TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “What They Become”

Read on to see what those agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are up to this week

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “What They Become”
Review by Brandon Wolfe

The most pervasive, and frankly easiest, gripe against Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been with its lack of superpowered characters. “Who cares about these people when Captain America and Iron Man are around?” has been an oft-repeated refrain on the Internet. Taking this shot at the show ignores the fact that most shows don’t have superheroes on them and they manage to get along just fine. If Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were a stronger, better crafted series, it wouldn’t matter a lick that it portrayed a powerless corner of a superpowered world.

But that’s all irrelevant now because Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has a bona fide superhero among its ranks. In the episode’s closing moments, contact with the Obelisk places Skye into a stone cocoon from which she emerges brimming with an otherworldly aura. The episode offers the big reveal that Skye has been retroactively converted into Quake, the daughter of Calvin Zabo (Mr. Hyde in the comics; Kyle MacLachlan on this show), a superhuman character from the comics with the ability to control earthquakes. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. kills two birds with one stone by repurposing her as the introductory character into the world of the Inhumans, a subgroup of the Marvel Universe that will receive their own film in a few years’ time. This is a pretty significant development, as it casts Skye in an entirely different light than she’s been in before and ups the show’s profile within the Marvel Universe. No longer is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. getting table scraps from the movies. It now spearheads a leg of the universe, as well as contains a character who, in the comics at least, eventually becomes an Avenger.

Though it is difficult to imagine Skye ever bumping elbows with Tony Stark down the road, as the flaw in this plan is that Chloe Bennet still lacks the superpower of acting. She is incapable of commanding the screen or conveying anything more than mouth-agape vulnerability. The show has been saying from Day One that Skye is special, and for the first time she actually is, but without a strong actress driving the material, there is always going to be that handicap in place. The show could have gone and made Skye into Spider-Man and it wouldn’t matter so long as Bennet keeps on flatlining her performance. Sharing the screen opposite MacLachlan, who is giving a wildly uneven yet undeniably forceful performance, isn’t doing her any favors, either.

While Skye is the primary focus of “What They Become,” there are some other developments. Mack turns out to still be alive deep in the hidden city, still possessed, yet seemingly set free from his altered state by episode’s end. However, another team member isn’t so lucky, as Tripp finds himself at ground-zero of the Obelisk’s activation, but without the genetic traits inherent to Skye and Raina to withstand it. Thus, while Skye emerges reborn (and presumably Raina will as well, though we’re left hanging on that), poor Tripp just gets to be stone, crumbling to pieces as Super Skye looks on helplessly. Upon his introduction, the character seemed refreshingly personable when held against the rampant blandness of last season, but got lost in the shuffle this year amid all the new blood. Yet if Tripp is truly dead, it’s hard to muster up much grief over it. Frankly, the show is so overstuffed with characters right now that someone had to go, and it isn’t about to do away with FitzSimmons (who, mercifully, have little screentime this week). The show also seems to think the tediously hot-and-cold relationship between Hunter and Morse amounts to something, so they’re in the clear, leaving Tripp marked for death. Also eliminated is superfluous villain Whitehall, leaving MacLachlan unencumbered and the cast a bit more streamlined.

Unfortunately, the show continues to play its shell game with Ward’s true nature. While seeming to finally commit to his villainy in recent episodes, “What They Become” hedges its bets by hinting that Ward is only involved in all of this out of his love for Skye. This is disappointing, as Ward is only tolerable as a character when he’s evil. One of the show’s key problems is that it can’t resist pairing off its characters off into precariously tentative, wholly uninteresting romantic entanglements. On a show that doesn’t do a lot well, this is one of the things at which it fares most poorly, yet it keeps on trying to generate dramatic tension by having characters dance around each other, seemingly oblivious to the fact that not a single spark has ever once flown. Hopefully the show will realize Ward’s strength on the series is as a vicious antagonist, not as boyfriend material.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is taking a siesta for a few months, ceding its timeslot to Agent Carter until early March. But the show ends its fall run in the best shape it’s been since its inception. Though it still falls far short of the amazing show it should by all rights be, it must be said that it’s no longer the flavorless chore it once was. Look who’s moving up in the world!

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