Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Recap: The Weaknesses of Grant Ward

Of course, since I try not to pre-judge any episode, I'll let next week's finale stand on its own, much like I'm judging "Ragtag" on its own merits. For the most part, I feel "Ragtag" was a genuinely solid episode that did the work of not only building the story for the finale so we can just get into the action next week with minimal setup, it also worked as an isolated episode of the series, exploring the pasts of these characters and the fraught emotional complications that inform their relationships. Okay, so maybe the Ward flashbacks weren't the most elegant storytelling device of the season, but I sincerely felt that the correlation between those flashbacks and Ward's relationships with his former S.H.I.E.L.D. brethren was poignant. Maybe Ward isn't as bad as he has appeared to be these past few weeks, but there's no avoiding that he's still a bad guy. He's making the choice to abandon S.H.I.E.L.D. and to go all-in with Hydra. While he may have excuses from the difficulty of his childhood, he's a grown man now, and his choices should very much be held against him. Or, at the very least, weigh heavily on his conscience, as they do here. "Ragtag" takes an action-oriented storyline and infuses it with fairly honest character moments that, while not always ideal, still resonate. I know Marvel has been in the news for other reasons, from the crazy success of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, to the wild decision to kill off Wolverine. But I'd argue they should be getting just as much recognition for how stellar Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has gotten over the past several weeks. Is "Ragtag" perfect? No. But I've rarely seen shows make such a dramatic turn around from fun, if insubstantial, fare to something weightier and more resonant.

Credit: ABC

The story of the episode ropes us back around to some of the mysteries we've been tracking for months, and which we've slowly been coming back to since last week's episode. Turns out it's all connected: Cybertek -- the company responsible for creating Deathlok -- is the key to everything, as Garrett (Bill Paxton) needs GH-325 to stabilize the Centipede serum and serve as its final, stabilizing, regenerating ingredient. It's why he's been so intent on figuring out how Coulson (Clark Gregg) was brought back to life, and why he had Ward (Brett Dalton) abduct Skye (Chloe Bennet) to decrypt the hard drive. But there's much more to Garrett's motives than meets the eye, which we learn during a fun sequence reminiscent of classic spy serials, right down to the classic spy tech provided by Triplett's grandfather, such as an EMP disguised as a joy buzzer, cigarettes that pack heat rays, and a hypno-gun. The reason for the mission is twofold, as the team is not only trying to discover the location of Garrett and Ward, they're also trying to gain intel on Cybertek, in addition to gaining access to its systems. Skye has apparently embedded a Trojan horse in the hard drive Hydra is now using, but it requires the installation of an activation device first. Once inserted, Skye will have access to all of Cybertek's (and, therefore, Hydra's) computers. But this requires actually accessing a Cybertek system first. So Coulson and May (Ming-Na Wen) go undercover as dorky professor Theo Tiddle and his colleague, Dr. Rome, infiltrating Cybertek under the guise of a business meeting at which they offer the company Icer technology. However, it's through this infiltration that they learn the truth about Garrett: he's the original Deathlok, kept alive by Cybertek machinery. He doesn't want GH-325 to stabilize his roster of super-soldiers, he wants it for himself...since he's dying.

Credit: ABC

It's a revelation that deeply unsettles Ward, since his flashbacks this week detail his complicated history with the man who's been his mentor since he was a teenager. In short, Garrett offered Ward the opportunity of a new life at a very young age, after he's incarcerated in juvenile detention for nearly killing his brother in an arson scheme gone awry. His parents have basically disowned him, and his older brother is intent on seeing him tried as an adult, so Ward takes the lifeline Garrett is offering, not really knowing what to expect. It isn't long before Garrett is marooning Ward in the wilderness as a test of survival, with the promise that he'll return to check on Ward's progress in a few months. It's a harsh existence, but Garrett is of the mind that Ward can do it, and that he'll need to be able to learn how to survive if he's going to be ready for what's ahead. And so Ward is left behind for six months with little more than a backpack of clothes and a hunting dog named Buddy. And, true to form, Ward somehow manages to eke out a meager existence by killing wildlife and building crude shelters. As time passes and Garrett returns, his confidence in his own abilities grow. Eventually, Garrett reveals the true purpose of Ward's test: to prepare him to join Hydra under the guise of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Garrett's rationale for his loyalty to Hydra is stirring: after a botched mission in Sarajevo, S.H.I.E.L.D. left him to die, and he's been bitter about it ever since. I suppose stuffing your intestines back into your buddy and suturing yourself back up is cause enough for any man to turn against his organization, especially when Hydra was offering a solution to his problems in the form of Deathlok technology. Garrett tells Ward that he'll be joining S.H.I.E.L.D. but warns not to form any attachments, since all attachments are weaknesses.

This becomes important later after Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) are caught by Hydra and brought aboard The Bus. Fitz has continually refuses to believe that Ward is truly evil, and insists that, deep down, Ward really does care about them. In attempting to free Ward from having to follow Garrett's orders, he activates the joy buzzer EMP, which short circuits Garrett's life support and renders him mortally wounded. Nearing death, Garrett orders Ward to kill FitzSimmons, leaving Ward little choice but to chase after his former colleagues. In an attempt to escape, FitzSimmons lock themselves in an airlock, while Fitz pleads with Ward to see reason. As Ward debates whether he's going to really kill his ex-colleagues, we get flashbacks to Ward's youth, as Garrett forces him to kill Buddy as a way of eliminating all his personal attachments (in a poignant fake out, the show allows us to believe Ward is letting the dog go, only to reveal he's taking him out with a hunting rifle from a distance). At the critical moment of choice, Ward explains that he does feel something for Fitz and Simmons, which is precisely why he's going through with his actions, since they're a weakness in him that must be eliminated. And so he activates the airlock, which locks them in a container and drops them out of the plane and into the ocean.

But it's not over yet, as the remaining S.H.I.E.L.D force attempts to infiltrate Cybertek facilities only to find themselves surrounded by super soldiers sporting Asgardian weaponry (and other assorted items from The Fridge). Worse, the synthesis of a GH-325 solution means Garrett is no longer at death's door, as Raina (Ruth Negga) injects him with the serum and regenerates his dying organs. All this, despite her earlier concerns that Garrett's terminal health meant he never really cared about researching superhumans in the same way she does, he only cared about finding a cure because "he's scared of dying." So Garrett is resurrected, each agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is in mortal peril, and to top it all off? Raina reveals to Ward that Skye just might be the mystery daughter of two "monsters" who slaughtered an entire village in China twenty years ago (a backstory referenced earlier in the season). And then, the final nail in the coffin: a post-credits sequence reveals that Quinn (David Conrad) is meeting with the U.S. military to offer them a piece of the supersoldier action -- and, despite their initial reluctance, the government seems more than interested in what Quinn is selling. If that's not a setup for things to go to hell in the finale, I have no idea what is.

Credit: ABC

Of course, there are ways "Ragtag" could have been better. Fitz's attempts to turn Ward back would have been more resonant had the series actually invested more time in that relationship. I don't think we ever really got the sense that Ward and Fitz were that close, beyond their work relationship. So Fitz's desperate faith in Ward's goodness rings a bit hollow, although Iain De Caestecker certainly sells Fitz's heartbreak, and how deeply Ward's betrayal has wounded him. The emotional fallout of Ward's betrayal is further reinforced by the solid scene between May and Skye, in which the veteran S.H.I.E.L.D. agent explains that even though her exterior might make it seem as though she doesn't feel anything, she's more angry at Ward's betrayal than anyone, and she plans on harvesting that anger to take him down. She suggests that Skye do the same, and I'll be stunned if this isn't setting up a big-time confrontation between Skye and Ward in next week's finale. Either way, "Ragtag" succeeded as its own isolated episode, but found greater success as a mechanism for setting up the season finale, which is really shaping up to be something that could allow the show to end the season on a high note.