Recap and Review of Agents of SHIELD Episode 220: Scars

After last week’s episode led right into Avengers: Age of Ultron, will we see some Avengers fallout in Agents of SHIELD Episode 220: Scars?

Spoilers ahead.

[divider]Recap of Agents of SHIELD Episode 220: Scars[/divider]

The episode opens on a flashback. We see Agent Koenig awaken to the song “I am a Robot”, which is a nice gag. He contacts Coulson about the Theta Protocol, getting our explanation of the helicarrier we saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Coulson addresses Gonzalez’ ‘other SHIELD’ and pitches the idea of one SHIELD with Coulson as the Director, but with a commitment to maintain Gonzalez and his roundtable as advisors. Much to my delight, Gonzalez agrees, because the two SHIELDs thing was dumb.

If there is one thing we have learned in two seasons of Agents of SHIELD, is that Skye is always pining over someone, and this time it is Lincoln, who is being nursed back to health by Simmons and her medical team of redshirts.

Lincoln awakens terrified that SHIELD now knows the Inhumans exist. Clearly, the worldview he holds is that SHIELD means the Inhumans harm and the only way the Inhumans can continue to exist is to live isolated and in secret.

Speaking of the word ‘Inhuman’…BOOM! That name got dropped officially by Skye who confirmed in canon what us fans have known all along. Skye identified the powered individuals as Inhumans as she was pointing out Agent May’s hypocrisy. May was arguing that the Inhumans with their superpowers could only bring violence, but Skye reminded May that she earned the name The Cavalry by being violent herself, killing an Inhuman kid.

By the way, Agent 33’s mind is better, according to Simmons, but does that mean we can trust her?

Raina and Gordon teleport onto Gonzalez’ heli-boat to look for a Kree artifact that Raina saw in a vision. We learn this is the artifact that Gonzalez keeps hidden in his cargo hold.

Gonzalez jumps straight to the conclusion that they can track Gordon in order to attack the Inhuman base. Coulson provides the dovish counter to Gonzalez’ hawkish national defense strategy and suggests that they might want to talk to the Inhumans first.

May is lamenting the loss of The Bus, to which Coulsen retorted that ‘mostly terrible stuff happened’ on that plane anyway, another cheeky line in an episode that had lots of well-written dialogue. May tells Coulsen that Skye is living proof that Coulson’s decisions were poor and she continues her inexplicable nonsense of claiming that Coulson – as Director of a freaking spy agency, mind you – has been out of line for keeping secrets like the Theta Protocols from her, when she herself was originally sent by Fury to spy on Coulson. Secrets are what keep this entire helicarrier afloat, folks. Deal with it.

Seriously, most of these Agents need to turn in their badge if they are going to get so butthurt when an organization like SHIELD maintains a tight circle of information rather than openly discuss sensitive mission briefings over a plate of potato salad at a company picnic. In fact, Mac did turn in his badge, telling Coulson that he couldn’t work for a man who had alien blood.

The plan was to have Skye go back with Lincoln to the Inhuman base. There, she would break the news gently that SHIELD was now aware of the secret Inhuman base but was only coming to talk. It was clear that Coulsen was heartbroken to see Skye go.

Meanwhile, Raina, who Cal said had nothing but a tainted rat heart, is confronted for her manipulations. Even though she shared vision of SHIELD quintets reigning fire down on the Inhuman base, could she be trusted? It was decided that Jaiying would indeed meet with SHIELD’s representative (baffling chosen to be Gonzalez) and also offer to allow Cal to be taken into SHIELD custody as an act of good faith.

As agents get into place, it is revealed that Kara/Agent 33 was disguised as May and attacks Agent Morse/Mockingbird. Mockingbird takes her down, only to step off the quintet to be shot by Ward, which was a fantastic reveal.

Earlier, Simmons had lamented that Ward was still alive, regretting not being able to kill him. Fitz maintained that not trying to kill Ward actually made them better than him, to which Simmons never mentioned that she actually did kill Bashki, because she’s on a path to the dark side and I’m completely over her.

Gonzalez shows up to meet with Jaiying. Jaiying offers Cal to SHIELD. Skye escorts Cal, leaving Jailing and Gonzalez alone.

Gonzalez offers Jailing a box. It contained a necklace that Whitehall has taken from Jailing when he experimented on her, reminding viewers of Jaiying’s tortured past.

Jailing then killed Gonzalez with a Terrigan crystal, then shot herself with his gun in order to frame Gonzalez and incite a war between the Inhumans and SHIELD.

 

[divider]Thoughts on Agents of SHIELD Episode 220: Scars[/divider]

1. The final scene only lacked Jaiying place a Magneto helmet on her head and slowly levitate while proclaiming “The humans will never accept us! We must fight for our place as the dominant species!” Seriously, the reveal of Jaiying as a hardline Inhuman shaped by her past horrors is fantastic. Oh, the storylines this opens up!
2. The tie-in to Avengers: Age of Ultron was fine. And it actually has helped me develop more of an appreciation for Agents of SHIELD. The writers really are operating within some specific storyline and timing directives, and it’s no wonder the pacing of SHIELD can feel a touch off as a result.
3. Ward’s sleazy slipperiness has always been great and it was a nice add to see it pop up again. The bad news is his team-up is with Agent 33/Kara, because that character is a snooze.
4. SHIELD used Hydra trickery to track Gordon and discover the location of the Inhuman base in order to index people, an invasion of privacy. That doesn’t exactly paint them as heroes. But as a counter-point, Jiaying straight up murdered Gonzales and framed him as a means of instigating war. Wow, who do we root for in this war, guys?
5. RIP Gonzalez. I’m thankful to be rid of that whole two SHIELDs nonsense, but it did help to set up SHIELD falling apart not through external means, but instead because they now fail to trust one another.
6. Cal is in SHIELD custody and he’s off his meds.
7. Next week is a two hour season finale and HOO-BOY did this episode set up a movie-sized showdown.