I’m actually writing this after I’ve written the rest of this blog. Knowing what I know, I warn you to take deep breaths and drink lots of water as you read on. This episode brings in Asgard, Kree, Inhumans, and stirs it all up with soap-opera style amnesia caused by Thor-style fight scenes.
Who You Really Are: Recap
We start up this episode seeing a very disoriented Lady Sif (from Asgard, remember?) emerging from the ocean to ask a bunch of stunned Portugese kids if they know where Kava is. They ask who she is, and she mutters to herself that she does not remember.
Back at HQ, May is training Skye, who is continuing to hold back. May is trying to get her to use her emotions on her own terms, while Skye (and the audience) knows that if she does “Let it Go” then there will probably be a…quake.
Bobbi and Hunter are…talking…and Hunter reveals that Coulson has offered him a permanent position, after apparently spending all this time as a mercenary for SHIELD. Coulson also talks with Mack about maybe switching focuses – he’s good as a mechanic, but he is a force with which to be reckoned as a fighter, as well. Mack is a little uneasy with the proposition, but thinks about it.
They learn that Lady Sif is back in town – and May recommends bringing along the entire bus for backup. They find her in a police station in Portugal, where she is waiting for what she thinks is Kava. Coulson breaks it to her that they’re not it, but they can help her on her mission, and reminds her they’ve worked together before. Skye finds a video on Twitter (because people like us exist) that shows her fighting with a man on a pier. The team splits up with Hunter, Mack, and Fitz investigating the pier, Coulson and May taking Sif around to see if they can jog her memory, and Bobbi and Skye questioning locals.
The pier team discovers a tissue sample that has been frozen with liquid nitrogen, May and Coulson find a balloon man who’s ticked about some crazy guy stealing his tanks, and Bobbi and Skye find a hospital full of forgetful people – and a blue man with basically a large pipe that hits pretty hard. Bobbi is in a losing battle with him, Skye freaks out when her gun shatters in her hand, and a minor earthquake sends a bookshelf toppling on top of her, allowing blue man to escape. But now we know he’s using a nitrogen tank to keep his skin pink in most circumstances.
Back at HQ, the team deduces A) the man is probably Kree B) kava is a Kree word for keys C) so is Chavez, a city in Portugal that was in Dr. Whitehall’s notes. The team goes to capture the Kree, but Skye asks to sit out the mission, claiming just that she is “too shaken up” from her last experience with him. They’re suspicious, but go along with it.
They find the Kree in a cave digging out a crate and capture him with a big net before he can fight. Because nets.
Back at HQ, Mack and Bobbi have a heart-to-heart about their secrety-mission, and how Mack is uncomfortable with Bobbi and Hunter getting closer. They made it very clear that they ARE NOT HYDRA, but it would be LIKE how they felt when they learned their teammates were, so best to leave Hunter out. Bobbi agrees to push him away, which she does astoundingly well almost instants later.
The rest of the team is interrogating the Kree, and he smacks Lady Sif in the stomach with the thing we’ll be calling a “truncheon” to restore her memories. We come to learn that he is actually here on a mission for good: he has sensed that terrigenesis has occurred on Earth, and he’s come to “put down” whoever was affected. Apparently, the Kree visited several planets long ago and performed DNA experiments on the inhabitants. All were unsuccessful, except for Earth where they went WAY too well and had to be stopped. They were setting out to create soldiers, but ended up with abominations and monsters. He also reveals that that crate should be filled with enough Diviners to build an army, but the science team discovers that it is, in fact, completely empty.
The team assumes Raina is the only one who was affected, but slowly start to realize that Skye was in the room with her – and came out alive. Lady Sif and the Kree start interrogating her and the room starts shaking. May asks her where it’s coming from and Skye says it’s from her and a giant glass window behind them shatters in slow motion.
The Kree escapes, only to be distracted by Bobbi long enough for Hunter to shoot him with an alien gun, and Bobbi makes the Kree hit himself with his own truncheon – wiping his memories. Lady Sif thinks that Skye is dangerous and wants to take her back to Asgard where they’ll all be safe. May and Skye seal up in the holding cell, but Lady Sif’s sword can pierce through laser walls, and it breaks. Skye shoots herself with an ICER to make the shaking stop, and Coulson points out that Skye wants to get better, and if they take her away from the people she loves, she’ll only get worse.
