Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Turn, Turn, Turn Recap

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Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Turn, Turn, Turn (1×17)

Summary: In the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Phil Coulson officially has the worst day ever.

Rating: ★★★★☆

In case you were wondering how I was taking this episode emotionally…

…Yeah, it’s like that.

‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ picks up immediately where ‘End of the Beginning’ left off and takes place concurrently with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If you don’t want to be spoiled for the latter, you might want to stop reading this recap and go watch the movie.

The episode opens with Garrett listening to ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ before being hunted by two S.H.I.E.L.D drones. Feels appropriate for my feelings for this episode. Back on the Bus, Coulson is massively unhappy with May and is wondering why the plane is turning around. May swears she has nothing to do with it and that the Hub must have been the one overriding the controls. She tries her best to plea to Coulson to believe her by admitting that she’s been reporting to Nick Fury the entire time. Considering that Coulson has been trying for weeks to get a hold of Fury, this doesn’t really help the situation.

While the team tries to figure out where they’re heading and why they can’t seem to contact anyone from the outside, Garrett gets a hold of the team and has them help him evade the drones determined to shoot him out of the sky. Well, rather, Coulson does because May has been shot with an ICER. It proves effective, but Hand and her team are unhappy with the results.

Back on the Bus, Skye is working on decoding the static that’s going over S.H.I.E.L.D lines. The team contemplates how Hand could be the Clairvoyant, but Garrett seems repulsed by the idea. Why would Hand turn on them like that?

That’s of course when Skye finds that the static is saying “Out of the shadows, into the light. HYDRA.” Yeah, that’ll do it.

At the Hub, Simmons and Triplett are working together to contact Agent Weaver at Sci-Ops to get more information on Skye’s blood sample. However, Weaver warns Simmons that HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D and that she needs to get somewhere safe. If Weaver lives, Simmons knows where to find her. As the message with Weaver cuts off, Triplett locks the door, which immediately makes Simmons paranoid. Triplett pulls out his knife, but hands it to Simmons, saying that if she’s going to kill him, she ought to do it now. This establishes trust and the two decide to stick together if Hand and her agents come through. Have I said I ship it? Because I ship it hard.

Hand and her team do come for Simmons and Triplett and she goes on this whole monologue about how HYDRA has risen up and how they can either join or die blah blah blah. Triplett apprehends one of the members of her team and tells them if they are killed, they’re at least taking one of the HYDRA agents with them. Hand responds that that’s the correct answer and informs the two that the people she trusts are now up to seven. Wait… WHAT? Victoria Hand ISN’T evil? Is that Brian Michael Bendis, Jed Whedon, and Mo Tancharoen somewhere in the distance laughing at me? What is happening right now?

Simmons has a similar reaction, but is relieved that Hand isn’t HYDRA. She tells her not to get too happy because Coulson is.

Excuse me for a second…

Coulson? HYDRA? Really? The biggest Captain America fanboy in the history of Captain America fanboys? REALLY? Consider what you have just implied, Hand. This is probably the guy who pretended he was Captain America fighting HYDRA and winning when he was five. And probably STILL does it from time to time. I don’t care how sound you think your logic is about this, Hand. There’s no way in hell that would happen.

Moving on.

So the team has their work cut out for them. S.H.I.E.L.D is shooting at them, Director Fury is dead to their knowledge, and Coulson finds out that May had been lying to him from the very start since Fury ordered her to help put the team together. Yeah, it just keeps racking up.

Skye manages to back every bit of information they have on the plane onto a hard drive to keep HYDRA from getting to anything they’ve obtained over the past few months and the team escapes into the Hub thanks to Fitz’s Mouse Hole invention. If you’re like me, you probably noticed that it’s the Mouse Hole that kept Fury from being shot point blank in the face by The Winter Soldier and maybe cried a little because of it.

The team splits up between Skye and Ward to disable the Hub systems and Garrett, Coulson, May, and Fitz to find Simmons and get her out of dodge. It’s worth noting that Garrett now seems awfully intent on shooting Hand to do so.

Before Ward goes to clear Skye a path to get into the mainframe, he finally comes face to face with the fact he’s totally in love with her and tells her that he’s sorry about that one time at the bar. He offers to take her up on her offer for a drink if they make it out of this alive. Since Skye accepts, but tops it off with a kiss since there’s a chance he might not. PARTY ON THE SKYEWARD SHIP!

Ward manages to take out the guards in front of the mainframe and Skye reveals that she’s not going to hack the mainframe, but blow it up. Atta girl!

The team of four goes to the central security office to look for Simmons on the CTV system. They find here and Garrett continues his proposal of shooting Hand in the head. Coulson is hesitant since he wants to be completely sure they get the right Clairvoyant this time. Garrett gets complain-y about it, listing off everything the Clairvoyant has done to them, including putting Phil in the machine that was used on Raina…

…Except Coulson never told anyone that the machine used on him was also used on her.

Yeah, I hate being right. Agent Garrett is the Clairvoyant, and he’s also HYDRA. Dammit all.

The worst part of it is that Garrett isn’t even really a “true believer” of the HYDRA message. He just defected to HYDRA because he saw the way things were going and is a power hungry bastard. I guess it’s more realistic, but man, that’s rough. He tries to convince Coulson to do the same, but he responds, “I would die before serving HYDRA, you sick son of a bitch.” TOLD YOU.

He also mentions that Fury would bury him for this, but Garrett makes a smart ass comment about how he’ll just have to settle for rolling in his grave. Y’know, I know Fury is coming back for the season finale. Maybe it will involve shooting Garrett’s punk ass.

Right as it looks like Garrett’s team is going to take out Coulson and May and kidnap Fitz, Skye’s bomb on the mainframe works in a very Ocean’s Eleven type way. This gives the team time to fight off Garrett before Hand arrives with hers. She tells Coulson that they heard everything and they arrest Garrett with everyone else at the Hub who identifies as HYDRA. How many, you ask?

Basically everyone. It’s kind of heartbreaking, but at least Bear McCreary’s music over this scene is beautiful.

Hand recaps Coulson on everything, including Captain America defeating Project Insight at the Triskelion and HYDRA taking over several of S.H.I.E.L.D’s outposts. She sets off to take Garrett to the Fridge and Ward joins her since he feels responsibility for his SO. As of right now though, Coulson and Hand are the two highest ranking S.H.I.E.L.D agents that aren’t HYDRA, dead, or going completely off the grid. Coulson and his team begin work on repairing the Bus. He still doesn’t trust May completely, but he knows that she’s on their side on their new fight just to survive.

On the way to the Fridge, Hand offers to Ward to shoot and kill the right Clairvoyant this time. Ward takes out his gun…

…And shoots Hand and her team instead.

WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL? WARD IS HYDRA? OR BEING CONTROLLED BY GARRETT? PLEASE LET IT BE MIND CONTROL BECAUSE I DON’T THINK I CAN TAKE WARD BEING A SELF-AWARE SLEEPER.

AND I WAS JUST STARTING TO LIKE HAND TOO. I’M SORRY, VICTORIA. OH GOD.

…I’m okay. I’m okay.

Well, here we are at the threshold of a post-S.H.I.E.L.D world. Coulson and his team are on the run from HYDRA as they try to pick up the pieces. Trust no one is still in effect and there’s not going to be any easy way to go from here. I look forward to it, but I’m also kind of terrified between now and Age of Ultron.

Five weeks to go.

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