It feels as though Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is hitting its stride already. Safely out of the ‘plot set-up’ zone, the show can now focus on the most important thing – entertainment. (But with all that good shit, too, like plot and character development.) The entertainment factor in this episode was fairly high. Think explosions and jumping out of windows into pools and gun battles and gravity machines. Think devious twists and romance and humor. Think everything good.
“The Asset” focused on the rescue of Dr Franklin Hall (Ian Hart, Rogue, Luck), a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset. But, surrounding that rescue, we got a lot of what makes us know we’re gonna love this show in the long run – a lot of character. After last week’s review, we got a message from a reader (again, thanks for reading!) saying that we’ve been giving Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. a free pass. The reader’s biggest concern was that the characters were one-dimensional and that we didn’t seem to care. We responded by saying that, yeah, maybe they weren’t exactly deep just yet, but that we had faith. This week, that faith paid off. We’re beginning to see these characters turn from mere sketches into portraits. To parse the words of Donkey (from Shrek), these characters are a bit like onions. They have a lot of layers. And those layers are being peeled back week by week. Slowly, yes, but surely. No show can paint a fully three-dimensional character from the offset. Sometimes these things take time. And, seeing this week’s offering – a bit of Ward’s miserable childhood, a bit of Skye’s – we’re happy to wait.
The episode also touched on the Coulson mystery, just a little bit. Given May’s reluctance to see combat, Coulson Continue reading