Wednesday, April 20, 2016

The Geekcap: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. "The Team"


Daisy and Lincoln quickly jet off to pick up the rest of the team. One stop in Miami to pick up Joey who unfortunately has to stand up a new date, and one in Columbia to pick up Elena who is practicing how to say “Hello, it’s good to see you again, you look well” in English. Daisy and Lincoln fill in the two on the plan to rescue the rest of the team. Despite the fact that they have no plan, no layout of the area, and no idea how many soldiers are on the base, they are all determined to save the group of people who would risk their lives for them. While they can’t physically enter the Hydra base, the team parachute to the facility.

The remaining SHIELD team scramble in the Zephyr One to barricade themselves in a closet and take care of a bleeding May. The Secret Warriors then break through and separate to find the team and escape. Joey and Elena easily take out the guards with Joey taking care of the weapons and Elena restraining them. Daisy locates the Zephyr One and works break it loose while Lincoln fights off more guards and manages to find Malick.

The SHIELD team then rig a chlorine gas tube to fend off the soldiers barging through as the Secret Warriors move Malick on the plane and take out Giyera. When they are almost stopped by Lucio, Joey, in a quick motion, fashions dagger out of a pole and stabs the Inhuman, leaving him for dead. Elena then takes out the remaining soldiers to save the agents as May proclaims she is still well enough to fly. Giyera informs Hive that the group escapes, but he informs him that now they have someone on the inside of SHIELD.

Elena: Mack, it's good to see you again. You look well.

Back on the base, the Secret Warriors celebrate their victory, though Daisy notices Elena is wounded on her leg. Meanwhile, Joey is still a little shocked after killing Lucio. Daisy nevertheless informs them that once they are cleared, they can return home, hopefully awaiting a new mission. Coulson then proceeds to interrogate Malick as he wonders why he would do this at all. Malick recounts a story about his daughter on the horse races and how his heart stopped. That was the day he told her about Hydra and to put her faith in the god. He brought about a different god.

Lincoln, meanwhile, secures the Kree device when Daisy comes across him. He understands that she is still angry that he brought a terrigen crystal without telling her but believes it must be hard to have a boyfriend as part of the team. He also asks her to talk to Joey since he appears shaken after killing Lucio. Daisy is surprised that she didn’t notice but also asks Lincoln to her room when things are over. In the hall, Mack gives Elena a tour of the base while demonstrating his growing Spanish. Elena teases him on giving her the nickname Yo-Yo which Mack still considers a good call. He then shows her their weapons base but assures her that none of the weapons except one can kill. Back in the lab, FitzSimmons examine Lucio’s body and notice some odd lifelike readings on the body. The two then quarantine Lucio’s body secretly from the team.

Malick then confides in Coulson about the creature in Grant Ward’s body who Coulson understands was called Hive. Malick explains that the Hive refers to the hive of Inhumans who will follow him. He says to Coulson that if he values his team he would keep an eye on the Inhumans. Coulson calls to Mack to order a lockdown of the base.

Coulson fills the agents on Malick’s story. While Fitz argues that they can’t take Malick’s word, Coulson fears that they have no way of knowing the truth. Until they can figure out who or how many may be against them, they have to keep the base locked. Coulson will plan to keep interrogating Malick for answers while FitzSimmons examine Lucio’s body for a solution. Mack will keep an eye on the Inhumans. Daisy then interrupts the meeting to ask for the meaning behind the lockdown. Coulson tells her it’s a precautionary but doesn’t tell her enough to inform the others. She nevertheless tells them that Joey has been shaken since taking out Lucio.

Elena and Lincoln are frustrated with being kept at the base, but Daisy tries to keep them in control, even though she doesn’t understand why. Elena refuses to be under a bureaucratic and paranoid decision but nevertheless stays. The two still note that Joey is nowhere to be found. Lincoln then tries to give May her painkillers from her injuries, but May refuses since they knock her out. Daisy then speaks to May who congratulates the young agent on being a leader. Daisy confides that she’s doubting Coulson for withholding information from her, but May believes he would only do that for the right reasons.

Coulson continues to question Malick on why he chose to bring back Hive. Malick says that he believed he would be bringing back a god and instead brought back the devil with his brother and daughter paying the price. Coulson tries to sell him on the idea of revenge. Much like his desire to kill Ward after Rosalind’s death, Coulson encourages Malick to work with them to get revenge for his daughter. Mack keeps an eye on the Inhumans but find them all suspicious when Joey’s talking with Lincoln, Daisy’s firing bullets, and Elena’s zooming in and out of the hangar grabbing weapons. May leaves her bed to question Mack on what’s happening, but Mack is still unsure.

Coulson: I've seen gods. Gods bleed.