They drop Lady Sif and the Now-Forgetful-Kree in the middle of a field, where Heimdall opens the Bifrost to bring them back to Asgard.
Simmons is reeling from the fact that Fitz knew all along that Skye was developing powers and didn’t tell anyone, and Bobbi, Hunter, and Mack agree, saying that they would have known how to “handle” her. Mack is worried that they need protection from Skye, and Skye overhears – right before she finishes moving all her stuff into the super-secure interrogation room thingy they have on the plane.
In the closing scene, Hunter confronts Mack, knowing that he and Bobbi are up to something and demands to know what. Instead, he gets a choke-hold that leaves him at best unconscious and Mack looks really unsure of what to do about this situation.
Review
I don’t know if I’ve said this before in TheseHere™ blogs, but I have a special love for the titles of these Marvel episodes. Always some kind of multi-entendre going on. First level, you’ve got the amnesia aspect and they need to remind Lady Sif of who she really is. Then the team learns Skye’s secret and discovers who she really is. Then there’s all the stuff about Bobbi and Mack, and we’re all starting to wonder about who they really are.
I think Bobbi and Mack are going to be one of the most interesting stories for me. They haven’t really revealed much about the cards they’re playing, their true allegiances, etc. The term “pull the trigger” was used, which all but implies a gun or a bomb and someone or something is probably in the cross-hairs. And they’re very interested in Fury’s toolkit. So what’s that about, I wonder?
The team knows Skye’s secret, now, and there are varying responses – fear, concern, mistrust, mostly. But at least Coulson knows that risky as it is, this is something that can be worked through. I, for one, would love to see Skye get a good handle on her powers and use them at key moments in intense battles with whatever else got ahold of the diviners – and whatever else they became.
The episode itself with the amnesia and the clues leading all throughout Portugal was a fun watch, but it didn’t altogether give me an emotional ride like I typically love from this show. The interpersonal team dynamics are what made this episode interesting to me, plus a few “oh no” moments like the empty diviners case and Mack taking down Hunter out of nowhere.
Now, let’s play a few rounds of “Things We Haven’t Seen”
Ward and Agent 33 are still out there, somewhere, and so far I haven’t seen (or maybe, noticed) any sign of them. What are they up to, and how far have they gotten with all their free time. And even with all the distractions, sure, why isn’t anyone on the team at least mentioning that maybe they should look into this?
Okay, here’s one for you. At the end of last episode, Mr. Doesn’t-Have-Eyes quantum leaps out of nowhere, grabs Raina and disappears, taking her…somewhere. He knows what she became, he could sense her presence in the Force, and he swoops in to bring her back to meet the rest of the gang. Why hasn’t that happened with Skye? For that matter, why does everyone who can sense Terrigenesis only think that one person was affected? Is it usually a one-on-one affair or what?
Speaking of which, we saw no other Inhumans this episode, and we know there are at least two, and possibly more, given the opening scene from last week’s episode. Based on the preview for next week, that question may be answered, but it seemed a little unclear for now.
All in all, we’re still setting up dominoes, which is what this show loves to do. Eventually, they’ll start falling and it’s going to be quite a trip. There are a few sentences I wrote in this article alone that were unbelievably confusing, but couldn’t be simplified any further. Whenever you talk about a blue alien who is using nitrogen to blend in with the inhabitants of a planet his people experimented on in the past weilding a truncheon that only he can use to erase people’s memories fighting with an ancient Norse myth who is also an alien who loves a god who alone can weild a flying hammer, and they’re both worried about humans who become mosters when they exposed to a myst that comes from crystals inside decorative bookends stolen by Nazi’s…it’s going to be a heck of a season.
And for anyone who is thinking “man, I shouldn’t have missed some of those movies” then good news! There is a 30-hour Marvel Movie Marathon happening at the end of April to catch you up on the whole MCU!
Now, I think I’m going to take a nap.
Geek Out!
