Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Rewatch: S1E20 “Nothing Personal”

Yeah sure it’s good. This one is fine and good. I like that Deathlok is back. Skye is serving fierce up and down the episode. I don’t have any strong feelings about Maria Hill, but it’s neat to see her again. Okay I feel like my feelings are “meh” – but! I found multiple “favorite” moments that I point out in the meat of this post. So there is clearly fantastic stuff going on here. I think my general thoughts come away as ‘meh’ just because this episode is set in the middle of a mass of high-energy episodes so nothing sticks out. It really is very good. I love love love the final stinger…My favorite so far. oooh i’m gonna go watch it again. Here while i’m gone, read this.

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“direct quotes look like this”
‘my silly paraphrasing looks like this’
(tangents are notated in such a manner)
footnotes^[1]spoiler! contain spoilers for future episodes
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Maria Hill is on the phone with Pepper Potts. Maria’s annoyed with Congress.  She is being followed by undercover members of various intelligence agencies.  They are all taken out by Agent Melinda May.  She tells Maria that Coulson is at Providence and he needs help.  He wants to know more about Tahiti – like who was in charge. Fury “buried the intel when he decided not to bury Coulson” this is a clue.  May is like ‘or you could just ask Fury.’ And Maria is like ‘no lol he’s super dead for sure.’

Providence. Coulson and FitzTrimmons are trying to figure out why May and SkyWard left. All internal camera feeds were erased but the hanger feed is separate so Ward missed it. They just saw May leaving the Bus with a packed bag and then a log shows she left through the front door. They see Skyward get on the Bus holding hands before it takes off.  Coulson knows that May left because he told her to. Trip says “we don’t need her sorry ass then.”  Love the passion, Trip, but you are unfortunately so wrong.  Simmons wants to make everyone pancakes to make us feel better.  Fitz heads to fire up the griddle – wherever that is.  We don’t find out where because he is distracted by an out-of-place window scene.  He notices that the scene in the bathroom is a nighttime scene while the rest are showing daytime (yeah I never would have noticed this).   There is something – maybe a super sharp nail file –  holding the scene in place.  When he pulls out the tool, the day scene scrolls into position. It has a message scratched onto it…  “WARD IS HYDRA.”  At the same time, Simmons is in the closet getting pancake mix and notices blood dripping from the ceiling. She screams (needless to say, I love this shot of Fitz looking stunned at the words in front of him then flinching when he hears Jemma’s scream in the distance. I can’t watch the scene without rewinding and watching again. King of reaction-shots gets to throw out two in one). Simultaneously, Coulson is talking to Trip. He’s running scenarios. “best case. Agent Koenig knows something we don’t. he kept us in the dark for our safety” “worst case?”  “we’ve had a wolf in the herd the whole time.”   Okay Coulson good on you for catching on just seconds before its revealed to you for sure.

On the Bus, Skye is trying to snoop around even though Ward is right in front of her… He’s like ‘hey ha ha quit snooping lol.’ She says the coordinates needed for decryption are set to the diner where Skye first talked to Mike Peterson in ep 1. Neat callback. Ward takes Skye’s gun and assures her that everything is going to be okay.  … …

Simmons is performing a quick autopsy on Koenig to determine cause of death. Fitz isn’t willing to believe the words scrawled on the fake window.  Trip tries to console him but he’s like ‘I don’t even know you, bitch’ and Jemma is like ‘chill tf out or get out of my workspace. Also, yes Ward definitely killed this dead man who is currently laying on the table in front of me.’  Fitz is having a Hard Time. He throws a little tantrum, and I don’t mind it. Like Phil’s outburst two episodes prior, it shows these cool lil spies can have emotions.  Not saying its productive… but it’s human.  Phil says “all that anger. All that pain. We need to focus It on Skye. She just walked out of here hand-in-hand with someone she knows is a murderer because she’s playing him like he played us. We’re going to find her before Ward figures that out.”
Aw go dad. Great leader moment.

Dad is keeping cool but says “Trust me I’m gonna have a major freakout later” ( I appreciate that because that’s how I am in a crisis as well. I go into hard compartmentalization until I get through it and then I have a breakdown). Though… I don’t know if we ever see Coulson’s major freakout ‘later.’ 
Ward is Hydra so that means Hand is dead and Garret is alive.  So glad we’re all on the same page again.

