I hope everyone got a chance to check out Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as this episode of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD runs concurrent with the events of the film. If you haven’t, just stop reading and come back when you have or you will have everything–and I mean EVERYTHING–spoiled for you.
1. What is it?
Agents of SHIELD Season 1, Episode 17, titled ‘Turn, Turn, Turn.’
2. Who’s in it?
The series regulars, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Ming-Na Wen as Melinda may, Brett Dalton as Agent Ward, Chloe Bennet as Skye, Elizabeth Henstridge as Simmons, and Iain De Caestecker as Fitz. Guest starring this week is Bill Paxton as Agent John Garrett; Saffron Burrows as Victoria Hand; Christine Adams as Dr. Weaver; Dayo Ade as Agent Barbour; James MacDonald as Agent Jacobson; and B.J. Britt as Agent Antoine “Trip” Triplett.
3. Who made it?
‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ was written by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen; the episode was directed by Vincent Misiano.
4. What is it about? (**Spoilers Ahead**)
‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ opens with Agent Garrett (Paxton) flying along the friendly skies to some Blue Oyster Cult and then is joined by two SHIELD drones. He calls SHIELD for clarification on the addition to his airspace. Back at the Hub, Victoria Hand (Burrows) and her team ignore the call. Suddenly, the drones attack.
On the Bus–now heading to the Hub via Hands orders, Coulson (Gregg), May (Wen), and Skye (Bennet) continue their Mexican standoff. Coulson refuses to give May any quarter–even though she admits that she is working with Nick Fury himself, and Fitz (De Caestecker) waits behind bulletproof glass for the resolution. May tries to deflect suspicion on Fitz for his snooping, and he admits that Simmons (Henstridge) is at the Hub doing some research.
Now we go to the Hub as Simmons is running her tests on Skye’s GH325-fused blood. Agent Triplett (Britt) joins her in the lab and she tries to hide her work. He offers to let Simmons use his holo-communicator to reach out to Dr. Weaver (Adams) for assistance.
Back on the Bus, Coulson shoots May cold with an ICER and drops her into the same cell as Ward (Dalton). Coulson and Fitz get control of the guns on the Bus as Garrett requests assistance with his drone problem. Coulson shoots them both down and Garrett rejoins Level 7–now called 616–which is steeped in Marvel Comics lore and I admit I like better and will now use.
Coulson tells Garrett that Hand is the Clairvoyant, and they intercept a transmission from the Hub. Skye decodes it, and it is an activation for sleeper agents to come out “of the darkness and into the light” as HYDRA.
May and Ward have a conversation in the cell and Ward is angry that May betrayed them all. As the Bus gets closer to the Hub, Coulson demands that May call Nick Fury on her secure line for clarification and assistance. She makes the call and the person who answers tells 616 that Director Fury is dead.
Coulson and Ward–now free from the cell–begin to wipe all of the collected 1-8-4 data from the Bus’s computers to keep it out of HYDRA’s tentacles.
Hand and her group storm into the lab and confront Simmons and Trip, demanding that they swear allegiance to HYDRA or die. Trip fights back and Simmons refuses. Hand says that it was only a test and now she knows that she can trust them as true SHIELD agents, but she plans to kill Coulson and the rest of the team as she believes them to be HYDRA.
Coulson and 616 get off the Bus–using the nifty device that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) used in The Winter Soldier. They sneak into a communications room using an old trick used in Star Wars: A New Hope and they take it over.
In the lab, Hand explains why she believes that Coulson is HYDRA and she reinforces her desire to kill any and all HYDRA members she can.
Skye and Ward sneak into a closet as Ward is trying to get Skye into the Hub’s systems for a hack. The two agents are surrounded by 12 armed guards and Ward offers to go clear a path for Skye. They have a conversation where Ward admits why he killed the fake Clairvoyant–to save her–and then he asks her out. Skye tells him she knows about May, and then they kiss.
Ward steps out and kicks some serious ass until he is finally overrun by the armed guards. Skye can hear the tussle, but she doesn’t know the outcome until the door opens and a bloodied Ward collects her to complete the mission. Then Skye admits that her mission is not to hack the system but to destroy it and she has a bag of C4 to pull that off.
In the Communications room, May, Fitz, Garrett and Coulson locate Hand and plan to capture her. Garrett argues that she should be killed without capture as she is a dangerous player. In his argument, he says too much and Coulson catches him stating something he couldn’t have known. When he questions Garrett, Garrett continues to deny until agents storm the room. Garrett mentions that Sitwell trained most of the agents and he asks those loyal to Sitwell to do what they were trained to do. Then he says “Hail Hydra,” with a smile on his face.
Coulson cannot believe that Garrett is HYDRA and Garrett admits that SHIELD is corrupted from the top down. Unfortunately, Fitz begins to cry while promising to make Garrett pay for being a traitor. Skye’s bomb goes off and the distraction gives Coulson time to fight off Garrett. The true SHIELD members are able to get the upper hand just as Hand and her team storm in. Coulson swears he’s not HYDRA and Hand believes him as she had the room bugged and heard everything.
Garrett and the captured members of HYDRA are paraded out of the Hub and Ward just cannot believe his old S.O. was corrupt.
Hand says that Captain America was able to take out the three Helicarriers at the Triskelion and is now missing. She says that she is personally taking Garrett to the Fridge to inter the HYDRA agent into the Icebox and Ward demands to go too, as he feels especially betrayed. She allows it.
Coulson and the rest of 616 begin to rebuild the Bus and he tells May that she is welcome to come, but as an agent and not a friend.
Hand, Garrett, Ward, and two unnamed SHIELD agents are on route to the Icebox to secure the traitorous Garrett. Hand offers Ward a chance to put the HYDRA agent deeper in the ground by doing to him what Ward did to the fake Clairvoyant. Ward stands, slides a fresh clip into his pistol, chambers a round, and then shoots all of the SHIELD agents, including Victoria Hand, who gets three slugs for her troubles.
Garrett can only smile.
In the post HYDRA scene, Garrett is telling the same old story again, and Ward sits alone, pondering his decision.
5. Any revelations, tie-ins, easter eggs, etc.?
Captain America: The Winter Soldier literally haunts this episode as they are running concurrently. It’s handled with a deft touch and the end is shocking, further setting up conflict in the coming weeks as the series draws to its first season end. Every 1-8-4 from this season is referenced.
6. Will we watch next week?
Yes. My biggest problem with the episode–which was Ward’s reason for killing the Clairvoyant last week–was rectified by his turn at the end. I wish he had given us all a “Hail Hydra,” but maybe that’s asking too much. As we know, this team–now called 616–will forgive him and all will be well in a few weeks. After all, they made the last traitor a full-fledged SHIELD member.
