The Breakdown
50 men with red masks walk through Sweden all with briefcases handcuffed to their wrists, and get on a train. A woman on the train stares at them, closes her eyes and hits the emergency glass. The train lights go out and she attacks them. When the train stops and the lights come on we see that one of the men that had a briefcase attached to his arm finds his briefcase missing along with his arm.
On the BUS, Fitz and Simmons have perfected the night-night gun and Agent Wards says that they will find a new name for the gun. Agent Coulson comes up to Sky telling her about a diamond heist in Sweden. Asking for her help in solving it. They go to the train station and Sky thinks that the person they are looking for has ESP. She then finds pictures of the masked men on instagram. Our thief is also in the picture, Akela Amador an agent Coulson trained.
In a hotel in Belarus, Akela meets her buyer. She puts a golf cub to his neck because they agreed to meet alone but there is presumably a person in the next room and one on the stairs. She calms down and hands him a golf ball which she pours water over and the diamonds are revealed. Her payment was an access card and tells the man if it doesn’t work she will find him. Coulson and Ward meet a woman at the hotel in the pursuit of Akela. The women knows Akela and calls her an “angel” because she has a gift, and warned her that she had cancer, saving her life.
Fitz and Simmons are trying to unscramble a video feed that is not coming up clear. They send it to Sky to decode and they find the feed is showing a white van much like the one they are in. Fitz gets up and waves his hand and they figure out that they are watching themselves. The feed is coming from a van driven by Akela, she rams their van leaving them in a ditch.
The full team is back on the BUS no one was hurt. Sky reverses the feed and they find out that Akela is where the feed is coming from, she has a camera for an eyeball. They also learn that Akela is being watched and controlled, she even has to ask if she can sleep. Coulson doesn’t want to take Akela out as he feels she is still one of their own. Coulson wants her to be brought before S.H.E.I.L.D. May disagrees, she feels that since Akela tried to take out half of the team they should use force. May also volunteers to watch the feed of Akela first. While everyone’s asleep, May finds Akela to taker her in. Akela says that the people watching her can not hear but will use facial recognition to find out May is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Akela says that there only one way out. Either she kills May or the people controlling her will kill her.
A girl fight between Akela and May breaks out and while both are down Coulson comes in and he uses the night-night gun on Akela. Akela finds that Coulson has her safe and that they have cloned her eye camera and Ward is going to finish Akela’s mission. Sky has cloned Akela’s camera transmission so that people who are controlling Akela sees what Ward is seeing through glasses.
Akela is with Coulson trying to figure out who her handler is. While Ward is completing Akela’s mission. Simmons is going to try and take the camera out of Akela’s eye. Simmons is scared to give a sedative to Akela through her eye, being she needs Akala awake to help during the surgery. So Akela sticks the needle in her eye for her. On the mission Ward is carrying out on Akela’s behalf he has to wait until the handler instructs him what to do. He goes to a warehouse, goes through all the security checkpoints and goes to an office where a guard is waiting. The handler gives the message to seduce the guard, not knowing it’s not Akela.
Ward goes in trying to make small talk with the guard, that not working he knocks him out. He enters the next room, looks at the wall where an equation is and a message relays that the mission is over and good luck. An alarm sounds and Ward has to fight his way to get out of the building. While Ward is trying to escape Fitz calls Ward as Simmons has taken out Akela’s eye and Fitz has to disable the bomb. Ward while trying to escape looks in a mirror and tells Fitz to cut all the cords because the handler will activate Akela’s kill switch. Ward leaves the building and Sky is waiting for him in a car outside.
May is telling Coulson that the handler is near him. Coulson spots a man he has profiled as the handler, he comes up to him telling the handler he is with S.H.I.E.L.D. and someone controlling the handler activates his kill switch leaving him dead where he stands. Akela comes aboard the BUS where S.H.I.E.L.D. armed guards are waiting for her. Coulson explains that she will get a fair trial and he will testify for her. Leaving the plane, Akela asks Agent May what’s wrong with Coulson because he seems different. May holds back on telling Akela what really happened to Coulson at the battle of New York but realizes that, from Akela’s reaction, something is very different about Coulson now.
The Analysis
As most of the people still watching Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I watch because of some sort of connection to one of the Marvel movies if not all. The way this show is panning out it seems to be a show about spies, two geeks and a hot computer nerd under a Marvel name.
If this show didn’t have a Marvel name I think it would be a good show within itself. Because honestly the show is good. The thing that holds this show back is the one thing that the shows editor explained in a recent interview. The show’s executive editor Jeffrey Bell revealed that the series will be playing it safe when it comes to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. “For us to have powers every week kind of explodes their movie universe in a way we didn’t want to do,” Bell explained. “We have to be judicious, otherwise we’ve got 20-some new superheroes running around at the end of the first season, and suddenly [the next Avengers film, Avengers: Age of Ultron] is a very different movie.”
THAT’S WHAT WE WANT? ISN’T THAT WHY WE WATCH???
Other than that we have the X-files with a Marvel name. I think no one is stupid, we don’t expect Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. to be on here every week. But why can’t we have superheros. We don’t expect many Marvel characters to get a movie so why can’t we have people like Black Panther, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Mikel Fury / Scorpio or the Taskmaster (as Dr. Strange is getting a movie so we won’t see whatever high-priced actor will play him) in these episodes. As I said I love the show but TV is cutthroat and the whole reason why this show exists is because of Marvel’s Universe not Joss Whedon’s amazing writing. So why go away from what brought you here. Having a platform like this is a great way to test characters to see if the audience takes. Not giving the people what they came from is seriously hurting this show in the ratings department and if something isn’t done soon this soon with go the way of Buffy and Firefly.
