Oh boy. Ooohhh dear. We’re here. Here we are. This is it. This is the one. I remember the moment I watched this episode for the first time. I had been keeping the show on in the background for a few days while I did other things. The show was entertaining, and I liked a couple of the characters, but I was sure I knew what it was. I knew the formula it was following. I knew what to expect. Then they turned turned turned the tables on me. Wowee wow. It got me good. I just sat staring with my mouth open at the end.
The Garrett reveal plays out like a grand twist and I thought “ah yes of course he’s a baddie.” But I enjoyed that it was well done and not overtly obvious. Bill Paxton man. Great villain. I appreciate his sliminess.
Then. That second reveal…. damn. Hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember thinking “shit, this show might be good… I’m going to have to pay attention now…” It really ruined my chore schedule.
Look, y’all. This post is long. Fuggin deal with it. I have belaboring tangents (of which there are many) clearly notated in parentheses and italics.
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footnotes are spoilers for future episodes
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We begin with a song. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult. This is new. It’s like the opening scene to a movie. A motion picture cinema film! John Garrett is chilling in the cockpit of his lil quinjet drinking coffee and reading a book about strategy. Two drones swoop in on him and just as he’s reaching out to SHIELD to determine the nature of these drones, they start firing on him! Who are these guys? Oh luckily, one of them pulls up right next to him and shows off it’s SHIELD logo. It’s SHIELD! Wha???? Okay so Victoria Hand must have decided to take down Garrett when she also sent orders after Coulson at the end of last episode.
Back on the Bus, we pick up at the standoff between May and Coulson in the cargo hold. Ooh it’s tense. May finally drops the gun and opens up about her encrypted line. It was a dedicated channel to Director Fury! She has orders not to tell anyone, so she is stopping herself there. To deflect from further questioning, she asks what Fitz was doing poking at encrypted lines in the first place. He tries to deflect back, but papa Coulson isn’t giving anyone a pass today (dayum. Fitz really wins this scene for me. Many good performances here, but I was captivated by each line of his; every little interjection. He’s angry and determined here in a way that makes us take him more seriously than usual. He’s not cowering or bumbling. When he screams “trying to figure out how the whole thing works” with tears in his eyes, he’s expressing a completely new emotion for the character as far as we’ve seen. But it doesn’t come out of nowhere; the groundwork has been laid. We get a bit of his desperation from F.Z.Z.T mixed with his sternness from The Hub and Holy Scotsmen is it compelling). Fitz owns up to secretly contacting Simmons at the Hub while she tries to figure out what’s in the miracle drug. Mom and Pop are like “oh boy. Who’s Simmons talking to?”
At the Hub, Simmons is talking to my man Antoine Triplett! He accuses Simmons of acting suspicious until she finally spills the truth about looking at Skye’s blood samples. He offers to get them access to the “holo-box” which could be used to contact Agent Weaver at SHIELD Academy through a secure line. Trip says “you’re a surprisingly bad liar” and she says “I know, but I’m getting better at it” and yes that is a kickass line delivered in acutely kickass fashion. But why so serious, Jem? In this weighty episode, we could take the line as a hint that she could be lying to us, the viewer! Perhaps her loyalties are not so predictably aligned. But on rewatch after all the reveals, it is more of a red herring – the real meaning behind her dour tone is likely that she is conflicted about shifting her ever-present moral center in order to lie more convincingly for this organization.
Back on the Bus. Communication is jammed. Garrett’s calls for help come through because he is very close – still being chased by SHIELD drones. To deal with this emergency, Coulson puts the current emergency on pause by ICING Melinda May! Dayum [1]on rewatch, I was like ‘whatever. Happens all the time. How else are you gonna incapacitate an ally?’ but hey this was the first time they used one of these guns on their own and they like just … Continue reading. Because their controls were hijacked by Hand, Fitz is sent to hook some wires up to give them back control of their weapons. Yeah sure that makes sense. I don’t know planes. Skye continues decoding the signal that is jamming the airwaves.
Coulson drops unconscious May in the Honeycomb room with Ward. And Ward is like ‘she’s been reporting on us?! Wha? No way how awful terrible of our friend May to do that to us, her family!’