“our plane is in Los Angeles. Finally some good news”
-*Security system alerts them of a perimeter breach*-
“I should have… knocked on wood just then”

At the diner, Skye is trying so hard to stall. We see the hard drive alert that the location is invalid. So there’s confirmation that she took him to the wrong place on purpose.  Ward can tell she’s nervous.  And she’s like ‘oh its just cuz we’re FBI’s most wanted’ which is a good cover. Agent Skye is agenting.  Police officers walk in.  Ward is on alert. 

PhiltzTrimmons (I’m sure you’re all following, but figured I’d check in this one time since I have never addressed this before. PhiltzTrimmons is Phil, Fitz, Trip, and Simmons.  I am combining names because it was set up early on that everyone talked about Fitz and Simmons as if they were one person. So I’m just continuing that for other combinations of team members that are all performing the same action.   It completely makes sense. No more questions, please)  prepares to fight whoever is coming into their base.   The hangar door unlocks… it has to be someone who knows the passcode. Then Brigadier General Glen Talbot stomps in with his soldiers.   From his hiding spot, Coulson says,
“If I come out, will you shoot me? Cuz… then, I won’t come out”    
 He hands his bigo gun over to Fitz and steps out.    He’s like, “how the hell did you find this place?” and Maria Hill says “I told them”  oh yeah… Maria Hill is here.

Melinda May is digging up Phil Coulson’s grave to find the thing that Fury buried instead of Phil.  I do appreciate the inclusion of a poor old man looking on.  He was just bringing flowers to another grave and got to witness a cute little grave-robbing in broad daylight (I was gonna say this old man character is ‘cute but unnecessary’, but you know if they hadn’t included that man, there would be countless takes from fans saying ‘bro I’m supposed to believe that nobody saw her?!’ and it would be annoying.  This is a better alternative).  Inside the coffin is a flash drive.  She plugs it in to see that it contains information about TAHITI from  ‘project supervisor to Director Fury.’ hm. hm indeed.

Providence.
I hate the way Talbot is eating that apple.  It’s effective. I hate him officially now.  Makes me want to smash my screen. 
While he’s torturing our ears, he tries to get FitzTrimmons to spill some deets, but no one is budging. 
Fitz says “do your worst” dayumn.  Simmons is serving sass. Trip looks tough.  I am so proud of my SHIELD children.

In another room, Maria is like ‘okay so we turn over this secret base to the government so that they know you aren’t a bad guy.  They’ll just interrogate your little kids for a while and we’ll just forget about everything’…  Phil is like ‘no sis.’ “You lied to me about TAHITI.  You were worried about me when you should’ve been worried about anyone else.” oooohh nice. Then he spills that Ward is Hydra which hits Hill in the right spot because she vetted Ward herself.  Yeah that’s gotta hurt.   Speaking of hurting, Talbot and his men walk in the room and HillSon (Hill and Coulson) ATTACK THEM in order to escape.  

In the diner, Skye has decided it’s time to start pushing some buttons. She asks Ward veiled questions about being under cover, before bringing up how hard it must have been to be ‘betrayed’ by Garrett. This is probably my favorite Skye moment of the series so far.
“if you had one more moment before you shot him in the back of his head so heroically… if you had him right here, what would you say to him? Would you say that he’s disgusting?  Would you say he’s a disgusting backstabbing traitor? Or to rot in hell?”   
  Then she lets him know that she tipped off the cops. “Hail Hydra.” Hot (girl what is happening to me? I did not care a lick about Skye on my first watch through but I am into her now. Now I understand why all the the AoS fans are cookoo bananas over this character. The more you watch, the more you love). The cops approach. She says “be careful, he’s armed” and they are not careful enough.  Ward takes them all down. 
She tries to get some cops to arrest her so that she’ll be safe, but Ward shoots those cops too.
Skye starts driving the cop car and then DEATHLOK shows up and grabs her THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD.

