Warning: Spoilage Ahead
Creating legacies and back-stories for characters is so important in any type of media. After a two-week down-swing the last episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. delivered on a high note this week. This week we learn a little more about some of our favorite new Agents, we get the origin of a new super-villain, and Coulson learns a valuable lesson.
Let’s start off with the main focus of the episode. It starts off at the SHIELD academy, aka Hogwarts for SHIELD Agents as Skye likes to call it, with four of the students going for a swim at the pool. One student we see sitting in the bleachers keeping to himself, this is Donnie Gill. Donnie is a shy student, yet very brilliant. He is there watching as 3 of the students sneak some swimming in. Two of them get into the water and suddenly you hear a strange sound, the sound of the water starting to freeze and ice cracking. Suddenly the whole pool is frozen and the students barely make it out, one of the students Seth actually gets his leg stuck but Donnie is able to break the ice to free him. So this incident gets on Coulson’s radar and he and team are asked to come and investigate.
At the SHIELD Academy, Fitz and Simmons are like celebrities. Coulson splits up the team by sending Ward, Skye, Fitz, and Simmons to investigate what happened at the pool, while he and May head off to find some answers from Skye’s past. We are treated to another famous Marvel name drop as Skye is checking out the “wall of honors” for those SHIELD agents who have fallen in the line of duty, the one and only Bucky Barnes. At the pool the team discovers a device that caused the event and they conclude that the person responsible has to be from the science division of the school. Another near disaster happens when FitzSimmons are giving a presentation to the school, this time Donnie almost gets completely frozen. After a touching scene where Fitz goes to see Donnie to try to relate with him about being a loner, we find out that Donnie is actually responsible for what has been happening all along with the help of Seth, and he uses Fitz for his knowledge. The whole scheme was a ploy to get FitzSimmons to the institute! Seth was responsible for contacting Ian Quinn, remember him from the Graviton episode, and Quinn has been funding this little project. At the end of the episode we find out that Quinn is working for the Clairvoyant and things are really starting to connect here. What is the Clairvoyant up to and what is the master plan? With the knowledge that Fitz gave Donnie, he is able to finish a version of the device that they were using previously, but on a grander scale by creating a super storm! In the end the Agents stop Donnie and Seth, but Seth is killed when they try to stop the machine. Donnie is sent to the Sandbox to be kept under watch, and as they are taking him away the last thing we see is he has gained the ability to freeze things by touching them. The birth of Blizzard.
SO this raises the question of how much does the Clairvoyant know and how is he manipulating ALL of these situations. I would also like to mention that the Skye story line took some major steps as well, and may very well be linking into the this whole Clairvoyant situation eventually. Coulson and May are able to track down the identity of the Agent who dropped Skye off at the orphanage, and that was Agent Avery, not Skye’s mother. In fact she had a partner by the name Lumley who May and Coulson track down for some answers. We find out that Skye is actually an 0-8-4, remember that term from earlier in the season? The problem is that anyone who has had contact with the baby was assassinated, so SHIELD decided to hide the child. So Skye has powers? Who is she really? More questions were raised this week, but at least we got some meaty answers to others! Coulson does the right thing by telling Skye the truth, and as I stated before he learns a valuable lesson by it. Just like he didn’t appreciate being lied to and obsessing over the truth, Skye’s reaction to everything is the opposite of what he thought would happen. Coulson states that she actually seems to find strength from these events and a drive to keep going, something that he is not doing himself when it come to his own mystery.
So as tough as I am on this show at times, I was really impressed by this week’s episode. The show is really starting to come together and we are starting to see an overall plot forming. Hey and they finally used Lola again! What did you think of this week’s episode Towelite? Sound off in the comments!
See you in a couple of weeks when Stan Lee guest stars!
Agents of SHIELD S1E13 “Tracks”
Agents of SHIELD airs Tuesdays at 8pmEST on ABC!
~CynicNerd