Then we get a cute lil air fight. They’re having trouble shaking off the drones, so Garett does a fun little twisty turn as Coulson pew pews the drones on either side of him. I think those are the correct tactical terms. Coulson saying “boo yah” after is corny but very dadlike and thus, in character, which makes it nice.
Hand is watching from the Hub and is like ‘no big, we’ll just kill em when they get here. And that way, we’ll get their aircrafts too!’ Mad cold, Hand, mad cold. Our buddy Agent Shaw from the episode the Hub is all, ‘hm but these cool cats totally pulled me out of a tough spot 10 episodes ago so I’m not chill about killing them.’ And Hand goes, ‘aw boo hoo little baby doesn’t want to murder a bunch of his widdle friends? Get over it! If you waver, you die!’ aight Victoria we get it, we’re supposed to be SUPER convinced that you are the big bad here.
Ah yes back to the coded message. Skye is decoding it just as everyone gathers in the room. Garrett tells them the trajectory of their plane will end up at the Hub so they piece together that Hand is in control and therefore… must be the Clairvoyant. Garrett has a real nice moment here where he questions this revelation. No spoiler tag necessary now… since he IS the Clairvoyant, he could have just jumped on the bandwagon, but he smartly realizes there would be no reason for the clairvoyant to reveal herself before her plan is … out of the Shadows. Speaking of which. The decoded message reads “out of the shadows. Into the Light” ah hm what dat? Then we get the one word…. “HYDRA” This last reveal is sooo cheeseballs but yeah sure, it gets the message through loud and clear. Hydra. Is. Back. Whhhaaaaattt?? Okay look when I first saw this, I had only heard of Hydra through one casual viewing of Captain America 1. But the dramatics here still tell you what this means without overexplaining (which I greatly appreciate. By the way, this show does a commendable job of avoiding over-explaining stuff that not everyone will get while still leaving a path for everyone to Get to The Point) – there are evil double agents in the system.
Garrett suggests bailing and running away, but is shut down because they gotta take the ride to the Hub in order to save Simmons…. And Triplett. And he’s like ‘ oh right, trip is there. I guess I care about that.’
Simmons uses Trip’s handy spacey scifi phone to zoom call Agent Weaver while the Academy is being ATTACKED BY HYDRA. Weaver is like “hide and trust no one” and theres like an explosion and the call cuts out [2]okay so … did she explode or what? I honestly don’t remember if we ever see her again. Well if not, Rest in pieces, Agent Weaver. I dug you . Trip slips away to lock the door while Jemma is talking. My faith in him did briefly waver at this point… is this a safety lock-in or a shady lock-in? But when he says “im doing what the lady said – locking the door” I was fully back on board. Full trust in this beautiful pure man. Jemma is still wary of him until he hands over a knife. Okay so why does this help her believe him? He even says “if you try to kill me with it, I’ll know I can’t trust you” meaning he does not expect she has the slightest chance against him with that knife. I suppose she really has no other choice.
In the honeycomb room. Ward is interrogating May about being an informant. This scene really fires off on a rewatch. He’s really laying the hypocriticisms on thick. And yes I do live for it. The gobsmackery.
Coulson pulls May up to her secure line to prove her story. She dials in to director Fury – but the rando on the other line says “Fury’s dead” nooooo. Then May gets hit in the arm with a BULLET because the Bus is now being SHOT AT. It’s cute here that even though Coulson is pissed at May, he’s still putting his body over hers until the firing stops.
Meanwhile, Ward busts out of the honeycomb room like ‘what the heck, friends?’ and Garrett is all ‘oh wowee wow, best bud, you will never believe it, but Victoria Hand sure is the dang Clairvoyant!’
