By Heather Stromski
This week’s episode takes us to Peru in search of an 0-8-4; an Object of Unknown Origin. Before even touching down, we have whispers abounding of a bit of tension between Coulson’s new team – revolving particularly around his inclusion of the Rising Tide revolutionary Skye, who has already hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s networks from nothing more than a laptop. The battle lines seem to be drawn – if you can really call them that – with Agents Grant Ward and Melinda May feeling extremely cautious about Skye’s presence on the team, and the scientists Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons seeking to welcome her, even if their hesitance is apparent (though some of that could certainly be their hesitance about social interaction in general).
This week’s episode takes us to Peru in search of an 0-8-4; an Object of Unknown Origin. Before even touching down, we have whispers abounding of a bit of tension between Coulson’s new team – revolving particularly around his inclusion of the Rising Tide revolutionary Skye, who has already hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s networks from nothing more than a laptop. The battle lines seem to be drawn – if you can really call them that – with Agents Grant Ward and Melinda May feeling extremely cautious about Skye’s presence on the team, and the scientists Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons seeking to welcome her, even if their hesitance is apparent (though some of that could certainly be their hesitance about social interaction in general).
Upon arriving in Peru, the team sets off to investigate the 0-8-4, which is hidden inside a temple that it seems to precede by at least a millennia. In the time that follows, we are gifted with a few further insights into some members of the team: Agent May was, once upon a time, called ‘The Cavalry’, and really doesn’t like being called that now, and Skye, upon asking what her duties here would be, realizes that she is being tasked with doing, in her words, ‘everything I am against’. Following a small melee, Agent Coulson is brought face to face with one of his former allies – Commandante Camilla Reyes of the Policia Militar de Peru (Peru’s National Police). There is an uprising currently going on in Peru between the government and locals who have taken issue with their mining policies, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team find themselves in the middle of it as rebels attack the site, and have to make a quick getaway, leaving the ‘Bus’, as that nifty plane is called, heavy the Commandante and several of her strike team.
Once on the Bus, we get some more information on what the 0-8-4 is – a piece of machinery that is fueled by the Tesseract, that same cube of pure energy that wreaked so much havoc during the Battle of New York. It is unstable and extremely dangerous – and onboard a plane with a team that’s still a little wet around the ears and half a dozen militants. Strangely enough, that doesn’t even seem to be the most hazardous thing on board: that wet-around-the-ears team is two steps away from being at each other’s throats due to a lack of understanding about one another, and a certain amount of tension at being thrown together when they all share such differing ideologies.
It isn’t long before Commandante Reyes and her team show their true hand, attacking the S.H.I.E.L.D. team and taking them out of the picture to attempt to bring the 0-8-4 under their control in order to use its immense power to seize the upper hand in their battle against the rebels in their country, ostensibly to bring peace, but more likely to rule with an iron fist. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team is bound together in the cargo bay, and this is where we see them have their first small instance of actively working together. Within minutes, they have escaped their bonds and are making their way through to take the Bus back. The standoff ends with a hole being blown through the plane’s hull and Coulson securing Reyes to keep her from causing more trouble as they head to the ‘Slingshot’, a classified S.H.I.E.L.D. location where they eventually end up launching the 0-8-4 via rocket to be destroyed in the sun. A surprise cameo by Nick Fury thoroughly chastising Agent Coulson ends the episode.
Once on the Bus, we get some more information on what the 0-8-4 is – a piece of machinery that is fueled by the Tesseract, that same cube of pure energy that wreaked so much havoc during the Battle of New York. It is unstable and extremely dangerous – and onboard a plane with a team that’s still a little wet around the ears and half a dozen militants. Strangely enough, that doesn’t even seem to be the most hazardous thing on board: that wet-around-the-ears team is two steps away from being at each other’s throats due to a lack of understanding about one another, and a certain amount of tension at being thrown together when they all share such differing ideologies.
It isn’t long before Commandante Reyes and her team show their true hand, attacking the S.H.I.E.L.D. team and taking them out of the picture to attempt to bring the 0-8-4 under their control in order to use its immense power to seize the upper hand in their battle against the rebels in their country, ostensibly to bring peace, but more likely to rule with an iron fist. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team is bound together in the cargo bay, and this is where we see them have their first small instance of actively working together. Within minutes, they have escaped their bonds and are making their way through to take the Bus back. The standoff ends with a hole being blown through the plane’s hull and Coulson securing Reyes to keep her from causing more trouble as they head to the ‘Slingshot’, a classified S.H.I.E.L.D. location where they eventually end up launching the 0-8-4 via rocket to be destroyed in the sun. A surprise cameo by Nick Fury thoroughly chastising Agent Coulson ends the episode.
On its surface, ‘0-8-4’ seems to serve the purpose of creating the ties that eventually will bind the team together as a well-oiled, functioning unit. There were some predictable moments, but some that weren’t as expected as well. Following the same format as the pilot episode, there was plenty of name-dropping and referencing the prior Marvel players, but they were well-integrated, so it didn’t seem so much like name-dropping as entrenching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a full member within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thoroughly embroiled in the events that go on across the board. Particularly interesting were the acknowledgement of Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer, as the last 0-8-4 that S.H.I.E.L.D. handled, and the realization that the current 0-8-4 was a remnant of Hydra’s experiments with Tesseract energy during World War II.
