Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Recap: All's Well That Ends Well

It's an episode that keeps all of the various plot mechanics in motion, and in compelling fashion. I'll admit, I wasn't exactly riveted by Coulson (Clark Gregg) and team going to Hawaii or Australia, but at least the latter development resulted in an interesting setpiece, as the S.H.I.E.L.D. team gets into a shootout with Hydra, resulting in Agent Trip (B.J. Britt) getting shot. It's a life or death situation that suddenly puts The Doctor (Kyle MacLachlan) in a position of power, since he's the only one on the base with the knowledge necessary to save Trip's life. MacLachlan hasn't had nearly enough to do this season, which is why it's so encouraging that he gets such a big role here, since he's great at playing The Doctor as a genius who is slowly unraveling. We get much of The Doctor's backstory here, providing a contrast to Whitehall's origin: The Doctor doesn't just want to be reunited with Skye (Chloe Bennet) in this life, he's interested in reuniting with them all in the afterlife. He's on a revenge-fueled suicide mission to bring down the man responsible for the murder of Skye's Mother (Dichen Lachman), and that means he'll be targeting Whitehall.

Credit: Marvel/ABC

Interestingly enough, it's Skye's Mother who is the junction between Whitehall's story and The Doctor's. In the 1940s, Whitehall's men capture a woman who shows surprising resiliency against the Obelisk. However, before they can study her, the S.S.R. (the top secret Allied agency that would later become S.H.I.E.L.D.) takes Whitehall into custody, and Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell) does her best to ensure that Whitehall never sees the outside of his cell again. And, for over forty years, he doesn't. In an impressive time-dissolve, we see how Whitehall spent those four decades, reading, writing, playing chess against himself, and wiling away the days, never expecting to escape again. But Hydra secures his release in 1989, and he reunites with the organization to discover that the woman from the 1940s is still alive...and she hasn't aged a day. Cue the most gruesome scene in the show's entire run, as we see Whitehall and his men slowly dissect Skye's Mother while she's still alive, searching her biology for the key to her agelessness. It's ultimately how Whitehall is able to reverse the effects of his aging, and appear as he did in the 1940s.

Whitehall essentially regains his lost years in the most despicable way possible, since it wouldn't really be all that surprising to learn that he didn't even need to take Skye's Mother apart, piece-by-piece. Yet he did, and callously ordered the remains discarded like old garbage. It's no wonder The Doctor is out for revenge, and it's a story that instantly makes him more sympathetic, even if he's more than a bit crazy himself. That character-driven arc is far more interesting than the ongoing search for the alien city or the knowledge that the Obelisk, named The Diviner by the aliens who left it behind (being described by Whitehall as "blue angels," citing an "old tale from the East"), is used to open a temple in that mythical alien city. Essentially, the object chooses who among humanity is worthy of living/entering the temple, hence why some die when they touch it while others survive. Given the presumptive "chosen" status of both The Doctor and Skye's Mother, perhaps this is why Skye is the only human 0-8-4. If nothing else, it's something that's intriguing to ponder amid all this character-driven storytelling.

Credit: ABC/Kelsey McNeal

But there's more worthwhile development to be found this week, as we have it confirmed that both Ward brothers are pretty much psychopaths. Ward (Brett Dalton) abducts Christian (Tim DeKay) and forces him to dig up the well from their youth. Ward is still not over Christian's attempts to blame him for the attempted murder of their brother, Thomas. And so he wants Christian to take back the accusation and confess to his own culpability in the act. The focus here is on personal responsibility. On the one hand, Ward blames his family for twisting him into the warped man he's become, but he takes responsibility for the acts he committed as that man, regardless of the circumstances that led him to that point. And he expects the same of Christian. The show smartly tries to keep it ambiguous as to which brother is telling the truth about Thomas, although I do think the show views the "what really happened at the well" backstory as something bigger than it actually is. It's nice to know where the Ward brothers are coming from, and how they became the men they were, but it all felt like it was tacked-on from a different show entirely, since it had so little to do with the rest of the episode -- at least until the end, when Ward rejoins Hydra and meets The Doctor in the process. That felt relevant to the main plot of the episode, and the show skillfully wove it in.

Credit: ABC/Adam Rose

That said, I did enjoy some elements of the plot between the Wards. DeKay is outstanding in the scene where Christian finally confesses that he wanted Thomas killed for being the only brother his mother didn't torture. He forced Ward to torture Thomas because he was too big a coward to do it himself, and that admission is as cathartic for Ward as it is painful for Christian. It was one of the truest moments of the episode, as Ward and Christian felt like brothers for that split second of reconciliation. Of course, the next time we see Ward, we learn he's murdered Christian and his parents, and staged it to look like a murder-suicide, using Christian's confession to make it seem like revenge for his parents' torture. I'm not entirely convinced Christian is really dead, but if he is, this just serves to further illustrate how cold Ward is, and has been the entire time. Yes, he was once an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but Grant Ward is an even more dangerous Agent of Hydra.

"The Things We Bury" is a grisly episode in places, whether it's Skye's Mother being dissected or Bakshi (Simon Kassianides) slamming his head against a desk to break his cyanide capsule and prevent S.H.I.E.L.D. from getting any information out of him. Yet there are also moments of levity, such as Hunter (Nick Blood) promising that while he might not always trust Morse (Adrianne Palicki), he'll always want to try. I figured they'd hook up again at some point, but I'm pleasantly surprised that it's happening so early. I'm also surprised that S.H.I.E.L.D. has gotten a genuine lead on the alien city this early, as the episode closes with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s tracking program finding something on the map. The show has all its ducks in a row, and I'll be interested to see the follow-up, since Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has become quite good at sticking the landing, as of late.