Violet recaps Season 2 Episode 3 of Agents of SHIELD, titled Making Friends and Influencing People, where we find out where Simmons has been! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts on the episode.
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Agents of SHIELD, Season 2 Episode 3: Making Friends and Influencing People Recap Overview
The episode begins with Dr. Whitehall talking to a woman he refers to as Agent 33, who is secured in place with her arms pinned, and her eyelids being held open, Clockwork Orange-style, facing a psychedelic screen. But she says she will never work for HYDRA.
Simmons wakes up and goes to work in a lab – where we see a HYDRA symbol on the wall.
May trains Skye how to shoot. Hunter and Mac show up and ask Skye whether she went to SHIELD academy, to settle a bet. She says no, and Hunter loses the bet. May is still angry with Hunter for shooting them. Hunter asks if she has ever killed anyone, and she says no. May tells Skye it doesn’t get any easier with experience. May talks to Coulson, he reports that HYDRA got to Agent 33 before he could, and says that he’s tired of losing their best and brightest to HYDRA.
Simmons’ boss asks her for an update about her work, and as he makes a note in his file, Simmons seems to recognize HYDRA’s latest acquisition: Donnie Gill, the SHIELD Academy student who was struck by lightning last season. Meanwhile, in Morocco, Donnie uses his freezing power on one of the agents who have come to recruit him, and lets the other one run away. He checks the frozen agent’s phone, sees a note about delivering him to Maribel del Mar, and heads there.
Simmons returns home to find Coulson waiting for her with groceries. He makes dinner for her while she debriefs him. She tells him about Donnie, then complains that HYDRA is keeping her working at a low level position. Coulson advises her that she needs to make friends in order to move up.
Back with the SHIELD team, Coulson holds a meeting about Donnie, saying that the most likely scenario is that HYDRA is looking for another weapon. Coulson wants to bring Donnie in before HYDRA can get to him. Meanwhile, Skye is meeting with Ward, who explains that he was never loyal to HYDRA, but to Garrett. Ward gives Skye the rundown on HYDRA’s protocol for “gifteds”: an acquisition team is sent out to convince or capture the gifted, or if that’s not possible, they take the gifted out.
At the Port of Casablanca, Donnie freezes the water around the Maribel del Mar ship.
When Simmons gets to work, she is escorted upstairs for questioning. Mr. Bakshi accuses her of lying to HYDRA. They are aware of her past with SHIELD, but they are suspicious that she didn’t notify her supervisor that she knew Donnie Gill.
While Dr. Whitehall is facing away, Agent 33 manages to free her hand, but he figures this out before she can do anything. He continues to try to turn her to HYDRA. Mr. Bakshi comes in to consult with Dr. Whitehall about an employee (presumably Simmons), but Dr. Whitehall tells him he trusts him to do what needs to be done.
The SHIELD team detects the iceberg in Casablanca, and figures out it’s Gill, so they head out, leaving Fitz and Mac behind. Fitz is upset that he doesn’t get to go, and feels like something is being kept from him. Meanwhile, Mr. Bakshi sends Simmons to Casablanca to bring Donnie in. Over on the Maribel del Mar, a pissed off Donnie freezes a HYDRA agent, and says every HYDRA agent he encounters will feel his wrath.
Fitz is still hallucinating Simmons, but he makes her disappear. He then goes down to talk to Ward, though he has a bit of a panic attack. Ward tries to defend what he did to Fitz, saying that he gave him a fighting chance to live. But Fitz doesn’t buy it, and sucks the air out of Ward’s cell so he can feel how he felt. As Ward begins to suffocate, he tries to warn Fitz that the SHIELD team doesn’t know what they’re walking into with Donnie Gill.
Simmons arrives on site with HYDRA, as the SHIELD team jump from the cloaked plane not far away. Simmons finds Donnie on the boat and tries to talk to him and get her to trust him, as Mr. Bakshi listens in and coaches her through her earpiece. Mr. Bakshi has Simmons repeat what he says. Meanwhile, May, Skye, and Hunter arrive and take out the HYDRA agents guarding the entry door of the Maribel del Mar.
Fitz reports to Coulson that he spoke to Ward and found out that HYDRA brainwashed Gill and are going to re-trigger his programming. Hunter is about to shoot Simmons to stop her from talking to Donnie, but May realizes that it’s Simmons and shoots Hunter. Donnie realizes what Simmons is trying to do, and runs off. Coulson instructs May to maintain Simmons’ cover. Donnie heads down the corridor and finds Mr. Bakshi, who repeats the phrase that he was telling Simmons to say to Donnie. This time, the phrase works on him. Mr. Bakshi instructs Donnie to ice everyone on the ship. May and Hunter become trapped as Donnie freezes the ship. But Skye shoots Donnie with a sniper rifle, and his lifeless body falls into the ocean through the ice. Skye fakes shooting at Simmons, and she and Bakshi run, and fly away in the HYDRA helicopter.
