Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “0-8-4”

Season One, Episode Two

Grade: B

—

We pick up where we left off from the pilot with a 0-8-4, which Agent Coulson admits that he doesn’t even know what that means. They wind up in Peru to investigate a Tesseract-powered Hydra weapon and Coulson runs into an old flame who is now an officer of the Peruvian military.

The second episode of this series greatly concentrates on the team and how they attempt to settle their differences and work together to resolve a common enemy. The two who certainly don’t get along are Agent Ward and Skye. Ward believes Skye is a risk and an unnecessary danger, but Coulson sees something in her that overrides Ward’s concerns. Meanwhile, the geek-team of Fitz and Simmons continue their fast-paced bickering. One of the cheesy things I could’ve done without was Agent Ward asking them to speak in English when he couldn’t understand their scientific terms. Like we never heard that before.

Since this episode is about the interaction of our main characters, let’s take a closer look at them. Chloe Bennet’s Skye is the fresh-face and the newcomer to S.H.I.E.L.D., though from the conclusion of the episode it seems like her allegiance is still muddled a bit. Though I still believe Bennet is a good choice for Skye, she’s struggling slightly keeping up with the whole hacker persona while cracking some sarcastic jokes here and there. Brett Dalton’s Agent Ward is the one who’s bothering me the most. He’s coming off as very unlikeable, though it’s clear the show’s trying to establish some kind of possible romance between him and Skye. I get he’s this macho super-agent, but let’s give him more of a personality than one who struggles with big words.

Once again, the tandem of Fitz and Simmons are good, though they slightly overstep their welcome here. Hopefully this isn’t the start of their presence being on the side of annoying rather than quirky/funny. Ming-Na Wen really has it easy playing the silent but deadly legendary agent, and Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson can do this series without even trying. Can all of these pieces come together? Without the glitz of superheroes and super powers, S.H.I.E.L.D. will depend on the chemistry of the team and the methods they use to keep piece on Earth. For the time being, it’s good enough to keep up with.