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

The kids from Pacific Tech only wish they had an underground club this cool. © Marvel Studios/ABC
The kids from Pacific Tech only wish they had an underground club this cool. © Marvel Studios/ABC

Once again, it’s time to check in with Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., thanks to the kind folks at Netflix.

  • For a second there, I thought the girl they were calling “Callie” was actually Skye. Perhaps this means there are too many brunette or darker haired women on this show.
  • Yay! An episode set at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy! Or at least one of the Academies. Makes sense that there’s a huge rivalry between the Sci-Tech and Operations divisions. And yet I wonder why more emphasis or respect isn’t placed on Communications or Data Analysis. Ops can’t do stuff without analysis. Sci-Tech may not know how the data they’re collecting meshes with everything else. I also wonder if the Academies promote these rivalries.
  • Of course it makes sense that a Sci-Tech-driven investigation isn’t going to turn up the culprits. What else would Ward and Skye have to do in this episode? And given what happens in Winter Soldier, and this episode originally aired two months prior to that film’s release, it nicely sets up the fact that there are whole parts of S.H.I.E.L.D. which don’t know what the other parts are doing.
  • At first I thought that the guy in the car on the phone was the same person as the partner of the dead Agent who dropped Skye off. This is what happens when you cast too many people who look alike. Let’s get some diversity in here, people! Am I really the only person who is having this problem?
  • “These aren’t my big ideas.” Oh, why did I feel a sudden frisson of unease when he said that? (I’m very proud that I didn’t say I felt a chill— dammit!)
  • Okay, I’m not sure what May and Coulson’s plan is here. They know that someone in Mexico took a selfie and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s facial recognition software pinged it as being their man. They know where the picture was taken. Are they really going to do a stakeout on the shop and hope that he randomly walks by there again? Or has he been seen elsewhere in the town and they aren’t conveying that information to us well?
  • “I’m tired of secrets. I’m glad we’re here. We need to root out all the secrets.” Oh, I cannot wait until I start seeing the post-Winter Soldier episodes. Break the Cutie, indeed.
  • Yes, Coulson is a cutie. At least in this context.
  • Aw, and magical Skye (whose “power” we don’t know of yet) makes Coulson all better again. In a way, I’m glad that he was the one to deliver those lines because if they’d come out of Skye, I think I might have thrown something at my computer screen.

Onward to the second half of the show!