Everything stealthy and espionage just clicked and all of the characters were great in their roles. Even the Technobabble Twins are starting to become a little endearing.
This week's Coulson Clue:
May: He almost died before the Battle of New York. Amador: But what did they do to him?
Even Amador knows something's off and this line could add to the theory that Coulson's either resurrected from the dead or an android. Deals a minor blow to the clone theory.
Originally posted by Johnny OThe final gambit is for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to send Ward, with Skye as his extra eyes, off to fulfill Amador's original mission to penetrate a Russian stronghold and photograph a mysterious set of blueprints to what could be an alien weapon of some sort.
Alien weapon sounds almost too easy. That equation looks so complicated that I'm more convinced it's a rogue organization trying to replicate the Super Soldier formula.
Wouldn't a lack of mutants be required as the precursor to the Mutant Menace when they are revealed? Right now, the show plays SHIELD as a bit reactionary to this tech and alien power that is out there... the mutants are even more destabilizing because they can come from anywhere.
Although, I suppose the million dollar question is how will the mutant members of the Avengers be explained when they start showing up?
The idea for Ward serving as Amador's eye was fun, although wouldn't the right play have been for Ward to call Skye and let her handle the seduction? Agreed that the British handler should have caught that it wasn't Amador.
The ending of Amador falling asleep in her cell was well set up.
I wonder if the nameless organization was some offshoot of HYDRA? I get they are still setting stuff up, but it would have been nice to have been given a bone about the villain here.
Certainly looks that way. Interesting that they'd be digging into the X-Men roster, because...again...rights and licenses and all that.
(edited by It's False on 15.10.13 2112)
Sunfire is also part of the Avengers (sorta) I figure when they're part of both properties there's no stopping them from using them both (like Quicksilver in the upcoming movies)
As for origins, in the first episode they brought up the (un)registered gifted. I figure that's what they call the possible mutants and shrug when they have to explain their origins.
I actually liked last week's episode with Graviton a bit more than this one, but this is definitely the right direction for the show. If they're correcting the show's problems this early in the run, I'm curious to see what the episodes produced after the season extension was signed look like. At this point, the mystery organization opposing SHIELD is most likely either Hydra or AIM, although there are some other, less likely options. Personally, I'm hoping for AIM on the off chance that we get something batshit crazy like MODOK on our tv screens. The handler not noticing something was up when Ward hijacked the feed doesn't bother me at all, because the reveal was that he was also being controlled, so I figured he noticed something was up and just didn't care.
Back-to-back strong episodes, and I'm feeling confident in saying that this show is starting to get into the flow. It still feels like the cast is a bit incomplete, yet even that problem could be addressed down the road by adding Akela or J. August Richards' characters to the team (or Maria Hill once How I Met Your Mother has finished).
Originally posted by dMpSunfire is also part of the Avengers (sorta) I figure when they're part of both properties there's no stopping them from using them both (like Quicksilver in the upcoming movies)
That's interesting, I didn't realize that Quicksilver was in BOTH Avengers 2 and the new X-Men movie. While a number of mutants have been Avengers over the years, I'd reckon that QS and Scarlet Witch are the only ones who have an equal foot in both camps (Wolverine and Beast have significant Avengers history but obviously when you think of them, you think of them as X-Men first).
Could be a bit of an arms race to see who gets to 'claim' the most characters from the X-Universe. Marvel has the edge in this case since they have a weekly TV show, whereas FOX only has a movie every few years.
(edited by Big Bad on 16.10.13 1348) "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." --- Bart Giamatti, on baseball
this is the second time in four episodes that our team of normal White People And Asian Women has had to go out to track down a powerful but out-of-control black person. I can't for a moment imagine that anyone intends to in any way make a racial statement here...but how do they not see it? Now, yes, Nick Fury is black and is in charge of the whole thing, but we've seen him for, what, one minute of screen time? There just ought to be someone with dark skin in the main cast, and that needs to be addressed stat.
Eddie, yeah, he would have had Skye handle the seduction--except how does he go out of the building, transfer the eyeglasses and the swipe card to her, and then have her enter the building, without the handler getting suspicious. It would have taken too long.
Originally posted by Peter The HegemonI liked the episode quite a bit, but...
this is the second time in four episodes that our team of normal White People And Asian Women has had to go out to track down a powerful but out-of-control black person. I can't for a moment imagine that anyone intends to in any way make a racial statement here...but how do they not see it? Now, yes, Nick Fury is black and is in charge of the whole thing, but we've seen him for, what, one minute of screen time? There just ought to be someone with dark skin in the main cast, and that needs to be addressed stat.
The sad part is, they probably think they have the race thing handled, since it's not an all-white team. (Ming Na-When's character was supposed to be another white person, but she really nailed her audition.)
(Also, the person playing Skye is half-Cuban or Chinese or something.)
After falling in love with Agents of Shield, I have never wanted Disney to get the rights to X-Men more than ever since it's clear that Disney/ABC knows how to do a Marvel franchise WAY better than Fox could ever dream of doing.