Episode Title: “Repairs”
Writers: Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon
Director: Billy Gierhart
Previously on “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”:
I don’t get it.
Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon are talented writers and they seemed like the right choice to shepherd “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and bring the Marvel Cinematic Universe to television. So why is it that only the second episode they’ve written as a team (without another credited writer) is the worst episode of the series to date?
More disturbingly, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” seems to be regressing in terms of quality. The promising elements of the early episodes have fallen by the wayside and the overall direction of the series is lacking. Last week’s Thor: The Dark World tie-in squandered an amazing opportunity to deal with the events of that film in any meaningful way. But that wasn’t the first sign of trouble. Aside from “F.Z.Z.T.,” there hasn’t been much in the way of interesting character development, as Tancharoen and Whedon appear to be favoring simplistic characterization and stories.
One of the few bright spots has been Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), in part because the early episodes have kept her at arm’s length from the audience while playing up her kick-ass skills. May’s hook up with Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) was also a legitimately surprising turn that felt like a good move for both characters.
“Repairs” opens with no uncertainty about what happened between May and Ward. And rather than allow that to soften her, May is out the door before Ward can even finish his spiel about acting normally around the other members of their team. May is such an emotional black hole that no one notices anything different about her. Only Ward nearly falters when he briefly reacts to Skye’s (Chloe Bennet) suggestion that May needs to get laid.
May has been overdue for a spotlight episode. Unfortunately, this story wasn’t really about her.
There are full spoilers ahead for “Repairs,” so if you missed last night’s episode of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” then you should probably skip this review or… just skip this episode entirely.
For an episode dealing with May’s past, you might reasonably expect May to be the focal point. Instead, the story is largely told from Skye’s point of view as she hears conflicting stories about how and why May earned “The Cavalry” nickname from Agents Leo Fitz (Ian De Caestecker) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) as well as slightly different account from Ward.
The story told by Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) is probably the closest to the truth, but the drama of that revelation is undercut by a violation of one of the basic rules of film and television: show, don’t tell. Think of it, wouldn’t it have been hilarious to actually see May on horseback shooting bad guys in a flashback sequence? That could have been a fun counterpoint to the real flashback where May apparently killed several people to save some hostages and her fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Plus if May was really warm and emotionally open before that incident, it would have been more powerful to see her undergo that change in personality. The second-hand accounts of May’s past just weren’t very compelling.
The bulk of the episode revolves around Hannah Hutchins, a woman who has apparently developed telekinetic powers after a Particle Accelerator explosion that killed several of her colleagues. The townspeople blame Hannah for the accident and they start mobbing up when she seems to be going full Carrie on them.
But in short order, Coulson and company swoop up Hannah and put her on the Bus in confinement. At the same time, Fitz and Simmons decide that now is the perfect time to start pranking Skye… because having a potentially unstable telekinetic person on board your aircraft is obviously the right time to freak people out. Seriously? And this is the B-story?!
Despite Coulson’s initial belief, it turns out that Hannah is not a telekinetic. Instead, she’s haunted by Tobias Ford, one of her co-workers who was lost to the explosion. Trapped between worlds, Ford sabotages the Bus, causing May to make an emergency landing before Ford stalks the team to get at Hannah.
The depiction of Ford’s powers was pretty good, but it wasn’t really all that different than what “The Tomorrow People” does every week. And Ford’s motivation was definite letdown. Yes, it would have been cliche if Ford was out for vengeance against Hannah. But the actual explanation that Ford was into her wasn’t exactly riveting. Basically, Ford caused the accident because he wanted to spend time with Hannah. And then he went Poltergeist to “protect” Hannah.
May’s fight with Ford was one of the better sequences in the episode, but she gets rid of him by sharing the same platitudes that Coulson apparently gave her after her darkest moment. Incidentally, this is the third episode out of the first nine to take place almost entirely on the Bus. I know that this show has a TV budget, but why are there so many bottle shows on this series?
The tag scene has some fun moments as the team plays Upwords together. Although it feels like an unearned character beat when we discover that May pranked Fitz. I didn’t really believe Coulson when he said that May used to be like that and it wasn’t a very convincing turn for her either. If we’re going to buy into these characters as real people then they need to behave like real people.
“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” badly needs stronger characterization, better stories, a larger scale and a sense of direction. Right now, it has none of those things nor does the creative team seem to be in any hurry to address its flaws. And that is extremely disappointing.
