Hey youtubers it’s Charlie Hail Hydra.
So This week’s Agents of SHIELD was a direct continuation of the end of Winter Soldier.
In terms of pacing it really is the start of the final plot arc of season 1.
What I’m going to do first is talk about how the movie and the tv show connected, then
top 5 moments, then my review.
During that part I’ll also address what all the shit hitting the fan means for season
2 if the show gets renewed.
Also heads up, my bonus Marvel video this week will be a Captain America 3 video.
I think I’ve figured out which comics they’re going to be using for it.
Be sure to subscribe to get it if you’re finding me for the first time.
So let’s talk about Winter Soldier crossing into Agents of SHIELD.
Careful for spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie or this episode.
The timeline is like this, they HYDRA helicarrier strike started right before this episode started.
The end of Winter Soldier, when Captain America destroys them, happens just as they are capturing
Agent Garrett and his men.
They’re at the Triskelion.
Remember they parked the Bus in the same hanger we saw in the movie.
When Victoria Hand said Captain America’s whereabouts are unknown, that’s around the
time he was at Nick Fury’s grave with Anthony Mackie.
Nick Fury still wants everyone to think he’s dead.
So Coulson and Hand still don’t know he survived.
He’s off trying to track down more rogue HYDRA agents.
Captain America and Anthony Mackie are doing the same thing separately while they hunt
for the Winter Soldier.
So this episode ended pretty much at the same time the Winter Soldier movie ended.
Obviously the show has 5 more episodes.
But we can talk about where it’s headed after my top 5 moments.
And they are:
Number 5 - Skye Decodes The HYDRA activation message
The message was sent to all the HYDRA double agents telling them to sieze control of SHIELD.
That went out while they were launching the Helicarriers in the movie.
When Crossbones and Robert Redford revealed who they really were.
I love the reaction of Coulson and the crew.
Since I saw the movie last week, the surprise wasn’t as wasted, but I loved those lines.
Out of the shadows and into the light.
Time to face the Hydra Music.
Which makes me wonder, what does the Hydra theme music sound like?
Maybe like the Star Wars Imperial March.
Number 4 - May Comes Clean About TAHITI
Before this, there were two people I thought she could be reporting to based on her alliegance.
Robert Redford and Nick Fury.
I’m glad she turned out to not be a double agent for HYDRA.
How cool was it that she basically inceptioned their whole team into Coulson’s head via
Fury.
Like she gave Fury all their names and Fury suggested them to Coulson.
I’m curious to see what her relationship with him will be like once they dust settles.
I’m expecting some game changing May save in the finale that makes him start trusting
her again.
But for the next couple of episodes she’ll just be an ally.
Not a friend.
Number 3 - Victoria Hand’s HYDRA Fakeout
One of the many awesome fakeouts in the episode.
When we saw that end teaser last week that revealed she was remote piloting the plane
I was pretty sure she wasn’t the clairvoyant.
So when she gave them the HYDRA speech I was actually surprised.
In the comics Victoria Hand works for HAMMER, but she isn’t outright evil like HYDRA.
When she took it all back and said they passed the test I was relieved.
Had she been an actual HYDRA agent, they probably would have had to eventually kill her off
the show unless she was going to go on to become some new big bad.
And nothing I saw gave me the impression that she was going to be a season 2 big bad.
Number 2 - Garrett is the Clairvoyant
Surprisingly not the biggest reveal in the episode.
Bill Paxton does such an amazing job of playing sleazebag characters, how could we not have
known he would turn out to be a sleazebag double agent for HYDRA.
To be fair, he wasn’t always HYDRA, he said he saw the wind blowing in their direction
and switched sides.
So I think when he and Coulson were training together under Nick Fury he was still on the
good side.
In the comics Garrett eventually became an Avenger, but he was a pretty awful person
before all that happened.
I’ll talk more about where I think his character is headed in a sec.
and my Number 1 WTF moment - Ward Is Hydra.
