Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1.03 – The Asset

This recap brought to you by a South-Eastern Australian Merlot. And jolly nice it was too.

 

 

The episode starts with your typical truck driver, driving his truck, as truck drivers do (I have no idea if this is actually a truck. Over here it’s a lorry but that probably won’t mean anything to anyone but me and Jayne. I’m taking a wild stab in the dark here but not with a lot of confidence, I have to say) but then all of a sudden it comes under attack! From nothing! Well, obviously not nothing, but something invisible. Ooooh!

The truck driver, it turns out, is not a typical truck driver at all, but an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.!! Which just goes to show, you should never judge a book by its cover! This is great, but then the truck does this:

Which is not so great. The attackers go from very high-tech to very low-tech and cut open the truck with a digger. No, really. Inside is a man strapped to a chair who is miraculously unscathed, given that he’s just been hoisted fifty feet into the air and then dropped on his arse. He adjusts his glasses and says ‘are we there yet?’ which is amusing but, in light of the rest of the episode, makes not one particle of sense.

On board the bus and Ward is teaching Skye to box because it’s better than doing… whatever FitzSimmons just said they were doing, which will forever be a mystery to me, along with most of what they talk about (BUT I STILL LOVE IT).

Skye calls Ward ‘Mr Fun Machine’ but not in a good way. Heh.

OK, last week was Melinda May’s episode, this time around it’s Skye’s origin story. So there will be lots of screencaps of Skye. Oh the hardship on our poor eyeballs ;-).

But first, a screencap of Ward:

For serious, is this guy real? I mean, actually real? His jaw looks like it was made with a set square! Anyway, he says everyone has a defining moment. Skye asks him what his was and says she could just give him truth serum again. He tells her there’s no such thing as truth serum. Spoilsport (also, pants on fire. Ward doesn’t have the people skills to pull that off).

Thank you, Maurissa Tancharoen and Joss Whedon, for this screencap of Melinda May in aviators at the controls of a plane.

And thank you too, Jed Whedon.

Um… plot! Yes! The team have just found out that the Asset – aka, FitzSimmons’ ex-professor Franklin Hall – has been kidnappered and FitzSimmons are understandably distraught.

This is the best screencap in the history of anything. I just want to gaze at its perfection and not bother to do the rest of the recap *sigh*.

Incredibly, the truck driver agent is still alive and says it had to be an inside job because the people who attacked them knew the route. Finding out what they attacked the convoy with means goggles, people. Goggles for everyone!

(Simmons wins because hers are green).

Turns out, it’s this tiny little thing that Coulson calls ‘something big’. Hmmm. It makes sand fly around when electricity is… something. I dunno. I just work here.

Coulson is worried by this development, but Melinda May is wearing her ‘seriously? I could handle this by myself, twice, before breakfast’ face.

Aaaand, let’s see that from the side:

Oh yeah.

Ward’s identified the owners of the digger from the tyre treads (yes, really) so he and Coulson are going to check it out. Skye asks Coulson about the truth serum and he kind of says that Ward was lying but also kind of doesn’t answer the question and then leaves, and Skye makes this face:

With added bonus smirking Melinda May in the background. Excellent.

Coulson and Ward find the digger guy who was paid in gold bars which came from a mine in Tanzania which is owned by this guy, Ian Quinn:

who is an old friend of the asset (aka Franklin Hall). Oh, and they’re in Malta because Malta doesn’t look too kindly on government agencies like S.H.I.E.L.D. interfering. He’s found something which Frank had a theory about a long time ago which has something to do with the little big thing that throws sand and trucks around (sounds a lot like my four-year-old, actually. Beach trips are FUN! *nervous twitch*).

Frank is Remus Lupin’s science-y and not-werewolf-y brother, isn’t he? Totally.

Skye is a high-school dropout and doesn’t understand what FitzSimmons are on about (although I don’t really know what difference that makes. I have a degree and it’s still gibberish to me #love). Fitz explains: these green things are wibbly bits. Wibbly bits are bad because they are gravitonium, which makes gravity go screwy (I believe this is the scientific term, yes).

I love this cap because it perfectly sums up Simmons and Skye. Simmons is all enthusiasm and ‘yay!’ and Skye is all ‘WTF is this even English?’.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Malta, Quinn is telling Frank that the little version is all very well, but thinking small is for wimps, so he’s made a REEEEEALLLY BIG ONE!! but he doesn’t know how to control the gravity fields, which is why Hall is there (because he’s too lazy to figure out how to do it himself).

On the bus, much discussion is going on of how to get into the compound to get Hall back. Fitz wants a trained monkey (what?) and Skye’s in the background saying that she could get in but no-one’s paying attention to her. By the time Coulson finally listens, she’s got an invitation (fine! an evite) to Quinn’s imminent swanky party. Heh heh.

Totally pertinent screencap.

Ward is doing the whole ‘are you sure about Skye?’ thing because he can’t train her, pretty much, and Coulson tells him to stop thinking like an operative and start thinking like a person. Ward says ‘but I don’t know how to do that’ (OK, he doesn’t, but he might as well).

And then he says ‘hey, I’m more than just a chiselled jaw you know! Look at these awesome cheekbones and cute little elfin ears’ FFS. It worries me that I don’t fancy him. He is so completely my type. Maybe I have no crush left over because the girls nicked it all. Anyway, now he’s teaching Skye how to disarm an opponent.

