Agents of SHIELD Episode 9 RETRO REVIEW

 By Mark Rodriguez

Originally written on November 26, 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.

We have another interesting episode with a bit of creepy dark horror movie-ish scenes, some good action, and yes, some insight on Melinda May's backstory. Why is she cold? Why is she called the Calvary and hates that nickname? Let's check it out.

This episode opens with a seemingly regular blonde woman stepping into a grocery store somewhere in Utah. The store owner recognizes her as the supervisor for a lab and gets angry since one of his friends died during an accident she caused. The woman backs away and tries to leave but the manager continued to harass her. Just then, cans and things start flying at the man, hitting him. He asks if she's doing this and then a whole shelf of stuff falls on the man. The man notices gas spilling and spreading slowly around the store, heading near some burning chairs. The blonde woman is on the floor, crying for everything to stop as the gas station outside explodes.

Meanwhile we see that this episode is the very next day as Melinda and Grant get dressed after pulling an all-nighter together, you know what I mean. Coulson is briefing Skye on the latest mission, the blonde woman named Hannah Hutchins, a possible telekinetic girl. She worked in a lab that had people die in an explosion involving a particle accelerator, so talking to her might be a sensitive situation. Fitz and Simmons will be studying the cause of the explosion for a more scientific explanation. Coulson is also bringing Melinda and Grant along. Skye is there mostly to watch, although she wants to do more since she was able to find Mike Peterson before they did.

When SHIELD arrives, Hannah is trapped in her house as all the angry townsfolk want her to leave while the police try to keep the peace. Coulson wants to talk to her and keep her safe. One of the men yells out how they just want to rid of her. Suddenly one of the police cars starts running by itself and almost runs the man over. The cop pulls a gun on Hannah and Coulson tries to calm her down. Suddenly Melinda shoots Hannah with a tranquilizer and knocks her out. Everyone looks at her and she says it's time to go.

Fitz and Simmons are investigating what cause the explosion at the and talk about their days at the acamedy together. They recall how they got pranked when they started, and realize that Skye has never been pranked. They decide they should prank her.

Coulson and Grant discuss how Hannah is now safe in their padded room and they'll have Melinda talk to her. Skye argues that they shouldn't have Hannah be in the same room with the woman that shot her. Coulson says if the woman does get dangerous, Melinda is the best person you want in the room with you. Hannah waked up, scared and confused as sees Coulson and Melinda. They tell her she was tranquilized and was taken to her current location. They think she has some kind of telekinetic power and she explains all the weird incidents started some time after the lab explosion. She doesn't know what's going on or why it's happening to her.

Skye talks about Melinda's attitude and Fitz and Simmons mentions she's the Calvary. Skye asks why she's called that, and they tell her they send her to kill people when necessary. They said she earned the nickname from the day she rode a horse and took down 100 agents single-handedly with a pistol. Skye buys it, and Fitz and Simmons smile to themselves. Fitz and Simmons are studying a 3D holographic model of the particle accelerator and Skye's touching it is messing with it. She decides to leave and check her own computer for any information.

Coulson thinks something at the explosion somehow gave Hannah her telekinetic powers, since the incidents started happening some time afterwards. Hannah talks to Melinda and tells her she thinks she is being haunted by demons. She thinks she's being punished by God.

Skye wants to talk to Hannah since she thinks she'd be much more sympathetic. As Coulson and Skye argue about whether or not she can do so, a cube on Coulson's desk falls to the floor. Coulson says he was sure it was nailed down.

Skye talks to Grant about May, while he's busy fixing himself a sandwich. Skye says with her attitude, Melinda needs to get laid, and Grant chokes, considering that he just nailed her the night before. Skye mentions the Calvary story, and Grant says it was exaggerated and she actually took down 20 trained assassins with a single pistol. As he talks, Grant notices that the knife he was using to make the sandwich is suddenly missing.

Hannah is scared and shivering in the padded room as she feels the walls shaking, and the doorknob rattling as something is trying to get in. Skye finds a guy named Tobias Ford on her comp and notices he was one of the techs that died in the lab. It seems he was responsible for several accidents that Hannah was being blamed for. Fitz is sent to look for come couplings in a tool shed and a shadowy figure is seen behind him.

Simmons discovers something strange about the explosion after studying a 3D recreation of it. Just then, Tobias appears and tries to hit her with a wrench before he vanishes. He then reappears near one of the plane's control panels and yanks the wires out. The plane goes dark and it's going down. Melinda tries her best to land the plane and they manage to land on a field. After everything settles down, Skye wants to be there for Hannah to make sure she's alright. As everyone talks, Simmons notices that Fitz is missing.

Fitz is trapped in a room and the knife from earlier is lodged under the door. He soon pulls it out and finds Grant and Simmons. Melinda radios them to send Fitz to the control room so he can fix the damage. They want to make sure most of the power stays in Hannah's padded room to keep whatever is causing this away from her. Coulson tries to call for reinforcements but Tobias cuts the power to outside communication.

Skye talks to Hannah and tries to console her. Hannah thinks God is punishing her, but Skye says with the little she believes in God, she at least consider Him to be a God of love. She tries to explain that everything going on isn't her fault.  Melinda shows up and says she will take over. Skye thinks she's better suited to stay with Hannah, but Melinda says it's an order.

Fitz and Simmons are trying to repair the damage and talk about how the lab was studying the portals Thor made whenever he travels from our world to Asgard (as well as all the random portals made during Thor The Dark World), and they might have even been trying to make their own portal. Tobias might be someone trapped between worlds and randomly materializes between our world and what he calls hell.

