Agents of SHIELD Recap: “Love in the Time of Hydra”
The title refers to how I feel about Edward James Olmos, right?
This week’s episode of SHIELD brought the funny and the fucked-up in similar amounts this week, leaving me feeling a little excited, a little disturbed – but also, honestly, just a little bored.
Seriously, though, this episode was one of SHIELD‘s funniest ever. Writer Brent Fletcher has given us some of the show’s stronger showings, tonally (like season one’s “Girl in the Flower Dress”), and every time Talbot opened his mouth this week I found myself laughing out loud. Sassy Talbot is the best Talbot.
And hey; I asked for more May, I got more May! Ming-Na killed it this week (no surprise) playing both herself and Agent 33 as completely believable different characters. Someone get her a guest spot on Orphan Black, stat.
Brett Dalton continues to nail the perfectly psychotic Ward (though he insists he’s the picture of sanity), and I am eternally grateful to the SHIELD writers that they didn’t jump into a redemption arc for his character. One-dimensional Tough Guy Ward was way less fun to watch than “calmly describing how I killed my family to the Stockholm Syndrome’d pseudo-girlfriend I’m grooming” Ward. Never change.
But as much as I liked the character moments in this episode and the clever dialogue, I found myself a bit underwhelmed by the plot motion this week. Edward James Olmos is 100% flawless 100% of the time – but how am I supposed to root for him when he’s going up against Coulson? Eddie, what are you doing to me! It’s totally understandable that there would be a bunch of people who aren’t down with Coulson as SHIELD leader, but now we’ve got mini-SHIELD, Hydra-as-SHIELD, and SWORD-as-SHIELD all operating at the same time, and it’s getting to be a bit much. Plus, why does Bobbi even like him so much? I just hope that this subplot doesn’t mean we’re going to be losing Mack and Bobbi at the end of the season (nooo Mockingnerd, I hardly knew ye).
That being said, I’d rather a show with wonderfully-developed characters than one that’s too focused on constant forward momentum at the expense of the cast. But there’s got to be a way to find a better balance so the show doesn’t feel quite so stop-and-go all the time.
Oh, and some stuff happened to Skye, I guess, and Hunter made a Hufflepuff reference. Way to go, Hufflepuff!
PS Did anyone else squeal when they recognized Agent Weaver (aka Christine Adams) from the Jagrafess episode of Doctor Who? She just looks so bad-ass all the time, I love her.
PPS Sorry for the lack of fun images, friends; I’m rushing off to Emerald City Comicon today. But I promise my recaps will be back at full photo capacity next week!
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