Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Rewatch: S1E16 “The End of the Beginning”

Okay okay okay.  You can feel this whole episode is on the verge of some…. Revelation perhaps.  It is very entertaining.  Once again we have new pairings amongst the agents which is always a marvelous opportunity for new character dynamics.   I loved Nash’s spooky monologue so much on this watch.  The tensity for the back end of the episode makes it very difficult not to just roll on to the next one.  There is so much mistrust amongst my family team! Who is lying?  Are these secrets worth keeping or are they Evil secrets?   This episode has everything: the return of garrett, the return of TRIP, golden retrievers, friends shouting at friends.  But whyyy?

this one will have a lot of *spoilerific footnotes* because things are about to be revealed but aren’t quite revealed yet


Agents Garrett and Triplett are at a safehouse in Sydney, Australia.  I love that the security AI at the door says their names out loud to remind any audience members who may have forgotten them.   Deathlok busts in. Trip tries to take him down with some electrical shocks and a shot of the ICER. Deathlok is still standing but he does stop attacking and jumps out through the ceiling.  Guess they’re on the top floor

Agents Hand, Blake, Sitwell, Garrett, and Triplett walk – in formation – onto the Bus. They’re like ‘this meeting could have been an email’ and Coulson is like ‘okay but what if the Clairvoyant really has mind-reading powers that we don’t believe in? maybe being up in the air will hinder him?’  ^[1]sorry, dad, the clairvoyant is on that plane with you Garrett assumes that Deahlok is after them because they are getting close to finding out the identity of the Clairvoyant ^[2] I suppose the real purpose of the attack was to convince Coulson to get the ball rolling to find the fake Clairvoyant. And if Trip got killed in the process, that’s no biggie He wants to investigate 13 people who have been rejected from SHIELD’s Gifted index for not actually having psychic powers.  They have a plan to pair off and check in on each non-gifted.  Coulson wants Skye to oversee the prioritization of the candidates and pairing of the agents.  Too bad she would have to be a SHIELD agent to have access to the candidate information…

in the med bay, Simmons is like ‘hey Skye bestie, you like breaking rules you’ll love this; let’s send your blood to HQ for testing!’  But Skye is like ‘um no um actually let’s listen to Coulson and leave it alone.’  Of course Fitzsimmons is flabbergasted by this reaction from her, but we know that Skye knows that she has alien juice in her blood just like Coulson does and they want it to stay a secret.

Ward brings Skye up to discuss the Clairvoyant op with the big boys. She comes up with the idea to make it a ‘double blind’ so each person in the pair will have different information about their mission.  That way, any potential psychic will have difficulty retrieving all the information at once (I think that’s the reason, anyway).  But Skye realizes that she can’t pull this off without having SHIELD clearance… so…. COULSON HANDS HER A BADGE. Aw.  Skye is officially a level 1 SHIELD agent.  How cute.  Congrats, hun. Ward ruins it by saying “I’m no clairvoyant, but I do think that some things are meant to be” (ugh ^[3]and UGHH )

Mike is in a dingy room looking at himself in the mirror. He has a cut on his forehead with metal underneath it.  A knock on the door.  A box left outside.  It’s a new arm! Well kind of. It’s not a full robot limb like his leg is, but he slaps the cuff on his arm (looks painful) and gets some upgraded weaponry that we don’t get to see just yet.

Sitwell disapproves of the Clairvoyant op, but it doesn’t matter because he just got new orders to head to the Lemurian Star (it’s like a satellite launching boat? Or something. I don’t know. It has to do with Captain America: The Winter Soldier which is the movie that came out right after this episode aired. It doesn’t matter here ^[4]except that, in the movie, Sitwell is KILLED after being revealed as an undercover Hydra agent… so the moment when him and Coulson say goodbye to each other here is meant to be a lil bit poignant … Continue reading in this episode except that Sitwell is leaving).   Victoria Hand is headed to the Hub to watch the whole Clairvoyant op and prepare to bail them out “when” it all goes south.  

Skye is meeting with each agent one-at-a-time in the honeycomb room to give them their piece of the mission. Garrett is showing off his battle scars – and 3^rd degree burns – and commending her for getting shot in the gut ^[5]and spoiler of all spoilers which we will discover in the VERY NEXT episode… he’s the one responsible for Skye getting shot!!  Ahhh wow what a faker   She thanks him for risking his life to find the miracle drug that saved her. He mentions that Ward has changed ever since he joined this team.  He clearly believes Ward has feelings for Skye and is fighting for her, but Garrett doesn’t seem to mind. 

Fitz is showing off his newest invention to May– a bullet that can tag targets with location-tracking.  Simmons walks in talking about blood samples without realizing May is in the room … so Fitzsimmons must spill.  May just says that if they notice any strange behavior from Skye or Coulson, they should come to her first.  And then she smiles…. Something is off here.   

Coulson is taking his turn in the honeycomb room with Skye.  He sees her worrying and gives her a pep talk to try to read the Clairvoyant’s mind and figure out what the bad guy’s plan is.

Mission begins. Pairs are off.
Agents Trip and Ward are headed to a prison in the UK.  They are having a trauma-measuring contest about who hates the Clairvoyant more. Grant hates the Big Bad for shooting Skye, but apparently the guy fully killed Agent Trip’s partner.    Grant is like ‘well whatever its not like we’re here to kill the guy, we’re just taking him in’ … …   They get their target details and head in ( I didn’t understand this double-blind plan. As soon as one of pair members got the details about the candidate, they immediately shared it with the other person). When they get inside, no one is at the front of the prison to welcome them. Weird

Garrett is regaling Coulson with a heroic tale from his previous agent days, not realizing Coulson was there when it happened.  They get the info on their candidate – some lady with a super high IQ.    They come across a detour and just after that an additional roadblock.   (okay but why are these people being blocked? What good does it do to distract the other two pairs while the real danger is in Macon, Georgia? Just to throw them off for fun?  Perhaps to let them know that the Clairvoyant is still watching.)