This is not what it looks like.

Not actually sure what this looks like, but equally sure that whatever it is, it’s not that.

Skye manages to get him to tell her his defining moment, which was when his older brother used to beat up him and his younger brother for no reason (er, is that not what brothers do? Sisters too, for that matter) and Skye’s looking all sympathetic, but actually…

…she’s stealing his gun. Awesome.

FitzSimmons are Q-ing and give Skye a powder compact because there is no wireless access to the systems in Quinn’s compound. Makes perfect sense (oh, it does really, I just can’t be bothered to explain it).

Melinda May’s telling Coulson that it’s not that she’d like to be going, but she thinks she ought to be going because she is so much better at this stuff than he is. He tells her she’s not going and that he saw plenty of action with the Avengers. And then Melinda May says, as he walks away, ‘and you died’. *sniff*

(you know, I think she might know more than she’s letting on as well).

Skye rolls up at the party looking smokin’ in fuschia:

Oh yeah, this is me at parties. Where’s the FOOD?

And she even has Attractive Eating Face, how is life fair? (Answer: it’s not, I did know that).

(Sidenote: Skye darling, as someone who is almost certainly old enough to be your mother I can say this with some authority: bras are your friends).

Skye spots Quinn and schmoozes her way into conversation with him, only for him to tell her that he invited her because he wants to offer her a job. Eek. Skye does what any of us would do in this situation: alcohol. Attagirl.

Then Quinn makes a boring speech but luckily, unlike the partygoers, we have a distraction because Coulson and Ward have landed on the beach and are perfectly camouflaged against the sand.

I mean, really. Coulson’s wearing a SUIT for heaven’s sake!

Also, the gravitonium is being put into the big sphere thing, which just has ‘recipe for disaster’ written ALL over it. Honestly, have these people not seen Spiderman 2?

Skye’s trying to find somewhere to drop the magic compact but she gets rumbled by Quinn! Oh no! And she’s a terrible liar! A pen, Skye? Bless.

She’s doing the lip thing again, what was I saying? Um… oh yes, she tells him that S.H.I.E.L.D. is listening… unexpected. I like it. Rash, but inventive.

Now Skye is in Quinn’s office and she’s pretending (obvi, because she’s not going to betray them otherwise she’s not going to be on the show very long) that she might be interested in his offer. He’s trying to convice her that S.H.I.E.L.D. = Bad, but she’s not convinced because yay! She did the thing! And the barrier is down so Coulson and Ward are in! *flag waving*

But Skye’s in trouble! Noooo!

Coulson finds Hall in the lab – but Hall won’t leave and Melinda May finds out at about the same time as Coulson figures out that Hall was the one who gave away the location of the convoy. As soon as he heard about it he realised that he had to bury it at the bottom of the ocean. So he’s seen Spiderman 2, at least. Then the machine activates and things go a bit… screwy.

No kidding.

Melinda May’s frustrated because she can’t do anything from the bus *sigh*.

Hah! Quinn is pointing a gun at Skye and she disarms him, and then his goon says ‘kid’s got balls’ and she replies ‘thanks, but… yuck’ SKYE YOU ARE MY HEART.

Then Quinn asks her if she has what it takes to pull the trigger and she just goes ‘nope!’ and jumps out of the window into the pool! #love

In the lab, things have not got any less screwy:

This is what it looks like, btw. Reminds me of those plasma balls that were around in the Eighties, remember those? Also Spiderman 2.

Quinn’s done a runner on account of gravitational screwiness (the wuss) and Skye is captured by goons but only for about three seconds because Mr Fun Machine just turned up and beat the crap out of them. Oh yeah. And then Skye looks like she wants to throw herself into his arms but just sort of… pats his Kevlar. Not a euphemism.

FitzSimmons tell Coulson that he needs to find a catalyst to stop the reaction because Hall is determined to destroy the machine even though it will also destroy the complex. He says “we have to live with the choices we make… but sometimes we have to die with them too”.

Unfortunately for him, Coulson doesn’t feel like dying for someone else’s choices today, and shoots out the glass floor they’re standing on – Hall falls into the machine, which looks like a particularly horrible way to go (or not).

Back on the bus, Couson is lamenting his lack of muscle memory when it comes to guns. Hmmm. Melinda May comes in to tell him that she wants to be handling the combat missions from now on because he’s ‘a little rusty’. Hmmm.

Skye’s back with the boxing but taking it more seriously. This is her Serious Punching Face:

She tells Ward that she was a foster child and when she was nine, she was placed with a family she really liked but they didn’t want her to stay 😦 :-(. Poor Skye!

And then she starts punching the bag and looking all fierce, like this:

And it’s just the most adorable thing in the world. Like a kitten trying to pounce on your ankle. And she’s decided to join S.H.I.E.L.D. They are her family now *sniff*.

I think Skye and Ward are supposed to bond over their childhoods and then take it from there. I’m still not sure I ship them. I get more of a Harry/Hermione vibe, you know, the ‘brother/sister I never had’ kind of thing.

This just does not look like a precursor to sexytimes to me.

Meanwhile – hidden away in a super-secret vault – Dr Hall is not, in fact, dead, but is probably feeling really really queasy:

When he gets out of there (because you just know that he will) man, is he going to be pissed.

Fin!

 

Screencaps taken from kissthemgoodbye.net, with thanks.