Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Recap: Battle of the Sexes
Recap and review of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Episode 15 - Yes Men:
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has the rare opportunity to embark on event storytelling. The show has done it before with "The Well", and "Yes Men" is another episode in the same vein, a crossover with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time, it's a much stronger episode, feeling more like a mini-blockbuster than some past episodes, changing the status quo of the series by pitting the team against itself via one of the more effective villains the show has yet introduced. Lorelei (Elena Satine) is unique in that she's action-oriented without having to actually take part in any of the action herself, thanks to her sorceress abilities. The show doesn't allow intrusions of the overtly supernatural nearly enough, as the show often feels like a procedural that just happens to be set in the Marvel Universe, instead of feeling like a Marvel show with the occasional procedural, "Case of the Week" elements. Were the show to lean a bit harder on its serialized elements, instead of focusing on separate, isolated issues from week-to-week, I think this would be a stronger show. This is not to say that the series should abandon certain procedural elements altogether, as a "Villain of the Week" can still provide a sense of excitement and purpose, but even those villains should be in service to a larger story. "Yes Men" succeeds by giving the feeling that even though Lorelei has been defeated and hauled away, her actions will have lasting consequences on the team.
Credit: ABC
So Lorelei is on the rampage, using her seductive charms to win the loyalty of a biker gang, causing mayhem in the process. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team intends to bring her down with the help of Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander), who's come down from Asgard to apprehend the escaped prisoner. She's been serving 600 years in Asgardian prison for crimes against the state, yet Lady Sif's motivations for capturing her go beyond simple duty or justice: Lorelei enchanted the man Sif loved, and turned him against her years ago. In losing the man she loved, Sif never fully recovered. Worse, she's now faced with the struggle between following her duty, or exacting blunt vengeance on the woman who took everything from her. It's a character-centric conflict that helps to give the episode dramatic weight, and it has its parallel in the division between May (Ming-Na Wen) and Ward (Brett Dalton), who falls under Lorelei's spell and spends the rest of the episode actively working against S.H.I.E.L.D. These are the arcs that drive the story, far more so than the ongoing mystery of what it is Coulson (Clark Gregg) saw in the T.A.H.I.T.I. lab last week, or how Skye (Chloe Bennet) is dealing with her recovery. And this is smart, for the most part, as the episode deals with its mysteries in the final few minutes, and deploying the reveal in such a way that we're forced to further question the motives of S.H.I.E.L.D., and whether these are actually the good guys or not.
Credit: ABC
So the stuff with Lorelei is actually pretty interesting, as Ward is completely taken with the seductress: he takes her to Vegas while she plots her next move, and while there, they sleep together and confess their fears, with Lorelei wanting desperately not to be returned to her Asgardian prison cell, while Ward talks about May's coldness, and the possibility that he desires someone else. For her part, May is conflicted about Ward, refusing to believe that he would actually go through with killing her if it came down to it. Coulson calls May to the carpet for this, saying that when she told him her relationship with Ward wouldn't be a problem, he believed her; but he also understood that May wouldn't have told him even if it would have been a problem. And so the story builds to the inevitable confrontation between Ward and May aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. plane, while also bringing us to the face-off between Sif and Lorelei, and, surprisingly, between Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and the rest of his team (the poor guy has also fallen victim to Lorelei's spell). This action climax is among the best the show has done since returning from midseason hiatus. The jerky editing style of previous fight scenes is still present, but it's utilized in a much better, more natural fashion. Our view of what's happening is never completely obfuscated, and the quick-cuts add to the sense of building tension. It helps that the respective fights themselves are exceedingly well-choreographed, the May/Ward fight in particular, as it plays in exactly the way you'd expect the clash between two capable agents would.
Credit: ABC
The Sif/Lorelei fight is also exciting, with Sif's spear splitting in half and giving way to a sword fight between the two Asgardians. Meanwhile, the stuff with Fitz provides a lighthearted touch to all the tension, with Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) bludgeoning Coulson with a fire extinguisher on the assumption that he's under Lorelei's spell too, only for Coulson to then knock out Fitz to keep him under control. It's much better than I have the power to describe, and it leads to a terrific climax, as Sif refuses to allow vengeance to interfere with her duty, choosing to arrest Lorelei rather than to grant her a quick and easy death. Meanwhile, Ward has May at gunpoint, and she finds out, to her surprise, that he actually would pull the trigger to kill her. Luckily, May emptied the magazine, so there are no bullets in the gun at the time, but it's still a startling realization for May: she understands that Ward was under Lorelei's influence at the time, but knows that he has deeper trust issues with her that have yet to be resolved. And there's no real guarantee of a resolution any time soon, since Ward doesn't seem to want to admit to these issues, nor does May want to admit anything is actually wrong on her end. Of course, her coldness and indecipherable nature ties into a fairly stunning conclusion...
Credit: ABC
After forbidding Simmons from further researching GH-325, Coulson decides to confess the source of the mysterious wonder drug to Skye. He does this on the advice of May, who insists that he needs to tell someone what he saw in T.A.H.I.T.I., and this speech seems to light a fire under Coulson's ass, as he comes to the conclusion that he's sick of being jerked around and kept in the dark. He tells Skye that they're going to start getting answers, but they're going to do it on their own, without the help of the team. His rationale is that they need to protect the rest of the team from getting roped into their search for the truth, as Coulson and Skye are linked by GH-325, which brought them both back from an early grave. Coulson not only tells Skye that the source of the drug was alien in nature, but also that he intends to begin their search for the truth by tracking down the people responsible. This is some of Clark Gregg's best work in the series, showing all the fire and intensity that the character's state of mind demands in that moment. And it ties into the episode's big reveal: May has been listening in on Coulson and Skye's conversation. She not only saves a recording of the dialogue, but also relays the message to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters that "Coulson knows. Repeat, Coulson knows." This recontextualizes May's pep talk to Coulson as an opportunity to figure out what he knows, as she would have known he'd go right to Skye. So what plot is May in on that Coulson isn't? Is it sinister in nature, or is there actually a good explanation for all the secrecy? The show will have to start answering these questions sooner or later, and it's looking like it might be sooner rather than later.
Credit: ABC
"Yes Men" is as close to a mini-blockbuster that the show has ever come, and while this isn't the sort of thing Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can get away with every week, it's encouraging to see the show starting to get a grip on the balance between procedural storytelling, and more fully-involved serialization. Episodes aren't just united by mysteries anymore, but by the interconnected development of the characters and their shared histories. The show may not be the perfect version of itself just yet, but with each week the becomes exponentially more entertaining through sheer bombast.