Coulson is ferociously yankin the bullet out of May to patch her up. She tells him everything that she has been sharing with Fury. And it is a doozy. She knew about TAHITI and never said anything to him. She was watching out for signs of deterioration from him. Okay then she says “I assembled this team.” And I gotta tell you…. I don’t like this. Begin rant (First off, it sucks that she thinks now is a great time to pull a ‘gotcha! You thought you were in control here? Nah it was me all along, idiot.’ But also, her case is pretty flimsy. She’s saying that she assessed what was needed in order to care for Phil’s mystery body and then handed the assessment to Fury. But that doesn’t count as assembling the team… if it did, Coulson would have originally attributed forming the team to Fury because Fury gave him the parameters. Coulson picked out the members that filled those needs [3]now Ward will argue later that he put himself in a position to be picked but that’s a different can-o-worms . That’s…. what he thought he was doing in the first place, he just thought the parameters originated from Fury, not May, so… nothing changed as far as how much control he had. It also sucks that this means that the scene of Coulson approaching May at work in the pilot was all just her fakey faking not wanting to go into the field. She says here that part of “what was needed” was “an operative to help *me* put you down” so she always planned to join the team before Coulson asked. That was such a huge character calling card for her early on and I’m annoyed knowing that she was just ‘Grant Ward’ing it at first. AND ANOTHER THING -Coulson added Skye to the team. That’s like 20% of his team. She can’t take that from him. But sure the drama. I guess) end rant. She’s trying to make her point that she has nothing to do with Hydra and/or the Clairvoyant. Coulson makes a VALID rebuttal saying “I want to trust you, but you’ve been using that against me” Dayum mom and pop!
Agent Grant Ward is like ‘oh gosh oh jeez oh wow, Pop. What in jeebus name are we gonna do about all the super secret specs we have on our computers?’ and Skye is all ‘no worries, trustworthy pal-o-mine. I’m scrubbing the comps clean and backing it all up on this very important hard drive!’
The Hub agents finally bust into the Bus, but all our dudes have disappeared! Turns out Fitzy used a neato device he created called The Mousehole that can cut through anything – including the bottom of a plane and the top of a secure SHIELD facility – and now our team is fully traipsing the halls of the Hub! Alright, Fitz. Easy to miss, but Skye gives the Very Important Hard Drive to Grant Ward because she doesn’t trust herself to stand up under torture. Fair.
To Simmons and Trip! Hand’s men finally bust into their secret hiding place. The two are held at gunpoint and asked to pledge loyalty to Hydra or die! Yikes bikes(but like… what if they had decided that the smart thing to do would be pretending to be Hydra to live another minute before waiting for the team or a way out? I feel like that is a valid move for an agent to make. Would that have been the end for them? Just wonderin). Simmons tosses Trip’s own knife back to him and he holds it to a rando’s neck, threatening to take one of Hand’s guys with him. I mean, if she really was Hydra, she probably wouldn’t care, but she’s NOT. And this is enough to convince her that they aren’t either. However, she breaks the news that “your friend Coulson” is Hydra. Pffft ‘your friend’. So disrespectful. Look, Lady. If Coulson was Hydra, we’d have comic-con girls rioting in the streets. No one believes you.
Coulson and May pretend to have been captured by disguised Garrett and Fitz and they successfully ICER their way in to like a security room place.
Victoria Hand is railing on about all the reasons Coulson is Hydra: refusing a direct order, recruiting known enemies of SHIELD, lying to people sometimes, blah blah blah.
Skye and Ward’s mission is to disable the Hub systems. They’ve snuck up to a hall blocked by twelve guys. Ward is all ‘woe is me. I feel so awful bad sad for killing that poor poor innocent man. I will pave the way for you, my love, or die trying’ And Skye is like ‘okay werk’ and gives him a little kiss. Ward goes out and performs a kickass fight sequence against all the baddies. He ends up on the floor being kicked a bunch for some reason, but he sees a knife on the ground gives a lil smirk like ‘I got this.’ We cut back to Skye listening from the door until he busts back in – alive and a lil scratched up. It’s all very impressive. He says “you ready to hack this system?” but she reveals the BOMB in her bag – clarifying that she has no intention of hacking.
The foursome is looking through security footage for Simmons. Garrett suggests just killing Victoria Hand – who is definitely for sure the Clairvoyant – but mom and pop are like ‘way harsh, tai.’ So then Garrett goes off listing all the things that the Clairvoyant (Victoria Hand) has done. She killed three of his men in cold blood! She had Skye shot in the stomach! She tortured Coulson in the same machine she used to torture Raina! Oh – wait. He shouldn’t know that. I mean I would guess most of the audience doesn’t remember Raina briefly mentioning (in ep.11) that the torture machine was used on her. Coulson certainly never brought it up again … to anyone. So… Garrett must know… because… he’s been the ~*~Clairvoyant~*~ this whole time! Dammit.