On the Bus, Deathlok is like, ‘Ward you suck at this. Garrett sent me to come do a better job.’  Skye finally gets her chance to scream and wail on Ward though it doesn’t do much.  He claims Hydra isn’t Nazis anymore.  She’s like um bro your founder was a “big fat freakin nazi”. Love that

I HATE (in a good way) the way evil Ward talks to Skye about his feelings.  His voice gets all high pitched and breathy.  “hyou know hau I fhel abouht you skayh” is so off-putting.  This is where Skye realizes that Ward really does have feelings for her.  He approaches her like she is going to be okay with him now that she knows he lubs her, but she literally says “I’m gonna throw up.”  Yeah no pretending any more. You let it out girl. Puke if you need to.

We see Deathlok get an order that tells him Garrett is done waiting. “Go to plan B.” 
Plan B turns out to be giving Ward a heart attack until Skye tells Deathlok the correct location to unlock the drive.  Unfortunately, this tactic works because Skye isn’t a killer. Damn girl.  They got ur number. She tells them the hard drive can be accessed once the plane gets to a specific altitude.

Maria Hill sits in a plane in front of the Bus on a runway. She and Ward sass back and forth for a minute. Why are they even on a runway? The Bus just shoots straight up with its weird engine jets? Where are they?   Okay anyway the Bus lifts off and Hill doesn’t follow them. She was just buying enough time to let Phil Coulson sneak on board his own plane.  He finds Skye in the Honeycomb room. 
She’s like wow “how did you get past Deathlok?” and Coulson is all  ‘say who? Oh we gotta beat it then’

They lower the cargo ramp and JUMP IN LOLA.  Lola has guns behind her headlights! Lola shoots at the two baddies and slides OUT OF THE FLYING BUS.  Skye didn’t buckle up and almost flies out. Very cool little action sequence here of Skye flailing around and Lola‘s jets misfiring until the last possible moment.  The car clanks down in a parking spot and a nonplussed young man wearing headphones casually walks up and says “that’ll be 20 bucks.” Coulson looks at him for a second before reaching for his wallet.  I genuinely love this gag. One of my favorites of the season.  Cheesy in the right way. I love the way Clark Greg sells it as ‘yeah this is just another day as a secret agent. Where is my wallet?’

The team has gone to a motel to hide out.  Coulson is starting to plan their next moves, but Maria Hill says ‘naw hun. SHIELD doesn’t exist anymore. Send your kids home and chill out’ and he’s all ‘wow you still don’t get it huh? This TV show is called “Agents of SHIELD” not “Agents of actually we’re gonna lead normal lives now.”’

Fitz is still trying to make sense of Ward’s betrayal.  But while he is still in denial, Simmons has swiftly moved into anger. Fitz says “Tayl me thah ur noht Hydra”  and when Simmons says she’s not, Fitz says “good cuz I’m not either” and Simmons kind of rolls her eyes and says “of course not.”  I love how certain she is. This exchange is so cute^[2]I feel like this scene is meant to be foreshadowing for Simmons being fake Hydra in Season 2, but the bigger impact for me is thinking forward to season 4. Just comparing this Fitz here to the Fitz … Continue reading.

Trip doesn’t usually eat junk food but he’s “on vacation.” (This brief casual exchange is a standout Triplett moment.  So far, he’s mostly been portrayed as a get-the-job-done tough agent who is not afraid to show his anger when a situation calls for it.  But this suave version of him is so much more compelling. When he said, “I’m gonna go crazy… might have another bag” that’s when I fell in love with Antoine Triplett) Then he walks into the blurry background of the shot, and you can see him offering chips to FitzSimmons (and Fitz accepts). Skye says she “left them a little present when she decrypted the drive” but we don’t know what that is yet ^[3]and uh… I actually don’t remember… I know its not tracking them because fitz tagging the plane is a notable moment soon… and it’s not like a lil bomb… well I guess I’ll find out.   Coulson shares some chocolate with Skye and they chill for a moment. he says “nice night” – very pleasant scene.

Final stinger
And what a stinger it is.  Melinda May is waiting for Phil in his motel room. He’s glad to see her.  She shows him what is on the thumb drive that was in his grave.  It’s a video… of Phil Coulson… talking to a camera.  Video Phil Coulson is addressing Fury – telling him that he cannot continue working on project TAHITI because it is dangerous.  He says the side effects are too great to move forward with the experiments, but they can be curtailed if the subject’s memory is changed.    Present day Phil Coulson says …… “huh” 
Very good. Perfect reaction. 10/10. Do it again. Oh right I can just rewind –