Review: Marvel's Agents of SHIELD 2.12 – Who You Really Are

“We’ve worked together before.  See, here are the promotional photos from the last crossover.”

This week opens on the totally surprising cameo of Sif!  In a budget friendly leather jacket!  At least it is a total surprise to me, Hulu doesn’t have previews and I guess it hasn’t been that big a deal online but I’m always happy to see Sif.  Along with Sif we get our first exposure to the Kree.  Could this mean a possible introduction to Captain Marvel sometime down the road?  With the establishment of Terrigen gas/Inhumans could we see Kamala Ms. Marvel?  A final, random, observation before we get into the review proper: Agent May tells Sif that they’ve met Odin.  What!?!  When!?! Before or after The Dark World!?!  THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!  ANSWER MY QUESTIONS PRE-RECORDED TV SHOW!

For a show that usually hangs on to its mysteries, milking them for all their worth, they really hotshot the whole Skye/Fitz conspiracy.  It comes to a head by the end of this episode while the whole Mockingbird/Mac conspiracy gets cleared up a little.  We know they aren’t Hydra, at least they imply they aren’t Hyrda, what they could be is still up in the air.  Personally I think it’s some kind of pro-registration deal, an internal, more hardline organization looking to displace Coulson’s more meta-friendly one.  I also think they’re turning Mac into New Warrior Rage.  Which, if true, might lead to the start of Captain America 3: Civil War when fellow New Warrior Speedball gets blow’d up.  Who knows what their take will be on it, if instead of the New Warriors being a group a doofy kids in a reality show maybe they’ll be a public meta strike force.  Anyway, who knows, I just think it’s fun to speculate.  Which is probably why I like this show so much, it leaves a lot of room for speculation.

Being a superfan of this show I enjoyed it.  I thought the action beats were good, I thought the character interaction was good, especially one of the final moments between Fitz and Jemma and I liked what was built upon there.  I also like that Coulson calls his big Loki-buster gun ‘Bambino’.  The show does drift into melodrama at points but that is the language of stories like this.  I don’t know how they could eliminate that without it coming off as flat.  One thing that bothered me was that they pull the Thesaurus out and call Skye every word but Inhuman that still means inhuman.  I wish they’d just own the word already.

Ultimately the show works for me.  It answers questions as it asks new ones and pulls me along the narrative thread.  I want to know what happens next, how these relationships will change, how the story will change.  Will Skye end up joining the Inhumans?  What is this conspiracy that’s going on?  Apparently it’s so important Mac would rather choke a bitch out than talk about it.  How will this play into the next movies?  How will the next movies affect this show?  There are a lot of plans in motion and a lot of players on the field and I’m looking forward to seeing how they all come together.

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Score: 3/5

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Marvel's Agents of Shield 2.12

New episodes of Marvel's Agents of Shield - Tuesdays 9/8C