Check out Josh’s recap of the mid-season premiere of Agents of SHIELD, where the SHIELD team is trying to pick up the pieces after the events of the mid-season finale. Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts about the episode.
Don’t need the Agents of SHIELD episode recap for Aftershocks? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s Agents of SHIELD episode, Aftershocks, click here to get directly there!
Episode Recap of Agents of SHIELD, Season 2 Episode 12: Aftershocks
So Agents of SHIELD is finally back! The episode opens up, seeing a boy teleporting about a room, like Nightcrawler from the X-Men. The year is 1983, and the guy doesn’t seem to have eyes. Skye’s mom has come to visit the boy, and feels sorry for him. The boy seems to not know what happened to himself. She tries to comfort him, and promises to show him “the way.” It turns out her job seems to be to counsel the people who go through this “change”.
Moving to the present, Skye is in a haze, in a containment area. Coulson pays Skye a visit. They talk about Trip’s death, and it hurts Skye. Coulson tries to comfort her, telling her he died a hero. We get a montage of the rest of the team, and they are trying to cope with what has happened, keeping busy with what they’re good at.
Mac is back to normal, and Simmons is leading the clearing and analyzing of the tunnel in Puerto Rico. Skye feels like they lost, and she blames herself. Coulson gets angry, and demands to make the opposition pay.
Next, moving to a HYDRA meeting, several men talk of Whitehall’s death. They want to get a replacement for Whitehall’s position. The group decides whoever can eliminate SHIELD will get Whitehall’s position.
In the Puerto Rican tunnels, it seems not all is safe, as a SHIELD agent is killed by a mysterious monster…
Simmons and her team are wrapping up everything, but the creature is more brazen, attacking more agents. The thing sees its own reflection, and seems to freak out. Simmons takes some shots at it, and it flees up the makeshift elevator. Turns out this thing is Raina, and Simmons requests to make her way back to base.
Back with Skye, Bobbi provides a “quarantine survival guide.” She offers Skye comfort.
Mac and Fitz talk, and Fitz is analyzing evidence from the tunnel. Mac, meanwhile, is still shaken up about his “possession”. He snaps at Fitz, but Fitz doesn’t seem too fazed. Mac apologizes for the outburst, and tries to calm down. Meanwhile, Mac seems concerned that Skye might spread some sort of disease.
Coulson wants to take down HYDRA. SHIELD seems to be in conflict, with Mac squaring off against Coulson. Skye gets agitated, and begins creating tremors. Coulson tells everyone to get ready to stop HYDRA by sun up.
Coulson tells Bakshi (the HYDRA agent captured before the mid season break) that he will be turned over to Talbot, in exchange for HYDRA leads. Agent May and Coulson drive Bakshi to Talbot, but en route, they are slammed into by a large truck.
HYDRA agents move in, but Coulson and May are able to take them down. They missed an agent though, and Coulson and May are both wounded. This agent takes Bakshi, and it turns out to be Hunter. But before you get too worried, it looks like this is all an elaborate scheme, that we don’t know yet.
Bakshi makes contact with HYDRA, and Hunter then says he has orders to kill him after making contact. Bakshi wants to make a deal, and promises a lot of money for his own survival. Hunter decides to take the deal.
Back at base, Simmons talks with Skye. Simmons says that Raina has completely transformed down to her DNA. Simmons wants to test Skye’s DNA to make sure she isn’t contaminated. Simmons seems to go on a tirade about how these powers are a plague. Skye tries to calm her down, but Simmons seems to have a new mission, to take down this alien technology.
With Skye’s father, he is trying to remain hidden. Raina shows up, and we finally get a good look at her. Her face is completely different, with spikes coming out of it, along with an almost unrecognizable face. She demands to know what has happened to her. She blames him for what happened to her. He is very excited to hear from Raina that Skye also “changed”, and wants to save Skye from Coulson. Meanwhile, he abandons Raina despite her pleas for help.
Bakshi is driven to a base of some sort by Hunter, and Bakshi goes inside. Bobbi pays Hunter a visit, and they discuss the heat back at base. Meanwhile, Hunter pries to know about Bobbi and Mac’s “secret”. Turns out Bobbi says that they are in a support group, because of the fall of SHIELD and how they felt betrayed.