Hand’s men bust in and Coulson is like “oh goodie. Here’s the Clairvoyant right here, kids. Take him!” but some of the men are Hydra agents that hadn’t come out of the shadow yet… and on Garrett’s order, they kill the rest of their own squad and shout “hail Hydra!” Double dammit.
Garrett (THE CLAIRVOYANT) is giving his villain exposition monologue. He switched to Hydra’s side when he felt the wind changing… they’ve just been hiding in plain sight (including top brass) for years keeping the secret… his own guys learned the truth so he killed them… he didn’t enjoy torturing Coulson. He offers Coulson the opportunity to come to the dark side, but dad vehemently refuses. Garrett doesn’t even offer a chance to May because he already knows Mom is sticking with Pop. And then he tells Fitz he will be tortured into service unless he volunteers. Fitz says he intends to make Garrett suffer ( Okay, Natalie, don’t apologize for fawning over your favorite character. It’s your blog and no one is reading it. Alright I won’t. This little heartbreaking scene is so wonderful. The tears. He’s cowering before Garrett, but still threatening him. So endearing. the growth. the tenderness. Just beautiful. Bravo, Iain). Already now to some action. Just before the firing squad does their firing, our lovers in the hallway set off the bomb! Fight, fight, fight! May takes on all the Hydra soldiers. Fitz kills dead one of them with a real gun that he shoots from under a desk with his eyes closed. Coulson takes on Garrett the whole time and eventually knocks him out with the nifty knocker-outer device that Ward used in ep.2 (0-8-4).
Victoria Hand apparently heard the whole villain monologue through a walkie-talkie-lookin-thing that was hidden in the room. Don’t know why or when it got there. Then she took her sweet time getting to the room and busts in unnecessarily after our guys already beat the baddies down.
Garrett is captured and there’s a tender slo-rock slo-mo montage of him being taken out with the other Hydras. I love the shot of Triplett screaming at him in silent slomo. Garrett killed his teammate friends! Then another silent scene of Ward in “disbelief.” Very nicely done.
Hand is gearing up to take Garrett to The Fridge. Ward comes in and requests to go with her so he can “see Garrett suffer.” Hand and Coulson make up and shake hands.
On the Bus, Coulson calls May “an ally. Not a friend” and says all they can do now is try to survive.
On Hand’s quin jet! Yikes bikes here we go. Okay yes first of all I will say briefly I do not fully understand why she asks Ward to kill Garrett… right here… on this flying plane. Why not earlier? Why not later on the ground? But whatever. She does. She felt now was the time. So Agent Grant Ward stands up and… shoots the other two guards! And then he shoots Victoria Hand! Thrice! That’s one more shot than Skye got! Victoria Hand is dead dead. And Ward killed her! Aaahhhhhh. Something wicked comes over Wards face as he gives Garrett a nod.
instead of the SHIELD logo, we get a Hydra logo before the stinger. Love that. Hate that. Perfect touch.
Stinger.
The camera is just on Ward while Garrett is going off on one of his stories in the background. Ward is silent and then looks directly at the camera before credits. Oh what’s this? A non-fitz fawning tangent in the wild? Don’t mind if I do(Ward is amazing in this scene and the one before. He looks completely different. As soon as he murders those three people on the plane with no emotion, he just looks… evil. Even after all this time of being our trusty loyal strongman, it’s convincing with this one look… our boy Grant is a Bad Guy. I love love love this scene so much. It may be the most important scene of the series. From here on out the whole tone of the show is different. Heck, the whole structure of the show changes. If it had not been done well, I might have looked up at my screen and rolled my eyes while thinking ‘ah they made a good guy into a baddie out of nowhere. Sure.’ But it was done with care. It really earns the shock of it all. And Brett Dalton’s subtle performance is a huge part of it. Thanks dude).
Spoilers
| ↑1 | on rewatch, I was like ‘whatever. Happens all the time. How else are you gonna incapacitate an ally?’ but hey this was the first time they used one of these guns on their own and they like just developed the thing. Calls for momentary shock |
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| ↑2 | okay so … did she explode or what? I honestly don’t remember if we ever see her again. Well if not, Rest in pieces, Agent Weaver. I dug you |
| ↑3 | now Ward will argue later that he put himself in a position to be picked but that’s a different can-o-worms |