As for the episode’s story, it is light on concrete threat and strong on character. While possibly the strongest character driven episode yet, sadly the enemy the Agents face is almost nonexistent. When Agents Ward and Fitz go on a mission behind enemy lines in some generic Russian setting to disable some sort of super weapon, Skye discovers that SHIELD has no plan or intention of extracting them alive. The show bounces nicely between the Agents’ mission and Skye’s discovery, and the pacing on both sides is pretty intense. While there’s a sense of imminent danger for Ward and Fitz there really is no attention paid to fill in viewers on what the actual danger is. It is evil Russian people who are having some sort of vague conflict with good Russian people that drink and watch European Football, but it all sort of gets lost. I’m sure there was some exposition on who’s who and what’s what, but it all seems like vague background noise. What is good is the budding relationship between Ward and Fitz as they both learn to respect each other’s skill sets as they race to complete their mission, plus Skye’s loyalty to her team as she sacrifices finding out information on her parents’ fate to find out the current location of Fitz and Ward. Now that we are a good seven episodes in, the character stuff is falling into place, and quite nicely. What this show needs is a villain, an actual threat that plagues the Agents fans are growing to love. Someone like The Governor from The Walkind Dead, whose very presence mean bad things for the protagonists. Everything the Agents have faced so far has been disposable and generic, even though there are countless Marvel baddies to choose from. The only ominous things that the crew have faced are the shadows of their own pasts. Coulson’s secretive return to life, the truth about Skye’s parents, the reasons May stopped being a field agent. All are interesting and worth exploring, but after seven episodes, there needs to be something or someone that feels like a threat rather than the assumption that fans will wade through throwaway villains to see mysteries solved. Marvel Moments: – Welcome to television Ms. Hand and Mr. Sitwell! – “Barton and Romanov don’t need extraction.” – Brace yourself Ultimates fans, as there’s a mention of the Triskelion.