Or Is He?
Huge reveal, Ward shoots Victoria Hand and the guards so we’re supposed to think he’s
either HYDRA or just decided to turn right there on the spot.
But wait, let’s think about this for a sec.
Personally I think he’s just playing Garrett in order to uncover who the other top level
HYDRA agents are.
Like Ward is a double double agent.
So he’s still a good guy.
What about the gun shots though?
Did he really kill Victoria Hand?
We didn’t see blood and remember Couslon told them to use the night night guns when
they first landed at SHIELD headquarters.
We never saw him switch guns, so he probably was still using the stun gun and it only appeared
he was using real bullets.
I don’t remember them ever telling Agent Garrett about the Night Night Gun technology.
That was something Fitz developed on his own.
It’s not normal SHIELD technology.
Thus I think either next week or in a couple more episodes.
We’ll find out Ward is secretly on a mission and he’s not a HYDRA agent.
So real quick here are just some bonus favorite moments that I thought were really amazing.
Garrett give Agents Stilwell a shout out for hiring so many HYDRA agents.
Garrett tries to recruit Fitz to be HYDRA’s new Arnim Zola, May calls out Ward for having
a hard on for Skye and then Skye and Ward’s let’s have a drink moment.
They’re officially the second biggest ‘ship on the show next to Coulson and the Cellist.
We’re actually going to meet the cellist pretty soon.
She’s being played by Amy Acker.
Now it’s your turn though, let me know what your favorite moment was?
Was it all the fakeouts?
Learning Garrett was the true Clairvoyant or the Ward reveal at the end?
Overall I rate the episode as a solid B plus.
It did a good job of incorporating this huge convoluted movie plot from Winter Soldier,
a two and a half hour movie.
Not an easy job.
And it revealed all these new layers in the existing characters.
I love what they’re doing with the relationships on the team.
Not just the sexual relationships, the friendships like Coulson and May.
I fully expect all the broken trust issues to be fixed by the end.
But the HYDRA cat and mouse chase is going to be so much fun to watch between now and
then.
They slipped in a couple nice callbacks to Gravitonium, I
keep expecting Graviton to bust out of the fridge with all this chaos happening.
And I have to say I was honestly surprised that the Clairvoyant wasn’t Arnim Zola,
it was Garrett a real person all along.
I was a little dissapointed.
I really liked the idea of AI being evil given the plot of Avengers 2.
The only other thing I really didn’t like about the episode was that scene where they’re
carting Garrett off and it’s in slow motion with this weird music track.
It just felt really odd.
It would have been better if Triplett had just rushed up and tackled him like the Hulk.
Real Quick let’s talk about what SHIELD crashing down says about Season 2 of the show.
It hasn’t been renewed yet even though every single other show on ABC has gotten a renewal
or cancellation notice.
They haven’t said anything about SHIELD.
I think it’s because they’re trying to hide or at least hold off on revealing what’s
going to happen during the season finale.
I’ll be talking more about this in my Bonus Captain America 3 video tomorrow, because
it’s all about the Secret Avengers comic.
SHIELD gets destroyed and Captain America puts together a separate team of his own to
go on covert missions.
I think the show Agents of SHIELD will be doing something like this in season 2 if it’s
not cancelled.
Like I said, I’ll explain more in the bonus video tomorrow.
Be sure to subscribe to get it.
Let me know what your final thoughts on the episode were.
Did you think the episode did a good job of holding up the suspense from the movie?
I saw the movie almost a week ago, I think the episode would have seemed better if I’d
seen the movie right before seeing it.
But it was still a lot of fun.
Next week Patton Oswalt is guest starring, so be sure to watch.
In the meantime you can click here for that bonus Captain America 3 Secret Avengers video.
I’ll add the annotation as soon as I post it.
And you can click here for my other picks for a Captain America 3 story.
Thanks for watching, Hail Hydra.