Agents of SHIELD Episode 6 RETRO REVIEW

 By Mark Rodriguez

Originally written on November 5, 2013. Keep in mind these reviews were done way back when the show first aired, so we had no idea what future events or movies would bring. Also, before it was retconned away, at least at the moment, the Agents of SHIELD show was in canon with the movies.

It was kinda funny that we thought we 'missed' this episode since we went out for an all-you-can-eat wings event that was just that Tuesday. Luckily the episode was actually delayed a week. We never did find out why.

This episode opens in Wrigley PA, where some campers are telling each other scary stories over the campfire. One of the scoutmasters hears a humming sound and goes to investigate. The others hear screaming and the second scoutmaster rushes the kids to the car. Just then lighting hits. When the scouts go to see what happened, they see the scoutmaster dead and floating in mid-air.

On the SHIELD plan, Coulson is running the treadmill with Simmons looking over the results. He's been ordered to get himself checked out. Meanwhile Fitz hands over a gun to Grant and he complains about it being an ounce too heavy. After he leaves Fitz mocks him and it makes Skye laugh. Fitz tries to strike up a conversation, showing that he liked Skye. She wishes she had someone with a close connection as Fitz and Simmons have. Simmons comes in and tells Grant there was a round left in the gun that made it feel an ounce heavier. After he leaves, she also mocks Grant's overly macho attitude.

SHIELD shows up to investigate the campsite. The man's name was Adam Cross, and he is still floating. Simmons notices a strange mark on his forehead. When she touches him, she feels a small spark and the man drops to the ground.

Back to the plane Skye looks up anything she could dig on Cross, but he's clean. Melinda interrogates the camp kids but they know nothing. Simmons is checking Cross' brain for any clues. Fitz finds another signal matching what was detected at the campsite and the team goes to it. The trail leads them to a farmhouse where they find another floating victim. The evidence shows the man was scared and running from something, and he has the same marks on his forehead. Skye finds out that this man came from the same fire station that Cross did, so the victims knew each other. One of the firemen is seen with a Chitauri helmet, the aliens from the Avengers movie.

Simmons does more study on the victims and realizes that instead of entrance wounds, the marks on their foreheads were actually exit something. Something from inside was bursting out.

SHIELD shows up at the firehouse and start questioning the firemen there. These were men that were sent out to assist during the battle in New York. One of them, named Tony Diaz suddenly doesn't feel well and leaves. Coulson orders to cut him off and he confronts him in a room. Fitz detects the energy signal coming from the firehouse again.

Diaz explains he found the alien helmet and one day he decided to clean it up, along with the other two victims. He doesn't feel well and hears humming, and Coulson notices a floating pot near him. Simmons determines that the helmet has an alien virus. Coulson clears everyone out and stays with Diaz as he realizes he's about to die. Coulson tells him he's been there, for at least 8 seconds when he died, and he says the other side is beautiful. Coulson leaves as lightning flashes throughout the building.

Back at SHIELD, the agents are checked out and they're all clear while the firemen are quarantined. The helmet will be sent to The Sandbox and Simmons will find a cure. She later discovers that the virus spreads through electric shock upon contact. As she talks, Fitz notices floating metal objects behind her. She's been infected from the small shock she got when she touched Cross earlier.

Simmons is quarantined and she has to work on a cure. They determined she has about 2 hours before she suffers the same electric pulse that killed the other victims. The plane won't arrive at The Sandbox for 3 hours, so they risk Simmon's fatal electric burst also causing damage to the plane and killing everyone inside. Skye and Grant feel helpless in the situation.

Coulson gets orders from the higher ups to dump any infected cargo, and he pretends to have static on the signal and ignores that order. Fitz and Simmons try to work on a cure, and try it out on some mice in the room that are also infected. One of them dies from an electric burst and starts floating which shows that cure didn't work. Fitz and Simmons argue as they try to solve this before time runs out.

