Week 26: Ye Who Enter Here, What They Become

Ye Who Enter Here: Same shit, different day. The FitzSimmons subplot is stomach-churning once you see it through the lens of sexual harassment, especially the team pressuring Simmons to make things right. The show keeps announcing that SOMETHING BIG IS COMING, in case you missed the better-handled hints like Mack & Morse conspiring on the plane. ("Show, don't tell" is a creative-writing mantra for a reason.) I get that Skye has been training as the series goes on, but her going toe-to-toe with Agent 33 is really hard to believe; we've never seen Skye fight anywhere near that well, unless I'm forgetting something. And the endless smugness of Raina, Whitehall, Ward, et al is tiresome. This show is now literally lowering itself into a hole in the ground.

But on the bright side, the comic relief brought by Patton Oswalt was welcome (including him geeking out off-camera during the Coulson call in an Oswalt-like manner), the Puerto Rican scenery was lovely, the fight against Mack (especially Coulson's willingness to kill him) was really good, and the damaged face-mask on Agent 33 is as creepy as intended. And after Coulson's T.A.H.I.T.I. memories and Whitehall's prison time-lapse, Skye's dream makes this the third episode in a row with a really eerie scene that stands apart from the show's usual visual style; I'd be happy to see a lot more like that. (3/10)

What They Become: A definite improvement, mostly because things finally happen. TV shows like this will save up their plot twists to spring them all at once in a big episode like this, but I wish that the various big plot events here could have been doled out over several episodes. Skye's transformation and Triplett's death were already spoiled for me, so I think some of the excitement of the moment was lost on me, but I still appreciate them as significant events in the series. Reinhardt/Whitehall's death, while not a surprise, does create an interesting new dynamic between Zabo and Coulson that I look forward to the series exploring. (Have they said Cal's last name yet? I know it from the comics. I hope it's not a spoiler.) I liked Hunter paraphrasing from Full Metal Jacket, Skye shooting Ward as soon as she could -- so satisfying! -- and Skye's creepy encounter with Mack. I did not like the production design of the underground city, particularly the pedestal room at the end, because it's so plain and lacking in specificity; it's supposed to be an alien city, so why does it look so much like ancient human ruins? I'm worried about what the show is going to do with FitzSimmons in the wake of Triplett's death (ie. something like Fitz whining about Simmons still not loving him now that her "boyfriend" is dead), but I'll try not to pre-judge. Here's looking forward to the show's path forward after a break. (6/10)