Fitz and Simmons examine Lucio’s body which appears otherwise normal. With no outer symptoms, Simmons starts to examine his brain, much to Fitz’s disgust. He then makes small talk about their lives at this moment when they are examining a dead Inhuman’s brains while fearing what their friends could do. Simmons continues her search, believing that as a SHIELD agent, they’ve had worse days. She then comes across an unusual parasitical infection.

May and Mack call Coulson from interrogation to confirm Malick’s story that Hive takes control of the Inhumans. While it doesn’t appear to cause any permanent damage, there is no way to test which Inhuman has fallen. Coulson orders reluctantly that the Inhumans must be iced and quarantined until a solution can be found. Suddenly, the lights in the base go out, and Mack discovers that one of their bombs, a weapon that kills, has been stolen. When searching the base, Fitz and Simmons find Malick’s cell door open. They look inside to see the man sprawled dead on the floor with the detonator activated, causing a large shock wave that blows back the agents.

Coulson finds Fitz and Simmons and brings them to the lab as the rest of the team plan to quarantine the Inhumans. After being kept in the dark, the Secret Warriors demand to know what is happening. The agents come clean that Hive has the ability to sway Inhumans, and that one of them must be a traitor and contained. With weapons pointed at them, the team begins to panic at being hunted and barricade themselves in the common room where Joey has been hiding. Joey seals the door while Elena locks the exits as they try themselves to figure out what’s happening. Elena believes that Daisy and Lincoln turned on them while Lincoln questions her on her leg wound. Daisy is adamant on staying in SHIELD, but Joey wants to escape before being thrown back into isolation. They quickly begin to turn on each other as each person was alone at one point on the mission with every reason to kill Malick and escape. On the outside, May and Coulson plan to gas the room to ensure to quarantine, believing that if they are arguing among themselves, not all of them have turned.

To keep the team safe, Daisy sneaks the group through a hidden exit in order to escape. Meanwhile, FitzSimmons and Mack search the lockers for evidence of a traitor until Mack comes across something surprising. The Secret Warriors then arrive in a containment pod where Daisy tricked to have them all confided. Coulson then reveals that Mack found the Kree device in Lincoln’s locker, proving that Lincoln was likely planning to leave for Hive. Daisy then remembers that Lincoln crossed paths with Ward at Transia before this began and has likely been turned this whole time. Lincoln lashes out at Coulson, forcing Daisy to blast him back and knock him unconscious.

Once the chaos has died down, Coulson confronts Daisy on what happened. Daisy is disappointed that the team could fall apart like that, but Coulson says that was part of being a leader, trying to protect the team. Unfortunately, Hive took away the most important factor: trust. While Joey and Elena are being tested, all they desire now is to leave. Until then, however, Coulson says they all must be kept in quarantine. Before Coulson leaves, Daisy responds that the team will be stronger the next time.

Mack: Yo-Yo?
Elena: My name is Elena.

Fitz and Simmons continue to analyze the results trying to find a solution but run into more dead ends. Simmons muses that one day they’ll find something from space that won’t want to kill them, but Fitz jokes that Hive couldn’t even escape a desert planet. In the middle of their work, they share a small kiss. When Fitz believes they were moving too fast, Simmons reminds him that it’s been ten years. With the rest of their friends being ripped apart, they need to stay together.

Back at the pod, Lincoln is visited by Daisy who offers him a chance to escape the base. Lincoln questions how she escaped her own pod, but Daisy states the she helped design the system and SHIELD could not possibly stop them. From this instance, Lincoln understands: Daisy was the traitor. She crossed paths with Hive when tracking the Zephyr who sent her back to the base. From there, she killed Malick to keep him from talking and detonated the bomb to cover her tracks. She then framed Lincoln to ensure they would not accuse her and since they were already suspicious of his temper. Lincoln tries to reason with her, but Daisy claims that she’s never felt more alive and at peace. When Lincoln still refuses to go with her, Daisy leaves on her own. She makes her way to the hangar and causes a massive earthquake that begins to reduce the base to rubble.


At the Hydra lair, Giyera informs the Hive that they were not able to secure Malick. Hive reveals that Malick has been killed. Since they have secured a good portion of Malick’s wealth, all they need to do now is retrieve Skye.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Notes

  • The ending was an interesting parallel to the seventeenth episode of season one "Turn, Turn, Turn" when we discover the traitor to be Ward.
  • If you listen closely, you can hear that score during the destruction of the base is the same as the one used in Skye's Terrigenesis in "What They Become."
  • This marks the first use of the Inhuman creature's real name Hive.
  • This also marks the first time Daisy and Ward have shared a scene together since "The Dirty Half-Dozen."

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