The SHIELD team confiscates all the HYDRA tech that was left behind on the ship. Skye reports to May that Donnie’s body still hasn’t been found yet. Skye expresses her concern to May about Simmons going undercover in HYDRA, but May is confident that Simmons can handle it.
Coulson confronts Fitz about almost killing Ward, and explains that he’s trying to find out more about HYDRA through Ward. Fitz asks if there’s anything else Coulson is keeping from him. He says yes, because he’s the director. But Coulson does tell Fitz that Simmons is on a very important assignment, and that’s why she left and hasn’t been in contact.
Dr. Whitehall and Mr. Bakshi discuss how SHIELD is becoming a problem, though they don’t seem to know who is in charge. Agent 33 brings a file in, and seems to have been turned. Mr. Bakshi discusses promoting Simmons, saying that he trusts her, but if he’s wrong, he’ll make her comply.
In the final scene, Ward tells Skye that he was never brainwashed, and everything he did was of his own free will. He maintains that he would never lie to her. He then tells her that her father is alive and looking for her. He says that some day, if she lets him, he’ll take her to her father. She abruptly leaves, and her heart rate rises.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 3 of Agents of SHIELD: Making Friends and Influencing People
Yay, after two episodes of only have fake Simmons, we finally got to see what real Simmons was up to! And she’s in — HYDRA?? Well, undercover, of course. Of all people, she is the last on the team that I would choose to go undercover, because, as we all know, she is horrible at lying her way out of something on the spot. Remember, back when the SHIELD team went to the Hub, and Skye wanted to get some data, but only Simmons had access, and Skye was supposed to talk Simmons through it, but she didn’t help her at all, and Simmons couldn’t come up with anything convincing to say?? Yeah, that’s a good reminder of how much I used to hate Skye. This season, however, I continue to not be annoyed by Skye. It feels really weird and unfamiliar!
So I had been wondering whether Fitz was aware that he has been hallucinating Simmons, and this episode we got our answer, when Fitz tells fake Simmons that she isn’t there, and to go away. I wonder how long he will continue to hallucinate her. Good job to Fitz, getting payback against Ward! He deserved it. However, although I never actually thought that Ward would get killed off so soon, I was a little worried about Fitz. If Ward hadn’t come up with this valuable information about Donnie, would Fitz have theoretically gone through with it? I’m really not sure. It just makes me worried that all this frustration bottled up inside of Fitz might eventually make him turn into a villain. I really hope that doesn’t happen.
Anyway, I continue to be really into Agents of SHIELD this season, and I’m looking forward to seeing Simmons’ progress in HYDRA, now that she’s being promoted!
Josh’s Thoughts: Agents of SHIELD, Season 2 Episode 3: Making Friends and Influencing People
So Agents of SHIELD has decided to turn the tables on HYDRA and enlisted Simmons as a spy agent., infiltrating HYDRA. A bit of a surprising decision given Skye’s observation—Simmons is a terrible liar. Coulson gives her some sound advice—stick with the truth as much as possible, but I think eventually Simmons will be seeing herself in the brainwashing machine HYDRA is using on its willing and unwilling recruits. I am curious to see how an evil Simmons would be, and think it would make for an interesting episode or two!
The scene where Fitz confronts Ward really was an emotional one, for Fitz I thought. The realization that the person that nearly killed him was being held within the same building he occupied had to be unnerving when Fitz unveiled him. Part of me rooted for Fitz to finish Ward off, but another part of me didn’t want to see Fitz lose his morals over a dirt bag like Ward.
Ward is an irritating bad guy. The reason being is that the only reason he is bad is because he followed someone blinding—into HYDRA—that he didn’t really have any care about. Skye seems to see this as well, and it is really frustrating to have Ward be such a bad guy for the sake of a “fatherly figure”—especially when that fatherly figure is as insane as Garrett was. I almost feel sorry for this guy though, because of how empty he has been his entire life.
As for Blizzard, I really feel bad for him. He was persecuted by HYDRA, and then by SHIELD only because SHIELD didn’t want HYDRA to get their hands on him. Sure, SHIELD would have treated him nicer, but he may still have been essentially a prisoner, to tests and experiments at the minimum. He was bound for a miserable life.
So far, I am all in for SHIELD. It has been really upbeat so far, and the events of last season really resonate this season, and it is great to see the characters like Ward, Skye, Coulson, Fitz dealing with those events. Then we have new characters coming in, and so far, I really like them too.
Scenes from Agents of SHIELD, Season 2 Episode 4, Face My Enemy
Here are scenes from the next episode of Agents of SHIELD, titled Face My Enemy:
I know Simmons is loyal to Fitz, but I’m wondering … if Ward can fool everyone for so long, could someone more intelligent, like Simmons???