By: Brandon Wolfe
“The Writing on the Wall” is a busy episode of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,’ which is a good thing. The show has spent so much time dawdling around aimlessly that it’s good to see it breaking a sweat. This week it follows two separate story threads, one involving Coulson and the other Ward, to varying degrees of success. The episode unpacks a lot of information, including a revelation that might provide a window into the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It continues the show’s baby steps toward becoming something perhaps not entirely bad.
The tattooed man who was teased in the previous episode emerges again this week, picking up a woman in a bar and taking her home. We learn that both of these people are former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were treated with the alien-derived GHD-25 anti-death serum that both Coulson and Skye were given. It seems that when Coulson was running the T.A.H.I.T.I. program (that acronym is still very funny to me), he would have the agents mind-wiped after and given new lives to allow them to maintain their sanity. Now Tattoo Man is killing the other amnesiac agents and carving those alien symbols into their flesh. The man’s insanity, coupled with the retconned revelation that Garrett’s first-season villainy was also due to the serum, gives Coulson some pause as it begs the question of whether such homicidal behavior is in his and Skye’s future as well. Determined to learn more about the program that he has been forced to forget, Coulson undergoes a dangerous treatment to forcibly wrest free the memories locked away deep within his brain.
After sidelining Skye in Ward’s old hi-tech Lecter cage (the better to give birth to future tedious discussions about trust, no doubt), Coulson tracks down the killer right as he is about to attack another memory-purged former agent and learns the episode’s big revelation: Those alien symbols are the blueprints to a mysterious city that the aliens whose DNA makes up the GHD-25 serum were searching for years ago. It’s difficult to know what to do with this information right now. There is some speculation that this city might factor into the future Marvel movies, possibly even as far ahead as 2018’s ‘Inhumans’ movie. That is very tantalizing, but it’s a bit hard to believe that Marvel would start placing such huge chunks of its film mythology into this wobbly show that very few people are watching. ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ has always existed to piggyback off of the films, not the other way around. Still, the idea of the show offering a glimpse into the distant future of the film universe is highly appealing, and if true, would make the series feel like a vital cog in the operation for the first time since its inception.
But in the meantime, the great hope here is that everything to do with Coulson’s resurrection, re-assimilation and mental health is now officially put to bed. This has been the ball of string that the show has batted around since its pilot episode and it has all grown far beyond wearying. This ground has been trodden ad infinitum and it hasn’t been intriguing since the very beginning. “The Writing on the Wall” appears to close the book on the whole affair once and for all and we can only hope that it stays shut. It’s enough with Coulson’s brain already.
The better part of the episode concerns Ward, which seems like an odd thing to see myself type into words. When we last saw him, he was twisting in the wind after killing off the agents transporting him. It isn’t long before the team picks up his scent and, in a curiously well-done extended sequence, we see Triplett, Morse and Hunter attempting to clandestinely intercept on Ward, only to have him outmaneuver them with his keen spy insight as well as with the vest of C-4 wired to his midsection. ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ has always been completely ineffectual as a spy series, but here it actually gets some mileage out of operatives sniffing out each other with their powers of perception. It’s still an adjustment to witness the show doing anything with something resembling skill.
Although the show still seems to be doubling down on Ward as a villain, the episode reveals that he is setting out to find his brother, the senator whom we know is dirty. While ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ is inching toward competence, the notion of Ward getting his hands dirty to stop the REAL bad guys and worm his way back into his former comrades’ good graces seems like a very ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ thing to have happen. After all, the show still seems convinced that some alleged spark exists between Ward and Skye, and I can’t imagine it doesn’t want to tinker around with that corker of a union in upcoming episodes. Hopefully the series realizes that Ward is only at all interesting as a villain and that it continues to employ him solely in that vein, but we haven’t quite arrived at the point where ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ has earned the benefit of the doubt.
But it is starting to do some things right, it must be said. In addition to action sequences that no longer look pathetically cheap, the show now actually has a large enough ensemble that the strain of focusing on the same six characters is no longer an issue the way it was last year. There are actually enough characters knocking about now that the insufferable FitzSimmons barely even register this week, which is certainly welcome. I don’t yet have enough faith in the show to believe that they’ll do justice to all of these people, since they couldn’t even make it work with just the six, but at least there are enough agents on hand for things like the Ward sting to work properly. I don’t expect ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ to right itself overnight, but I’ll give it credit for at least starting to turn the wheel in that direction.
Discuss this review with fellow SJF fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @SandwichJFilms, and follow author Brandon Wolfe on Twitter at @BrandonTheWolfe
Please Leave A Comment-
Comments