Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents of SHIELD - S02E14 - "Love in the Time of Hydra"

[ctsketch]

I'd like to believe Bobbi is a triple agent....

 

[Destructus86]

I'd like to believe Bobbi is a triple agent....

I want to believe that but she seems like she really supports this "new" SHIELD.

 

[hoy-small-fry]

And doing a triple agent is so cliché... Coulson appears to have no idea about nuSHIELD anyway

 

[Loki882]

I do like that both he and May realize that SOMETHING is up with Mack and that he's hiding something. So at least they're not being written as completely clueless.

 

[hoy-small-fry]

Yeah, I'm glad they did that. It seems impossible to me that nuSHIELD know all about SHIELD, whereas Coulson has no idea. What have nuSHIELD been doing exactly to stay so off-grid?

 

[metaphysician]

Yeah, I'm glad they did that. It seems impossible to me that nuSHIELD know all about SHIELD, whereas Coulson has no idea. What have nuSHIELD been doing exactly to stay so off-grid?

If I had to guess, that's exactly what they've been doing: staying off the grid. Which is to say, they haven't been doing anything *productive*, just hiding from Coulson's SHIELD and infiltrating it.

This does not inspire confidence in their benevolence.

 

[Marvel]

Damn! Wrote up a lengthy post and lost it due to a frickin' random page refresh. So here we go again...

Another strong, strong episode. Thought it was a good step above the last one and a half step below the first two post-break episodes, both of which I thought were stunning.

Really liked what they did with Talbot, who was genuinely funny. Veering close to caricature territory without ever crossing over, and still managing to maintain the core essence of the character is quite commendable.

Also liked the Skye/Coulson stuff. While it was somewhat predictable, I thought it was very well acted and executed.

Ward and Agent 33’s little adventure was a lot of fun too. I continue to love what they’re doing with Ward. As of now, I have absolutely no clue what his endgame is, and that’s a really good thing.

I thought nuSHIELD was pretty frickin’ cool. I know there’s been a lot of criticism about nuSHIELD's alleged hypocrisy with respect to their openness/transparency manifesto, but I think y’all are reading this wrong. The transparency thing obviously extends only to their organization. They obviously don’t consider Coulson's team to be associated with SHIELD in any shape or form, and therefore would have zero reason to be open/transparent with them. From their perspective, Fury compartmentalizing SHIELD to such an absurd degree was probably the main reason Project Insight was almost a success... and I don't think they're mistaken. I can see why they would be against Coulson, who was Fury's handpicked successor.

Olmos was rather awesome, as always, in a somewhat predictable role... basically playing close to his BSG character. Kirk Acevedo randomly popping up was a nice surprise to me. I've always thought he has this really great screen presence... even in the crappy stuff he’s done. I’m a little surprised that he isn't a bigger star at this point of his career. Then again, he consistently gets a lot of good supporting roles on TV... them’s the breaks, I guess. Hope his character is given an expanded role going forward.

Speculation time. I’m thinking that over the course of this season SHIELD and nuSHIELD are forced into an uneasy alliance to go against some threat that neither team can go against alone. Then, next season, I think we might be see a SHIELD vs. nuSHIELD Civil War parallel storyline play out on TV.

Again... anyone who’s a fan of the MCU and isn't watching AOS right now is REALLY MISSING OUT. I cannot stress this enough.

Great review.

Indeed another strong, strong episode yet they need to cut some of the cheese.

The show really has hit a nice groove and 90% of what's depicted is heady, intense, fun and wonderful. Yet, the past few episodes delivered a scene or character that was too over-the-top in my opinion. That hurts overall credibility in my book.

Last week, the exacto-knife baddie was eye rollingly bad. This week, why do we need an over-the-top Ward/Agent 33 Pulp Fiction "honey bunny" diner hold up/kidnapping? What does it gain them? Why not just eat their pancakes and follow the guy out and jam a gun in his ribs? The brainwashing ending was overly cheesy as well.