Agent Blake and Agent May are arriving at an assisted living facility in Macon, Georgia for their target.  Blake asks May if she is a Scorpio because they seem compatible. I don’t hate this.
Thomas Nash is their guy. He has been catatonic for the past 4 years.  Blake and May split up. Great.  While Blake is ringing the bell at the front desk, he is attacked by Deathlok!   Ah! Blake shoots him a few times then tries to appeal to the machineman by bringing up his son, but Deathlok says “Mike Peterson is dead.” And then stomps him in the gut with the robot leg.  Yikes!  
May rushes in, but Deathlok fires a new arm missile at her and escapes.  

Everyone gathers back at the Bus. Blake is still alive but barely. He is carted off.  Hand is all ‘ waah this wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t split up into tiny pairs instead of going in with backup.’ Whatever girl. You didn’t have a better plan.    She is going to take Simmons with her back to the Hub for debrief on the Deathlok program. 
Cut to Simmons very excited for her stay at the Hub so that she can use the fancy lab there to study Skye’s blood!  But whats this? Agent Triplett will be staying at the Hub as well. Uh oh an extra pair of eyes for her to avoid… or to gaze into longingly.

Now sure that Nash is the Clairvoyant, Skye is looking into him.   Something about Nash faking his current condition after his car crash to avoid SHIELD’s watch.
They realize that Agent Blake fired one of Fitz’s tag rounds at Deathlok. Nicely done Blake ^[6]we don’t see Blake again until like one episode in season 3 when he’s in a wheelchair fighting against inhumans. interesting

They track Deathlok to some racetrack complex in Pennsacola, Florida.   They make Skye stay in the van.  Fitz comes in and releases the golden retrievers from episode 9.  What is the difference between the retrievers and the dwarves though?   Oh because the retrievers seek stuff out on their own. And they look cool… even though they don’t have names, which is a real missed opportunity.  Fitz is sent back to the van.  One of the retrievers finds Deathlok and Skye can see him up close and personal through the retriever’s xray vision.   Deathlok has a bunch of metal under his skin! He smacks down this retriever.    

Deathlok shoots down a couple redshirts and then jumps down like 8 levels of stairs.   Coulson follows him the long way into some sort of basement.  Garrett is already down there. Odd maybe?  Anyway, a golden retriever rushes off and locates Thomas Nash.  He is in a wheelchair. He’s immobile but is speaking through a computer system.  The voice is amazing and smooth and taunting and terrifying.  The first thing he says is that he surrenders. But then he goes off on a long villainous rant about what he has seen and what he will do.  He says that Skye has something “we” want, and she will die giving it to them.   But then Ward shoots Nash! Dead! Ward just killed the guy! 

Coulson is aghast. Garrett says he sent Ward to Coulson to knock off the rough edges, but Coulson’s team might have made him too emotional. Gross.   May says Director Fury Is waiting for Coulson at the Triskellion.  Cool lets go there! Onto the bus.

Skye talks to Ward in the honeycomb room.  He’s all “I would do whatever it takes to make sure you are safe….. you and… the rest of the team “  yeah yeah yeah we get it, Ward.

Fitz is setting up an encrypted hardline to call Simmons. 
  Line of the episode: “Fitz?” “Don’t use my name, Jemma!”
The line is cutting in and out.  When Fitz investigates, he sees that someone else is already tapping into the encrypted line! 

Skye and Coulson are talking over the Nash incident in the principle’s office.  Coulson doesn’t feel good about it.  Skye realizes that everything that the Clairvoyant has been using to “push buttons” to get what he wants has come from psych evaluations.  Everything the clairvoyant knows could have been known by a SHIELD agent with security clearance! Ah! The call is coming from inside the house and whatnot.

Fitz follows the tapped line into the cockpit.  He find’s May’s secret little phone!  She walks in on him and he just kind of stammers his way out of the room. He bumps into Skye and snitches on May.  Skye with her newfound revelation orders Fitz to cut the line.  Fitz does this as May is trying to call out.  May is pissed. She grabs a gun and starts hunting down Fitz! ah! Drama!

Ward and Coulson are yelling at each other in the honeycomb room.  Coulson is poking at Ward to see if someone ordered him to kill Nash.  Skye busts in to break the news about May. Coulson leaves his pal Ward locked in the room and rushes off to track down his pal May!   

She is hunting through the cargo hold and turns to shoot at Fitz but he has shut the doors of the medlab so the blasts hit the glass. Her icer shots would have hit him in the head and heart. Brutal. 

Coulson is interrogating her.  She won’t give up information about her encrypted line, but when Coulson starts accusing her of being in contact with the Clairvoyant, she seems genuinely confused. 
The plane turns around on its own!   Whaaa?  May mentions that SHIELD has remote access to the plane and they are the only ones who could be doing this.
So we cut to Victoria Hand looking menacing in front of her bigo screen. She orders her men to kill everyone on board except for Coulson.  “he’s mine” AHHH Agent Lipstick herself. Tsk tsk.

Okay ugh. So there is no stinger this time.  That’s because when this show originally came out, in place of the stinger, they inserted a lil clip of the Captain America movie that was about to come out.  Whatev. 
just think about those of us in the future next time you alter the format, okay?   


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