After what I considered a lackluster episode last week, Marvel’s ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ returns this week with a strong episode that brings the primary antagonists of the show’s pilot back in a big way. Coulson’s crew is on the case when a Hong Kong street magician with a strange power goes missing. During the hunt for the culprits, the team discovers that Skye’s former Rising Tide associate is somehow related to this and the whole “Is she or isn’t she a double agent?” thing comes to a head and jeopardizes her position on the team.
At first, I was a little skeptical of this episode when they first introduced Chan Ho Yin. When it was revealed that he had the power of pyrokinesis and was from China, I was thinking that the show was introducing the mutant Sunfire, but they were changing his origin story and nationality from Japanese to Chinese. Then, the story continued and I realized that this character was completely different from the current Uncanny Avenger. In fact, after doing some research, it turns out that Scorch does come directly from the comics, but changed a bit.
That’s one thing that I’m getting interested in about ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and their characters. Similar to J. August Richards’ mystery character from the pilot, Scorch is an obscure character from the history of Marvel that the writers have taken and adapted to fit their needs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s so obscure that only fans on the level of Marvel Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom Brevoort would be offended if his story were changed up. Even in that case, Brevoort has said time and again that “continuity exists to serve the stories, the stories do not exist to serve the continuity,” so even he wouldn’t mind.
Besides the whole Scorch aspect of the episode, which had so many great connections to the pilot and the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I really enjoyed Skye’s story unfolding. The whole double agent angle was getting a bit played out, but this episode brought a whole new piece of the puzzle that changed the big picture. We have a whole new status quo in the world of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and there are some very interesting paths for the show to take from here. Hopefully when the show returns in two weeks, it’ll be able to keep it’s remaining audience interested.
Overall, I was very into this dark, complex episode. The ties to ‘Iron Man 3’ and the pilot were so great and I can’t wait to see where it all goes from here, especially when it comes to Skye. We now know that things go much, much deeper than just hacktivism. Also, the Centipede hasn’t been squashed yet, so it’s bound to crawl out from it’s hiding place again soon.
Final Score:
‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ starring Brett Dalton, Ming-Na Wen, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Chloe Bennet, and Clark Gregg airs on Tuesdays at 8:00pm on ABC.