They need to trim things like that way down in the future but overall, a great run for this entire season.

 

[mr. peasant]

If I had to guess, that's exactly what they've been doing: staying off the grid. Which is to say, they haven't been doing anything *productive*, just hiding from Coulson's SHIELD and infiltrating it.

This does not inspire confidence in their benevolence.

Or to put it in blunter terms, been nothing but judgmental *****es; having done nothing themselves to combat the threat of Hydra except watching from the sidelines and criticising Coulson for the moral compromises he's had to do.

 

[DN91]

At least Coulson's SHIELD has been proactive in wiping out Hydra and stopping their evil plans, which can't be said for Other SHIELD.

 

[Lilbaz]

At least Coulson's SHIELD has been proactive in wiping out Hydra and stopping their evil plans, which can't be said for Other SHIELD.

How do you know? Hydra probably has many splinter cells. Bobbi talked of "all the stuff we've been through". In the last episode. They could have done any number of things.

 

[ralphuniverse]

G'day,

And just how "transparent" are they? Talbot seems to know nothing about them. You would expect a man in his position to do so.

ta

Ralph

At least Coulson's SHIELD has been proactive in wiping out Hydra and stopping their evil plans, which can't be said for Other SHIELD.

 

[just one thing]

coulson is the type of manager that gets to work on the factory floor. have to give him points for that as well.

 

[Mike Murdock]

G'day,

And just how "transparent" are they? Talbot seems to know nothing about them. You would expect a man in his position to do so.

ta

Ralph

I get the impression they're talking about transparency between members of the organization. Decisions were made by a counsel of people who discussed things. Coulson makes all the decisions himself and only tells things on a need to know basis.

 

[InternetPeople]

NuSHIELD's liberalization of information is so insane I can't get my head around it. Maybe they haven't done anything because they are too chicken-**** about getting someone caught and spilling all the beans about their missions. NuSHIELD's ideologies are doomed to fail.

If NuSHIELD had some success to show then I would be a little happier about their story involvement but as many of you have said, they haven't done anything besides sit on the sidelines and get all judgmental of how Coulson runs things. I'm not sure if the writers were trying to make me hate NuSHIELD this much but they succeeded. NuSHIELD is dumb.

And whomever came up with the term NuSHIELD

 

[Seb]

Nah, NuSHEILD is all about transparency. They're so transparent it's like they aren't even there...

As for Bobbi, I like that she's showing some level of discomfort with her role, like she's following orders but not entirely happy about it. I hope they build on that, rather than have her shift to the Mack-level 'Coulson is literally the worst' thing.

 

[Pokkle]

NuSHIELD's liberalization of information is so insane I can't get my head around it. Maybe they haven't done anything because they are too chicken-**** about getting someone caught and spilling all the beans about their missions. NuSHIELD's ideologies are doomed to fail.

If NuSHIELD had some success to show then I would be a little happier about their story involvement but as many of you have said, they haven't done anything besides sit on the sidelines and get all judgmental of how Coulson runs things. I'm not sure if the writers were trying to make me hate NuSHIELD this much but they succeeded. NuSHIELD is dumb.

And whomever came up with the term NuSHIELD

We don't know, what have done Olmos's shield, we only know what have done Bobbi, Mack and Hartley, we don't know if they have done nothing.

For me, the transparency is about their organization, their leaders, not others people they don't want to put their locations on facebook and Google map.

 

[fixxxer]

And whomever came up with the term NuSHIELD

I think that might have been me. Love me some pats on the back.

(Though I'm sure plenty of people came up with it independently.)

I'm sure they'll have some tie-in to AOU, but this nuSHIELD stuff seems to me like they're playing the long game by building towards Civil War. Hey, they're already getting into the Inhumans like crazy, and that movie's 4 and a half years away.

Just makes sense that to me that Coulson's SHIELD might be on Cap's side while nuSHIELD would side with Stark. While I don't expect any of this to play out on the big screen, a parallel Civil War tie-in storyline could very well play out AOS.

