Agents of SHIELD rewatch: S1E10 “The Bridge”

Aight so the plot of this one is action-packed. The dialogue seemed a bit off this time around, though. They tried some jokes, but none of them really landed. However, I loved the return of a great character.  This episode is clearly setting up a punchy storyline. We’re gliding into a story arc instead of hopping around to different anomalies. The end of this one really gets me jazzed for what’s to come. This episode has some gems: Return of Mike! Return of Raina! Explosions! Woah that all sounds so exciting lets go

Havenworth federal penitentiary. There is a man eating prison food (we know him from the end of episode 5 when Raina visited him with updates on the super-soldier program).  Another prisoner attempts to sit at the table. The first man intimidates him away.   A big chunk of the ceiling falls in and Centipede soldiers drop down. The intimidating guy is very calm and asks to be called ‘Sir’.  The soldiers whisk him away.

On the bus, Skye is trying to find information on her parents or the woman who dropped her off at the orphanage.  Coulson does not want her to get her hopes up.  He says he asked May to look into restricted files about it so Skye doesn’t have to worry herself.  Skye seems disappointed that May is involved. Coulson assures her that May specializes in ‘private.’

So we cut to May and Ward sparring – to punctuate the secret she is currently keeping. They are being a tad flirty between punches until May warns Ward away from taking the flirts too far.  

The team is briefed around the briefing table about the prison breakout.  Simmons notes that super soldiers can now be created without risk of explosion, because of Chan’s platelets from episode 5. The spooky prison guy’s name is Edison Po. Good Name. Mr. Po is a former marine. In a restaurant eight months ago, he stabbed a guy’s eyes out and then finished his steak. The man doesn’t like an interrupted dinner.  Coulson says they’re going to be getting some backup… but from whom?  

Now I must say I was giddy for this character reveal.  We see a man pushing a bulldozer across a field.  Oooh he strong. What strong man do we know already? Slow pan up and we see the centipede device on his arm! It’s Mike Peterson!  We haven’t seen him since he was tranquilized by our squad in the pilot! Mike is back and he’s being trained by SHIELD.  Coulson arrives to ask Mike to suit up. 

Coulson tells May that Skye thinks May is looking into Skye’s secret origin story.  Phew.  Convoluted secrets.  Of course, May is not into this but she’s going along with it.
Mike shows up and May is not pleased about his presence either. Mike knows he’s lucky to get this second chance.  Coulson assures him there will not be a third.

In the briefing room, Ward is also not sold on working with Mike because of everything that went down in the pilot episode.  Mike walks up behind him and Ward says “he’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?” (okay we can do better than that cliché, Ward).  Mike says his son, Ace, is with his aunt and thinks Mike is still working construction. 
Skye can’t find anything on Po.  Coulson tells her to investigate his time at the prison.

They ID’d the centipede soldiers. One, Brian Hayward, is a former soldier. The team discovers the location of one of his sisters and plan to give her a visit.

Fitzsimmons is giving Mike some tests in the lab.  Simmons is very taken with Mike’s hard body.  They ask him how he was stabilized.  Mike says that it was actually the Night-Night gun that stabilized him.  Simmons starts going on about how it’s a good thing that the gunshot didn’t leave a scar because of how good his body looks and then asks “oh when did you stop talking?” to Fitz.  which is a weird question to ask while you are talking.  She must really be used to Fitz talking at the same time as her.  And then Fitz says “about three embarrassing sentences ago”  but … no it was like one sentence (This is another sitcom cliché line and it wasn’t even close to being accurate which made it even less funny. Weird writing choice. I’m trying to justify all these uncharacteristic misses…. Maybe it’s because things are about to get more serious for our team, so the writers want the lighthearted nature of their relationships to be emphasized here before it all … ahem… blows up in their face).  

Coulson and Ward are heading to catch Hayward’s sister coming out of a Psychology of Women course. They start talking about women.  Coulson opens up about the cellist he was seeing during the events of the Avengers movie.  She has to believe he is dead because of SHIELD protocol or whatever.  That sucks.  Ward casually notes that maybe it would’ve been better if the woman had been in the agency…. hint hint.  Coulson is like ‘lol naw that’s just asking for trouble.’  Eek, Ward, sorry. Nice try.

Skye thanks May for working on helping find her parents – even though we know Skye is not actually super pleased about it. She’s playing nice.  May deflects and gets her on track back to the current Po case.   Po only had one visitor and we the audience know that was Raina.  They still don’t know about Raina, but they know that a girl in a flower dress is involved in Centipede (because Miles told them in Episode 5).  They read his lips to see Po mention ‘the clairvoyant.’  Mike walks in as they’re watching the visitor footage and tells them that Raina is the one who recruited him for Centipede.

Po is eating steak.  Raina is there.  (Yas girl. Blue and black dress, honey. Clack those heels, girl.  I cannot get enough). Po says the Clairvoyant is having trouble seeing the man Raina needs for whatever “stage three” is. Also the super-soldiers are drained after every mission; they need regular injections and constant upkeep. These dudes have centipede devices all over their bodies.  They are concerned about keeping all of this up while SHIELD is on their tail.