At base, Mac and Coulson talk, and seem to have cooler heads now. Simmons talks to Coulson and May about Raina, and she seems to want Raina dead to avoid spreading the “disease”. Fitz talks with Skye, and tells her that back in the tunnel, Skye’s heart rate was beating at an “inhumane” rate. Fitz begins to get agitated, which in turn agitates Skye, and she begins her tremors again. Fitz then blames Skye for what happened, and Skye has a meltdown, blowing some lights with her newfound powers. Meanwhile, we see that Raina might be taking Skye’s father’s advice to commit suicide.
Skye gets a visit from May next, and she tries to remain calm. They talk about how fired up Coulson is, and his desire to get SHIELD back on track. Meanwhile, we see Coulson break the news of Triplett’s death to his mother. May notices that Skye has a hurt hand, but Fitz covers for her, and even goes so far as to say her DNA is normal. He swapped with Skye’s blood with her old blood samples, and says they need to keep this a secret until the other people calm down. She breaks down and tells Fitz that there is something wrong with her. Fitz tries to comfort her though.
Hunter and Bobbi, meanwhile, are attacked by HYDRA, but they are ready to take the men down. We also see a bunch of HYDRA agents taken down. Bakshi realizes that Coulson had this big plan in play.
Meanwhile, Raina is surrounded by Agents. But a forcefield surrounds Raina, and a man appears, telling her that he will show her the way. This man has no eyes, and seems to be the boy from the beginning of the episode, all grown up now.
Then at base, the mini Lola that Mac made seems to scan Coulson’s office. Bobbi and Mac seem to be working together, and not just for a support group… They seem to be looking for some plans, which they seem to have found. The group, meanwhile, seems to be getting along together again.
Josh’s Thoughts: Agents of SHIELD, Season 2 Episode 11: Aftershocks
I wasn’t all in on this episode of SHIELD. I felt like something was missing in it. I think the show as trying to do a lot within the confines of one episode.
Having said that, seeing Raina’s transformation is creepy, and could be interesting. I am wondering how that will play out. I also am curious to see how this new “inhuman” will interact with her.
The other concern I have this episode is what Bobbi and Mac are up to. They seem to be up to more than just “group therapy”, and we even had hints before the mid-season break that they were up to something. I really hope they aren’t up to bad stuff, as I like both of their characters. Speaking of Mac, he seems to have a beef with Coulson. It seemed calm by the end, but I am not sure how long that coolness will remain.
I am curious to see why Fitz covered for Skye. It sounds like he is worried people (especially Simmons, who seems to be on a witchhunt for these people) want to poke, prod, and maybe even lock up people like her. I am wondering when this will become knowledge to the rest of the group, and then how they will react.
Hopefully the next episode is a bit more exciting. I seem to have my ups and downs with the show. If they can level it out, I would really be happy.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 11 of Agents of SHIELD: Aftershocks
I feel like the beginning of this episode was a bit anti-climactic compared to the way the mid-season finale ended. Skye’s in quarantine, not seeming to be any different than before, and everyone is sad that Trip is dead. Surprisingly, Mac is back to normal. Or is he? He seemed to have a lot of uncharacteristic anger throughout the episode, and I’m not sure if this anger is emotionally a reaction to what he went through, or some sort of physical manifestation that’s still inside of him that never fully went away, even though it seems like it did.
I think my favorite part of this episode was the fake HYDRA attack on the SHIELD agents in order to fool Bakshi. That was pretty cool, and I was fooled myself at first. I felt so betrayed by Hunter, but at the same time it didn’t seem like too much of a stretch. Mac and Bobbi, on the other hand, what are they up to? Are they actually double agents for HYDRA? Or is there some other logical explanation for what they’re doing?
I did also like that we got to see what Skye’s mother was like and what she did before she was attacked by Whitehall. I hope we get to see more of her backstory, and I suspect that we will. It is sad that some of the Inhumans who go through “the change” end up sort of deformed, like Raina did, and like the eyeless man did. How many others suffer from that sort of change compared to those who come through looking human? But we see that the eyeless man has been able to develop a teleporting ability, and uses it to come rescue Raina. I wonder what power(s) she will develop, and how many other Inhumans there are.
At this point, I think the Inhumans storyline is going to get more and more interesting. Other than that, I wasn’t too terribly excited about this episode, considering the long wait. Hopefully, things will get more exciting soon.
Scenes from Agents of SHIELD, Season 2 Episode 12: Who You Really Are
Here are scenes from the next Agents of SHIELD episode, titled Who You Really Are:
