Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Recap: Tesseract of Valor

Credit: ABC

The episode starts with a somewhat needless in media res opening, with the official S.H.I.E.L.D. plane damaged and nearly sucking Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) out into the sky. We flashback to see how we came to this point, as it's the first day on the job for Skye (Chloe Bennet), and Agent Ward (Brett Dalton) is suspicious of Coulson's decision to bring her aboard the team in the first place, citing that she lacks combat clearance. However, Coulson is impressed with Skye's hacking abilities, and is practically salivating at the prospect of what she could accomplish with their resources. And so the team travels to Peru to investigate an "0-8-4" (an bject of Unknown Origin) found inside a temple. In a cute bit that serves as both in-reference and foreshadowing, Coulson tells Skye that the last 0-8-4 they encountered was "a hammer." This is fitting because this next 0-8-4 will also be indelibly linked to Thor's home world of Asgard.

Credit: ABC

As the team arrives in Peru, they find that the temple is in the midst of a highly-volatile area due to a guerilla uprising that places them all in immediate danger, unless they quickly get in, extract the object, and get out. Luckily for the team, Coulson hooks back up with a former colleague/flame within the Peru military, Comandante Camilla Reyes. This alliance comes in handy when a fight breaks out in the midst of the extraction, with tons of explosions and time-sensitive action that's as exciting as it is well-executed. (Ward detonating a pulse charge in the middle of the firefight is particularly badass) Yet the action setpiece is window-dressing for the fairly intriguing story beneath it all: as it turns out, the 0-8-4 is fueled by Tesseract technology. The Tesseract, of course, is the MacGuffin that linked all the movies in Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a cube that is possibly Asgardian in origin, tied to Odin, father of Loki and Thor. In other words, this object is insanely dangerous, far more so than your standard nuke or hydrogen bomb.

Credit: ABC

Coulson brings Reyes and her team aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. plane, which seems like perfectly sound logic at the time, but things quickly take a turn for the worse when it's revealed that Reyes' people are responsible for the 0-8-4, having developed the device using the Tesseract technology left behind in the wake of the fall of HYDRA (as depicted in Captain America: The First Avenger). The entire team is captured, and while this normally wouldn't be such a huge issue in an action series, we learn that this team isn't exactly as well-oiled as we've been led to believe. Agent Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) reveals that, technically, this is only the team's second mission together, and that much like Skye, she and Agent Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) aren't certified combat-ready like Ward and Agent May (Ming-Na Wen). As Ward explains to Skye, in a rare moment of vulnerability, his one-track dedication to efficiency is the result of having been trained to be "the whole solution, to solve all variables." In this respect, Ward shows a tendency to take on all responsibilities onto his own shoulders, and cast aspersions on those who don't measure up. This is what leads to some of his friction with Fitz, and it feels like an organic conflict to explore within the context of the series. The mission becomes clear: the team has to actually become a team if they're going to find their way out of this situation.

Credit: ABC

The climax is every bit as tense as last week's, with each member of the team utilizing his or her specific skills to neutralizes Reyes' team and obtaining the 0-8-4 device. Of course, this results in tons of collateral damage to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s expensive plane, but it's all in service of the team coming together and putting an end to Reyes' insurrection. It's a fairly clear-cut storyline with a well-defined goal, as we see the genesis of this team, which has been united under a common enemy. Reyes' men are defeated while the Commandante herself is taken into custody. Yet things aren't totally sunny, as we find out that Skye's loyalties remain divided between S.H.I.E.L.D. and her own group, The Rising Tide. When asked if her operation has gone dark, she tells a mysterious contact that she's still in, casting doubt on her motives. It's an interesting storyline, if nothing else, as Skye is one of the leads of the show, and is the audience surrogate, given her role as the newbie of the group. I think it's an effective way to flesh out her character. And even if the storyline doesn't prove to live up to its potential, the series is still remarkably fun. Take, for example, the closing scene, in which Coulson has to answer to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who reads him the riot act for causing damage to the obscenely expensive S.H.I.E.L.D. plane. But beyond being fun, it also serves a storyline function, as Fury warns Coulson to be wary of Skye, calling her a major "risk." Hopefully, this isn't the last we see of Fury on the show this season, as Jackson has a commanding presence even in scenes that last little more than 80 seconds.

Credit: ABC

"0-8-4" is a worthy follow-up to last week's strong premiere. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. might not be TV's most dramatically substantive new show this season, but one would be hard-pressed to argue that it isn't the most exciting, just-plain-fun new series to come down the pike this year.