There was plenty of further character development and interaction within ‘0-8-4’, displaying no small amount of tension right from the beginning. Agent Ward is certainly going to be the thorn in Coulson’s side and likely will not let up on questioning every move that Coulson makes, but that may very well be part of his role on the team, to be a sort of troubleshooter. Agent May, for all that she may not really want to be there, has no problem voicing her opinion either. Fitz and Simmons both seem to be straddling the fence of enjoying being on the team, and being unsure of it as well, and we get the feeling that they have not seen much time outside of their respective labs before being placed on the team.
Skye is the variable: she is not S.H.I.E.L.D., does, in fact, rebel against most of what they stand for, even if she may not understand exactly what all of that is, but she wants to do some good in the world, and, for the time being, it seems, Coulson has at least convinced her that she can do that here. We are somewhat introduced to the temper of one Leo Fitz once they are back on the plane after picking up the 0-8-4 and he and Ward have their own little kerfluffle, but I feel that the important part of this particular scene isn’t even about the 0-8-4 or what it may mean for them. The important part is actually centered on Skye and what could very well be her real purpose on the team: telling it like it is, saying what might be on everyone else’s minds – or not, because they can’t think outside their own roles – but no one else will even dream of saying, because they are rooted in a sense of authority-driven positions that she is not. (One might get the idea that, after focusing this much on Skye, she’s my favorite character. She’s not – Agent May is. My girlcrush is fully active.)
There was plenty of further character development and interaction within ‘0-8-4’, displaying no small amount of tension right from the beginning. Agent Ward is certainly going to be the thorn in Coulson’s side and likely will not let up on questioning every move that Coulson makes, but that may very well be part of his role on the team, to be a sort of troubleshooter. Agent May, for all that she may not really want to be there, has no problem voicing her opinion either. Fitz and Simmons both seem to be straddling the fence of enjoying being on the team, and being unsure of it as well, and we get the feeling that they have not seen much time outside of their respective labs before being placed on the team.
Skye is the variable: she is not S.H.I.E.L.D., does, in fact, rebel against most of what they stand for, even if she may not understand exactly what all of that is, but she wants to do some good in the world, and, for the time being, it seems, Coulson has at least convinced her that she can do that here. We are somewhat introduced to the temper of one Leo Fitz once they are back on the plane after picking up the 0-8-4 and he and Ward have their own little kerfluffle, but I feel that the important part of this particular scene isn’t even about the 0-8-4 or what it may mean for them. The important part is actually centered on Skye and what could very well be her real purpose on the team: telling it like it is, saying what might be on everyone else’s minds – or not, because they can’t think outside their own roles – but no one else will even dream of saying, because they are rooted in a sense of authority-driven positions that she is not. (One might get the idea that, after focusing this much on Skye, she’s my favorite character. She’s not – Agent May is. My girlcrush is fully active.)
What I’ve taken away the most from this episode in particular is a sense of it being two separate pieces united into one whole – to paraphrase a line from the episode, ‘pieces of a puzzle’. The first half of the show was showing all the tension, all the reasons why this might end up blowing up in their faces. We saw a good many of their differences, and what doesn’t exactly help them work together. The lynchpin that held it together was the conversation between Ward and Skye, where she introduces him to her concept of revolution: One person may not hold the entire solution, but putting one hundred people who each have one percent of the solution brings about something that works. This is the message the S.H.I.E.L.D. team is intended to learn, and they do through Ward imparting that same knowledge to them as they’re bound together in the cargo bay. (In a small tangent: Seriously? For being a supposedly top-notch crew of militants, they put this team together when they capture them? I don’t care how green you are, that’s just asking for rebellion. Come on!) So they take that to heart, and each of them puts in their own two cents concerning their skills that they bring to the table to ensure their escape and their re-taking of the plane.
On one hand, I like the way they joined it together. It makes sense. It’s a good way of showing how people who are all so very different can take those differences and make them into something that can only work when every piece is put in. It’s a good message to send, and one that seems to resound throughout the MCU. But I also think that very same thing is something that just bothers me a little bit. Agent Coulson tells Reyes at one point that she gave them the one thing that they would need to fit together: a common enemy. This is awesome, and true. It also just touches me as trying to reach back into the world of the Avengers a little too much. Agent Coulson’s apparent death was the common thread that the Avengers needed to band together against the Chitauri, so, obviously, Coulson knows this tactic altogether too well. It just all seemed a little too…workable, for lack of a better word. Everything fit in its place perfectly, all the way up to Skye pulling her wild card to seal up that hole in the plane.
Things to keep in mind:
We are on a count of three for referencing Tahiti as "a magical place". This is bound to play into something in the future, most likely surrounding just what has happened to Agent Coulson. Agent Melinda May is bound to become more than ‘just the pilot’, and as we discover her backstory of just who ‘The Cavalry’ was, we should brace for some surprise.
As we see at the end, Skye has not given up her ties to the Rising Tide, and seems to have successfully infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. as a consultant – and possible field agent – on the team, but we know for a fact that, at the very least, Coulson has a tendency to be one step ahead of the game, so we should certainly keep our eyes on that.
See you next week for episode three: ‘The Asset’!
We are on a count of three for referencing Tahiti as "a magical place". This is bound to play into something in the future, most likely surrounding just what has happened to Agent Coulson. Agent Melinda May is bound to become more than ‘just the pilot’, and as we discover her backstory of just who ‘The Cavalry’ was, we should brace for some surprise.
As we see at the end, Skye has not given up her ties to the Rising Tide, and seems to have successfully infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. as a consultant – and possible field agent – on the team, but we know for a fact that, at the very least, Coulson has a tendency to be one step ahead of the game, so we should certainly keep our eyes on that.
See you next week for episode three: ‘The Asset’!
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