Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: End of the Beginning Recap

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Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: End of the Beginning (1×16)

Summary: Shit has gotten real.

Rating: ?????

Okay, let’s just get this out of the way now because this is how I feel after the last fifteen minutes of the episode.

Alright, now that’s done… SWEET CAROL DANVERS, WHAT IS HAPPENING?

I don’t even know where to begin. It all seemed so… innocuous at the beginning. Hunt for the Clairvoyant and Deathlok. Bring on a who’s who of high level agents. Have Sitwell be sent off to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Skye finally becomes an agent yay!

Which that last little bit is the actual last bit of happy this episode has. Well, maybe that story Agent Garrett shares with Coulson, Blake flirting with May, or Simmons and Triplett flirting like whoa. But that’s it. That’s the only happy.

The team goes on an encrypted hunt for the possible Clairvoyant, where they narrow it down to three people. It seems very likely to be an invalid named Thomas Nash though after Deathlok arrives at an assisted living home in Macon and puts Agent Blake into critical condition. However, Blake is smart enough to shoot Deathlok with one of the tracker bullets from Fitz, which leads S.H.I.E.L.D. to where Deathlok and potentially the Clairvoyant is located.

Oh God, I feel it coming on again.

I’ll cop to it now, the Deathklok costume is pretty stupid looking, but J. August Richards acted the hell out of this episode. Poor Mike. Poor, poor Mike.

Anyway, with some chase, fancy tech and Bill Paxton being extra Paxton-y, the team finds Nash (played by Brad Dourif), who appears to be an invalid with a fancy computer, a speech recognizer and some surveillance. He alludes that he’s been able to “see” Coulson since Skye was shot and that they will come for Skye and kill her because she has something they want.

Which is when Ward shoots and kills him.

Yeah, that’s about where shit gets real.

Naturally, Ward is in trouble for killing a suspect, especially when the mission was to CAPTURE him. Way to go, Bezerker Ward. You’ve failed us all. He has no regrets though because he’s secretly in love with Skye or wants to protect her or something like that. I don’t know. I just know I have FEELINGS.

As the Bus heads for the Triskelion for Coulson to finally meet up with Director Fury, Coulson doesn’t feel right about Nash. What if he wasn’t the Clairvoyant, but a puppet? Skye then has a realization that everything the Clairvoyant has “seen” about them is right off of their psych evaluations. The Clairvoyant isn’t some unregistered psychic. It’s a person with security access to S.H.I.E.L.D. records.

You guys… THE CALL WAS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE.

Immediately, Coulson goes to question Ward for what happened, asking who ordered him to kill  Nash. Ward denies it, but they have a bigger problem on their hands. While trying to call Simmons on an encrypted line and ask about what she was able to find blood sample wise, Fitz discovers May’s encrypted line. Skye tells him to cut it off, leading May to chase Fitz down. When Skye tells this to Coulson, it leads to a standoff in the hanger with one pissed off Coulson, demanding her to tell him what she knows. May tells Coulson it’s not what he thinks, but she can’t reveal what she’s doing or who she’s speaking to.

Before she can reveal anything else though, the Bus is remotely hijacked by unseen forces. Back at the Hub, Hand orders that everyone on the plane be taken out except for Coulson. She needs him.

Is Hand the Clairvoyant, the person May was calling, or something else entirely. Either way, I called her being evil on Earth-199999 from the start. Well, we all did if we looked up her comics history at all. Thanks Bendis.

Well, I don’t know what else to say to this except I’m going to go see The Winter Soldier in a few hours. I expect that nothing will be good again for the team or for the MCU until August when Guardians of the Galaxy comes out.

Six weeks to go, folks. Six weeks to go.

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