Tobias suddenly appears and locks Fitz and Simmons in a room. He also attacks Grant with a wrench. Grant fights back the best he can, but Tobias always vanishes before he can land a good hit. He then vanishes from the fight with Grant and appears in the locked room, trying to choke Simmons with his wrench. Grant comes in to help, but he vanishes and appears behind Grant and knocks him out with his wrench.

Meanwhile, Coulson talks to Skye and explains the Calvary deal. There was a case where an innocent girl and some agents were trapped in a building by some insane cult worshippers. Melinda took charge and stepped inside. Whatever she did was never clearly explained, but she lost herself during that mission.

Coulson explains she changed after that. She was used to be just as fearless, but warmer. She was bold and not afraid to break the rules, and even played pranks. That part of her is gone now. Skye determines Coulson invited her on the jet to see if they can help bring that old Melinda out.

Just then Tobias appears and tries to choke Skye. He wants Hannah to be let out of the padded room and vanishes before Coulson can do anything. They're now trapped in the room. Elsewhere, Melinda is watching over Hannah and Tobias is seen lurking nearby. He then enters the padded room and is angry to see that Hannah is gone. Melinda is already escorting Hannah out of the building saying she's going to fix the situation.

Grant finally wakes up from being clocked by the wrench. Fitz and Simmons determine he must have been holding the wrench when the lab explosion hit him. Meanwhile Melinda takes Hannah to an abandoned barn near where the SHIELD plan landed. She says she's going to use Hannah as bait to lure out Tobias.

Meanwhile, Coulson has his watch taped to the lock on the door and Simmons activates some kind of high frequency sound that makes it explode. They explain that Tobias caused the safety issues that Hannah got blamed for. Skye determines that he isn't out to hurt her, he's out to protect her. Every incident he caused was against someone that against Hannah, like the car that almost hit the guy that insulted her. She figures out that he wants her.

Tobias appears in front of Hannah and Melinda starts fighting him. Tobias smacks her down and grabs Hannah by the hand. Melinda does a low sweep to knock him down and hits him in the chest. However, the fighting continues as he continues to vanish everywhere, making him hard to hit. He explains that he loosened a few bolts from the machinery at the lab to try to get Hannah's attention. Hannah says that caused the explosion and killed many people, and she got blamed for it. Tobias doesn't want to go to hell and asks her for forgiveness. She says only God can forgive him. Melinda says there is no forgiveness and the things he's done will always follow him, he can't undo his past.

Melinda tells him that if he really loves Hannah, he'll let her go, otherwise he's just dragging her down with him. Coulson and the others show up to watch as Tobias finally lets go and vanishes completely.

Later on, Hannah is sleeping peacefully as she recovers from all the stuff she went through. Skye asks about Coulson's watch, and he says it's gone. She says she's sure he can help bring Melinda around. Coulson says he's also sure Skye will be a good help whenever they need to find new possible super heroes, based on how sensitive she was towards Hannah and how fast she figured Tobias out.

Skye then goes to sit with Melinda as she gets the plane ready to take off. Later on, the gang is playing Scrabble and some of them complain with Simmons using British words to win. Fitz shows up angry that someone did the old 'shaving cream on your hand when you're sleeping' prank and now has shaving cream all over his face. He blames Simmons, but she had nothing to do with it. Neither did Grant or Skye. He demands to know who did this. Elsewhere on the cockpit, Melinda is overhearing the conversation and chuckles to herself.

My Opinions:

Another good episode. I like to say this show sure likes to toss out a lot of fake outs. One episode has us thinking some kind of murderer is going around killing people and leaving their bodies levitating... then we find out it was some super weird-ass virus caused by touching one of the Chitauri helmets from the Avengers movie. This episode had us think that Hannah had telekinetic powers beyond her control... and we find out this other guy who is kinda/sorta/not really a ghost was the one causing it all along. Good way to keeps us interested.

This time Melinda got the main focus as we finally find out the deal behind her being called 'Calvary' and why she hates it. The interesting thing is, while we know why, we still don't know exactly what she did to rescue those people from the cult followers that one day.... so it leaves things open to be dug into further. I... don't know about the random fling between Grant and Melinda. It really did seem to be a random one night stand with nothing else. I do think Skye would be hurt if she ever found out since it seems she has a thing for Grant, even though they haven't done that much besides trying to know each other better.... something tells me it would still upset her. One thing I have to point out is that since this episode opens with 'the morning after' it also means this episode happened the very next after the last episode. Finding an Asgardian staff that brings out your inner rage and facing a guy that vanishes all over the place makes for one action packed weekend if you're a SHIELD agent.

On other things, Hannah played her part well, though due to her situation we only saw her as this poor distraught woman, basically at her wits end, begging for God to end her suffering. I do wonder what will happen next to her though. I mean, sure, we found out the truth, but the people back in her home town aren't gonna believe that. They're still going to hate her if she goes back.

Tobias' weird abilities made for some pretty awesome fights. I have to admit, it was cool seeing him fight against Grant and Melinda and vanish during the fight. I liked the scene where one of them was trying to throw him only for him to vanish in the middle of the attack. And considering this is just a tv show, the blurring foggy-ish effect when he vanishes was very well done. It's never fully explained what happened to him though. Simmons explains he will eventually disappear forever, but is he trapped in this other world? Will he eventually find some way back?

On other things, I also noticed this episode is probably the only one that didn't mention Coulson's mysterious return, or drop any extra hints with him suspecting things about his revival. I know we can't bring it up EVERY episode, but this is the first one that actually didn't.

It's a good episode overall, mostly due to digging more into Melinda's character and seeing the awesome fight scenes. The next episode is going to be epic as we see that Coulson brings in Mike Peterson back into action as a superhero. My question is.... what threat are they facing that demands his super powered help?