(On the bus, Skye has another line that stood out to me in a bad way.  She is mentioning all of the power and resources the opposition has – not to mention the mystery abilities of the ‘clairvoyant’ – and she says “anyone else thinking about switching teams?”   Okay I know she is not serious, but it’s a very off-color statement coming from a character whose whole deal has been standing up to the man and fighting the power and questioning the system. But alas, May doesn’t really react and Coulson just says “psychics are a myth” so they move on and so must I).

Ward has a fun undercover spy conversation with Hayward’s sister.  He tells her that Brian won the lottery.  Back with Coulson, Ward asks why they went with a story as suspicious as a lottery win.  Then we see why.  The sister calls Brian while holding the business card Ward gave her.  Ooh it’s a secret spy business card and it can track down the person on the other line. Sure! That’s neat.

Skye talks to Mike about his son in the honeycomb room.  He’s not being contained, I don’t think; It’s just working as a guest room.  Mike says he would do anything for Ace…. Hm… anything.
Coulson enters and presents Mike with a new suit!
Fitzsimmons worked up the suit and they are very proud of it.  It tracks vitals and provides ballistic protection ^[1]oh hey I wonder if it saved his life? no? maybe?.

Mike, Coulson, Ward and May track down Hayward, but they’re ambushed by many super-soldiers.   Coulson shoots one with a night-night gun, but the guy doesn’t stay down! Interesting. It worked on Mike 9 episodes ago, but these guys are made of tougher stuff. Mike gets stabbed by some metal rod thing!  But he knocks one of the guys down! The two others run away??  When Coulson tries to question Hayward, the soldier’s eye blows like we have seen before!  

Raina and Po are looking at the eye camera feed. Raina’s like ‘ooh that’s Mike Peterson!’ And Po says “he has your key to stage three”    ( what the heck are these effin stages?)

Fitz is comparing the robot eye to Akilah’s. The technology has dramatically improved.  Skye can’t track it anymore. They figure someone with a lot of money has to be backing them.  Maybe it’s this “Clairvoyant” ^[2]We learn that’s not correct right?  I guess all the money has been coming from Ian Quinn based on what I remember from future episodes.  I really think our team should have thought of this since … Continue reading

Raina really wants to know more about the Clairvoyant but Po refuses to tell her anything.  He had to stab the eyes of the last person who asked for too much information.  However, Po has been talking Raina up to the Clairvoyant.  She says “how sweet” and puts her hand next to his, tenderly.  Mmm she really makin the moves huh? And look at Po’s reaction. Ew. Seems like its working

May confronts Ward about taking a punch for her in the field.  He’s like ‘hold on lady. I took that punch for tactical reasons. Don’t flatter yourself.’ Wow Ward, not cool. Even though she was wrong, you do NOT talk to Melinda May like that.
When he stomps off, Skye is there. Oooh I bet she heard some of that.   May and Skye start having a tiff about Skye being too distracted by personal matters to focus on the case (uh oh. Projecting much?).
Skye tears up some papers of the information she printed out and cries alone in her bunk.  Coulson almost steps in but decides against it…

In his office, Coulson talks to Mike about why he hasn’t gone to see his son since the pilot.  Mike says he was a monster the last time Ace saw him, and he fears hurting him ^[3]It may be too early to make this connection but it reminds me of a moment in the future.  In season 5, when Talbott gets his powers, he is proud of them and shows off to his kid even though it is … Continue reading.  Coulson makes a little speech about how every SHIELD agent has had to choose this life over a family life. He urges Mike to think about his family before he commits to SHIELD fully.  Mike calls Ace.  Ace is playing with all the Heroes of New York dolls that he was looking at through the window in the pilot.  His dad bought them for him awwww. But uh oh… Ace has a new friend at home with him… its Raina! Raina is taking Ace hostage!

The team talks about how to address the Mike-for-Ace trade.  They cannot send any detectable surveillance in with Mike so they need another way to track him after the trade.  Fitzsimmons has a cool bloodhound device that can track down an odorless scent they will put on Mike.  (Jumping forward a bit, but Mike couldn’t find a way to rub some of this goo on Coulson?? They were right next to each other, man!)

They are on THE BRIDGE for the trade.  Ward is watching the exchange through a sniper rifle. Mike and Coulson face off with Raina and a soldier.  Raina says that Mike wasn’t a part of the deal she made! It was Coulson they wanted! Mike starts to attack her to change the deal to Ace for Raina’s life.  But Raina says her boss doesn’t care about her life so that won’t work, and Ace will die.  Coulson tells him to back off and goes willingly.  Ace is released. Coulson is tranquilized!  Mike drops Ace off with Skye and rushes back to the other side of the bridge to ‘make things right’ but.. THE BRIDGE EXPLODES.  The car Coulson was taken to also explodes.  Fire everywhere ahhh! A helicopter flies off… we can’t see who is in there, but they fire at Ward, hitting him.  The team is DISTRESSED.

Final stinger.  Raina in the helicopter with Coulson. No Mike in sight.  Coulson says he won’t be giving them what they want.  Raina says what they want is for Coulson to tell them what happened after he died!  Ooohhhh   but he doesn’t really know either! Intrigue 

** Spoilery footnotes below **