Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “The Hub” (spoilers!)

"If a scene could launch a thousand 'ships, then where is your fanfic?" © ABC/Marvel Studios
“If a scene could launch a thousand ‘ships, then where is your fanfic?” © ABC/Marvel Studios

Watch before you read on, for spoilers abound abound in this commentary on the latest episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, now available to watch on the official website.

  • Speaking as someone who sometimes has problems distinguishing lyrics in songs, there were many times where the diction wasn’t as great as it was in previous episodes. Hence, I believe I’m going to call the female Agent with the red streaks in her hair Agent What’s Her Face.
  • Other people have compared Fitz and Simmons to Xander and Willow as the more civilian-like members of the group. When I use that same frame of reference, Simmons’ puppy-dog-like behavior during the packing scene and how her shyness manifests makes sense. It still strikes me as a little odd, though.
  • I can add “Tahiti’s a magical place” to my list of phrases to be afraid of now.
  • Fitzward ‘shippers are rejoicing because there’s tons of canon now for them to play in. I like the chemistry between these two characters a lot.
  • “Did you know there was no extraction plan for Ward and Fitz”? Skye asks. Right now, judging from the non-conversation he had with Agent May while she was doing her exercises, I think he did. And yet, the conversation he has with Agent What’s Her Face proves otherwise.
  • Judging from the way Ward reacted when he didn’t get a counter-signal from the waiting extraction team, it feels to me like he’s been in this kind of situation before. One wouldn’t expect anything less of someone who’s supposed to be as highly rated in combat as the Black Widow.
  • One thing that I think Fury knows and Coulson knows but Agent What’s Her Face doesn’t is that when you tell someone the odds and know your people well, they will surprise you into doing amazing things.
  • If there’s one thing that I dislike about this show is that it keeps saying that Skye is an uber-hacker supreme, but it doesn’t really show it. Tony Stark built A.I.s for his graduate thesis and they had files on him. Fitz and Simmons are brilliant in their fields and they were recruited. Skye is able to hack into a high level clearance server, and yet no one had ever tried to approach her? Why or why not? If there had been some line of dialogue where it mentions that she’d been approached before and run, then I’d be willing to believe that S.H.I.E.L.D. security isn’t leaking like a broken sieve.
  • Of course, the alternate is more scary and spooky, as Coulson and May reveal in their little scene. My point still stands, however.

Thoughts?