 

[fixxxer]

NuSHIELD's liberalization of information is so insane I can't get my head around it. Maybe they haven't done anything because they are too chicken-**** about getting someone caught and spilling all the beans about their missions. NuSHIELD's ideologies are doomed to fail.

If NuSHIELD had some success to show then I would be a little happier about their story involvement but as many of you have said, they haven't done anything besides sit on the sidelines and get all judgmental of how Coulson runs things. I'm not sure if the writers were trying to make me hate NuSHIELD this much but they succeeded. NuSHIELD is dumb.

Couldn't disagree more. The transparency thing obviously applies to within their organization. I don't think it is up for debate that Fury's policy of compartmentalization to an absurd degree contributed to HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD. It would absolutely make sense for nuSHIELD to want to go away from that.

Also, we don't know what they've been up to since the events of "Turn, Turn, Turn" last season. The only thing we know is that they're not on Coulson's RADAR. That's almost like saying that that Bruce Banner guy's utterly useless... he hasn't done anything since the Chitauri invasion other than fall asleep when Tony was telling him a story.

Not that I'm in love with nuSHIELD or anything, but we hardly know them, their methods or what they've been up to for the past year or so.

 

[fixxxer]

As for Bobbi, I like that she's showing some level of discomfort with her role, like she's following orders but not entirely happy about it. I hope they build on that, rather than have her shift to the Mack-level 'Coulson is literally the worst' thing.

I think she'll end up being a triple agent. I think her orders might be coming from Fury and she'll end up being on Coulson's side all along... even if he didn't know it.

 

[just one thing]

We don't know, what have done Olmos's shield, we only know what have done Bobbi, Mack and Hartley, we don't know if they have done nothing.

For me, the transparency is about their organization, their leaders, not others people they don't want to put their locations on facebook and Google map.

just to go along with your devils advocate vibe Olmos did give bobbi the chair on how to proceed after hunter jumped and skye was moved out of sight.

would not be a hierarchical thing to do and may suggest something about management style. Contract that with mac's outbust against coulson 'only giving orders spiel.

 

[InternetPeople]

I think that might have been me. Love me some pats on the back.

(Though I'm sure plenty of people came up with it independently.)

I thought it was you but I didn't want to give credit without some confirmation. You're one of the few to have consistently palatable opinions.


To address the other comments, I thought I clearly implied the liberalization of information was kept within the organization. If you could find NuSHIELD on Google Maps, then Coulson's SHIELD would be really dumb to not know of their existence. Secondly, while it is unclear what NuSHIELD has done since the destruction of Fury's SHIELD, it is also clear that whatever they have done has not interfered with anything Coulson's team has done and then they criticize what Coulson has done, which if I didn't know better, is exactly what SHIELD is supposed to do. All we know they have done is float around on their carrier and cast down judgment from their perch on high. We can assume they are involved in stuff but there is no evidence to support that claim and their criticisms of Coulson suggests they don't want to be involved in much of anything. I don't know what the point of NuSHIELD is except to be a really expensive and super lame version of Coulson's SHIELD.

 

[hoy-small-fry]

I can't see how you can retcon NuSHIELD into the war with HYDRA either. SHIELD would have noticed HYDRA sites going down

 

[TheVileOne]

This NuSHIELD subplot is a perfect example of why longer seasons can hurt a TV show.

Shorter TV seasons are better for stories like this.

 

[Pokkle]

I can't see how you can retcon NuSHIELD into the war with HYDRA either. SHIELD would have noticed HYDRA sites going down

Age of Ultron spoilers:

Spoiler

The Avengers have destroyed several Hydra's base before the Big Hydra's base in the beginning of the movie, and we didn't see Coulson talk about it yet:

If Olmos's shield fought Hydra's base in Europe, it would have been, away from Whitehall and Coulson

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

I'm sure the writers have some sort of endplan with nushield