Recap: Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 Episode 18 “Frenemy of My Enemy”
John F. Trent
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The episode jumps us right into the action with a nifty chase sequence. Somehow Fitz was able to escape the bathroom, but he has been unable to lose his tail. A chase ensues as Fitz dashes down a street and into a parking garage. He slips out of sight upon reaching the top level and his pursuer is dumbfounded when all he sees is an empty lot. He begins to move forward but, Surprise!, he runs into a cloaked quinjet, hitting his butt hard on the pavement. It is a great hook that lets you settle in for the rest of the show.
Following Fitz’s rescue, more Avengers: Age of Ultron tidbits are divulged when Baron von Strucker is identified as one of the two remaining heads of Hydra, along with a man named List. Strucker’s importance is his focus on powered humans and if you’ve seen the end credits of Captain America: Winter Soldier, you should know by now he has Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in his possession.
Strucker is not seen in this episode, but I suspect he will make an appearance in the next episode as the show continues to move towards Avengers: Age of Ultron. Instead of Strucker, the focus is on List who has been capturing Inhumans, but failing to achieve his goals by identifying a quantum entanglement structure found within them. More on this later.
The show begins with four disparate storylines, but eventually brings them together in a convergence. After a rather pointless conversation between Jiaying and Kal, where Jiaying decides to ship Kal off to Milwaukee, Skye intervenes. She volunteers to take the trip with Kal in order to soften the blow and reduce potential casualties from Kal going into rage mode. The conversations with Kal are nauseating. He continues to visualize a perfect world where he has Skye and Jiaying at his side, he is still practicing medicine, and life is hunky-dory. These conversations drag on and on. Eventually, Skye decides to break the bad news that she is leaving him in Milwaukee. Her plan backfires and Kal goes into rage mode. Luckily, Hydra shows up and he takes his rage out on them. Unless something drastic happens to his character, it is probably best for him to enter the Elysian Fields if you know what I am saying.
The second storyline centers on Coulson and his meager forces of Deathlok, Hunter, and Fitz. He does augment his arsenal when he makes a deal with Grant Ward to help him infiltrate Hydra in exchange for Ward going through the T.A.H.I.T.I. project. Apparently, the project is up and running again! I guess Coulson found another Kree body to extract their bodily fluids or maybe he is only referring to the Memory Overwriting Machine, which was supposedly destroyed along with the Guest House. That’s enough opinion let’s get back to the recap. Ward agrees and delivers the brainwashed Sunil Bakshi to Coulson.
Coulson uses Bakshi to gain access to Dr. List in the hope he leads them to Strucker. However, the plan goes awry when Dr. List diverts his resources to track down another quantum event. He explains the quantum entanglement event as a person having the ability to be in two places at once. Coulson and Fitz realize he is talking about Gordon, although they just refer to him as the teleporter. Dr. List decides to test Bakshi’s loyalty by sending him and Deahtlok to retrieve the individual who is causing the occurrences. This leads to a huge amount of distrust between Ward and Agent 33 and Coulson’s team. However, they get over it when Coulson lets slip everything they are doing involves Skye. Coulson’s team decides to follow Dr. List as he makes his way towards Milwaukee.
Now that we have identified the first three storylines, you are wondering what the fourth one is, right? Probably not. You most likely know it is what I refer to as the “new” S.H.I.E.L.D. Bobbi, Mack, Jemma, and May are working together. Jemma is not happy about it. Believing she can trust Agent May, Jemma reveals to her that she made a replica of Fury’s toolbox and gave the real one to Fitz. May betrays this trust and informs Bobbi of the situation. Bobbi tasks Jemma with hacking Deathlok’s visuals while Bobbi and Mack head to Milwaukee after receiving a phone call from Skye.
The first three storylines converge at the same time. Hydra, led by Bakshi, sends in a squad to take over the building. There is plenty of action. Kal unleashes his rage killing a number of Hydra, while Lincoln, who had been following Skye and Kal under Jiaying’s orders, engages in combat with Deathlok. Skye attempts to flee the scene and just as she makes contact with Coulson, Gordon appears to teleport her to safety. Bakshi, apparently having fought off the brainwashing, captures Deathlok and Lincoln with some kind of concussion grenade. During the melee, Jemma is able to hack into Deathlok’s audio/visuals. The first image is Coulson and Ward standing above Deathlok, working together.
After the ensuing battle, Coulson’s team flees as Hydra cleans up the scene. Coulson doubles back and awaits the entrance of Bobbi and Mack, knowing full well Jemma hacked Deathlok and knows their location. To “new” S.H.I.E.L.D.’s surprise, Coulson surrenders with a classic one-liner, “Take me to your leader.”
There are quite a few character developments, or you might call some of them reversions. Bobbi begins to question the motives of “new” S.H.I.E.L.D. She wonders why they are chasing Coulson, instead of the real threat, Hydra. While Grant Ward assumes his role as Coulson’s deadliest agent, going so far as to defer judgment to him stating, “It’s your call boss.”
Missing in this episode was Raina. After revealing she may have precognitive abilities, we only get a brief discussion between Gordon and Jiaying about there being no records of other Inhumans with precognitive abilities. We were hoping to learn a little bit more about Raina’s progression and her ability.
I have some questions regarding the episode. Since Gordon came back to save Skye, why didn’t he save Lincoln as well? What is going on with Agent May? Her drastic change in character is somewhat concerning. How many more episodes do we have to put up with Kal? What are your bets on when he bites the bullet?
Well that’s what you missed this week on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Let us know what you thought of the episode in the comments below and check out a clip from the upcoming episode, “The Dirty Half Dozen”
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