Simmons says she can't make antibodies because noone that has been infected every survived. Fitz determines the actual alien never died due to it, so runs to get the helmet and locks himself in the same room as Simmons. They scrape samples from off the helmet and work on a cure. Fitz tries out a new vaccine, but the mouse still dies from an electric burst. Simmons gives up and tells Coulson to say her goodbyes to her parents. She asks for a moment alone with Fitz, but then knocks him out and escapes.

Fitz wakes up a moment later and sees the mouse is now alive. The cure does work though it does produce a small spark at first. He realizes that Simmons has now decided to jump off the plane to save the others. Fitz runs to her but she already jumped off. He quickly gives Grant the cure and he jumps off after her with a parachute. In mid-air, Grant catches her and injects her with the cure, making her have a non-fatal electric spark. Once safe, Grant releases the parachute.

Later on Coulson is angry at Simmons for taking such a risk. He is glad she's safe though. Simmons confesses the gun from earlier didn't have a round in it, and Grant says he always knew since he felt it being an ounce heavier. He then mocks her imitation of him from earlier, making her laugh. Skye steps in and gives her a big hug, glad she's alright.

Coulson checks his medical report and Melinda catches him. He tells her that he requested the tests himself, and though he checks out fine, he still feels like something is off. He feels different. Melinda makes him unbutton his shirt, showing off the huge scar left from when Loki impaled him. She reminds him he died and came back, he's going to be different, but there's no use turning back, he can only go forward.

Fitz feels kinda bad since he wasn't the one to jump off and rescue Simmons in mid-air. Simmons tells him he might not have jumped out of the plane after her, but he was the one working in the lab with her and finding the cure, so he was the hero. She then kissed him on the cheek and walks off.

Coulson hands the alien helmet to Agent Blake, and he tells him he saw right through this 'static call' from earlier. He says if he continues to disobey direct orders, the higher ups might take away Coulson's team. Coulson says he'd like to see them try. Blake says he's not different. Coulson says they better get used to it.

My Opinions-

This was a cool episode with several twists and turns. It started out with the red herring that some killer was out there targeting these people for some reason with some kind of high-tech weapons. Then we find out it's a disease caused by one of the alien invaders from the Avengers movie. And then we see that Simmons caught it and has a limited time to find a cure or she's dead and she'll take the plane with her when she goes. Whoa.

Of course in this ep the main characters are Simmons and Fitz. We find out they've been together for a long time, studying from lab to lab and it was her idea to get them working with SHIELD. It was awkward seeing Fitz like Skye and trying to get some convo started with her, but we know if he ever gets any romance on the show, it'll be with Simmons. Simmons was brave to jump off the plane for the sake of her teammates. The whole skydiving scene was pretty well done. Still don't like their accents though.

Grant didn't do much except show more distrust for Skye after the last episode and of course, the epic skydive scene. Skye spent most of the episode complaining about the bracelet she was forced to wear, but hey, she does have to earn the trust of the team back.

Melinda mostly kept an eye on Coulson (and she kicked the farmhouse door down). I like the comradely between Coulson and Melinda since both of them are senior agents and been through so much. Coulson's concern about feeling rusty or feeling off still makes me curious about him. When Melinda asked him to take off his shirt, there was so much hesitation, I was almost expecting him to NOT have any sign of the scar Loki's spear would have left on him. Sure enough he does have the scar, and Melinda does bring up a good point on how being so close to death, or in his case actually being dead, would change a man. But still. Hmmm.

And yeah, like Chuck Rodriguez points out, I wonder why they seem to avoid mentioning Loki by name. They have no problem calling out named like Captain America and Iron Man, but the closest they've gotten is saying 'an Asgardian God'. Maybe it's just 'too soon' and they don't want to say his name in front of him.

Either way, good episode all around, and it gave Simmons a bit of character development and some focus. Hey, she might be kinda in the background in the more action oriented episodes, but wow, even I was worried about her fate in this one.

Let me end this episode by mentioning an extra little tidbit for those waiting for the upcoming movie, Thor 2 the Dark World. Sometime in the month of November, one of the episodes will reference the events of Thor 2, so I guess you better the movie to catch the reference. I'll be watching it opening night with the co-workers so I'll keep my eyes open in future episodes.