(SPOILERS AHEAD)
“It’s a different SHIELD now”
Unfortunately, I watched ‘One of Us’ after watching the first episode of ‘Daredevil.’ The latter showed us an almost perfect Comic Book TV episode. The former, well…let’s say it wasn’t perfect. In fact, it was far from perfect…Even disregarding ‘Daredevil’, last week’s ‘Agents of SHIELD’ was a darn good showing, and this one failed to keep up the quality.
The most interesting aspect of this episode was Skye. We find out that she has been classified as ‘Gifted.’ A consequence of being Gifted is that she might no longer be one of ‘us’, ‘us’ being SHIELD. And SHIELD have to bring in an outsider to give Skye a psychological evaluation, Dr. Garner. He turns out to be May’s ex-husband…
Cue some contrived scenes between May and Garner over-playing their past relationship. Irritating and dull, these scenes were ultimately pointless, apart from trying to give us a more emotional side of May. We don’t want to see that! We just want to see her kick ass!!! However, Garner did give us character development in his therapy sessions with Skye. It wasn’t the the quality of, say, a typical Sopranos therapy session, but it gave us insight into how Skye was feeling without trite, simplistic dialogue. And, of course, her repression of her feelings and her powers can only lead to BAD THINGS (basic Freud, but gave another dimension to Skye’s trauma).
“When I multitask I make mistakes”
The effects of her repression came at the end of the episode, after her dad rounded up some of the ‘Gifted’ to create a ‘supervillain’ squad. He wants revenge on Coulson for killing the man he wanted to kill…so these ‘Gifted’ who we’ve never seen before simply tag along with him on his quest. The lady with razors on her fingernails has the most inconsistent character I’ve ever seen in ‘Agents of SHIELD’, dithering about joining the squad for the duration of the episode (until it’s time for the big fight scene, where she decides to fight on his side).
It was nice to see a familiar villain, in the face of Bane…oh wait, it wasn’t Bane…but I presume it was Black Bolt, whose voice box can…knock everybody out? I assume that’s what happened at the college football pitch. It’s broad daylight when he causes chaos at the pitch, but Coulson and Bobbi get there at night time…and no parents have come to check on their teenagers? No one in the town has noticed what was going on? Oh, okay then…
These inconsistencies stall my enjoyment of proceedings. Another one was Hunter’s absence. Only Coulson thought to mention it to Bobbi? But I guess he was fairly forgettable, so it was easy for rest of the group to forget him. And we do inch closer to the revealing of the conspiracy between Bobbi and Mack. They are working for…THE REAL SHIELD!!! It isn’t an explanation, I know, but it means that the revelation cannot be far off.
Another thing of note was Simmons’ continued descent into full blown bitch. Here, she goes so far as to suggest to Coulson that the term ‘Gifted’ isn’t sufficient enough any more. The term ‘Enhanced’ should be used for those people who are modified to have superpowers. Another term is need for those who are born with it…how long before she starts goose-stepping around the Base and sending ‘Gifted’ to concentration camps? I exaggerate, but I am anticipating the storylines Simmons’ turn could take…
VERDICT: 6/10. The good outweighed the bad, but ‘One of Us’ didn’t capitalise on last week’s great showing.
(Click here for my review of Episode 12: Who You Really Are)
Hammy Reviews 
One thought on “Review: Agents of SHIELD, Season 2 Episode 13: One of Us (I’d rather be alone…)”