Agents of SHIELD Episode 20

By Mark Rodriguez

I realized I fell a week behind, despite my best efforts, I just couldn't get last week's episode reviewed before this new episode. And to top it off, I missed this episode too. LOL. I'm sure I'll catch it online and review it before the next week. So let's get this one started.

The episode opens with Maria Hill talking to Pepper Potts over the phone about the SHIELD situation. Yes, another Winter Soldier spoiler... but Hill ends up working with Stark after SHIELD went down. May shows up and they discuss how the TAHITI project was done with Fury under someone else. They're worried since Pierce (the big bad guy running HYDRA in Winter Soldier) was also involved, which involves a big risk since someone working for HYDRA was messing around with Coulson's mind during the revival process. As police arrive to capture Hill, May is already gone.

Back at the base, the SHIELD agents notice their plane is gone and check the surveillance footage. They see footage of when May left, but also whenever Grant and Skye just walked off together and took the plane. Later on as Fitz studies Koenig's video room, he notices something behind one of the artificial windows on the wall. He finds a message that says WARD IS HYDRA. Simmons screams as she finds Koenig's dead body.

Meanwhile, Skye took Grant to the diner where she first met Mike Peterson as she stalls for time and pretends to be working on her laptop. Skye grills Grant on how he felt being betrayed by Garret, trying to make him feel guilty for what he's doing.. without letting him know that she knows the truth.

Fitz freaks out upon the fact that Grant has betrayed them. Coulson figures out that Garrett is alive and Victoria is dead, He figures out that Grant wants Skye for that flash drive she has with all their information. She knows Skye will be pretending not to know what's going on and will be playing Grant... but they have to find her quickly before Grant is on to her. Just then, agents burst onto the scene and Maria Hill is with them.

Melinda May starts digging up the grave they made for Coulson and finds a flash drive with information related to the TAHITI project.

Hill and Coulson argue about SHIELD being over and it would be easier if they would just turn themselves in. Coulson tells her that Garrett and Ward are both HYDRA traitors and they killed Victoria Hand. The soldiers are ready to arrest the agents, when Hill suddenly turns on them. Coulson and Hill take down the soldiers, as she is now on their side.

At the diner in LA, Skye tips off the police about Grant and they start to chase them. Grant fights the police while Skye takes her shot to run out and get away in a random car. Suddenly Deathlok appears, jumping onto the car and grabs her.

Back at their base, Grant and Peterson argue since Grant didn't think they needed him. Grant tries to talk Skye into helping them, but she's too busy being angry at how he betrayed them to help. Peterson says that Garrett is tired of waiting and shoots Grant. He tells Skye that he attached a heart stopper on Grant and she has a limited time for him to turn it off before he dies. Despite everything, Skye can't just let Grant die and tells Deathlok how her flash drive works. It can only be hacked on certain altitude, so they have to get the plane in the air.

As the plane gets ready to take off, Hill and the others arrive and try to talk Grant down. Grant won't listen and soon the plane takes off, with Skye still on it. Coulson actually managed to sneak on the plane while Hill and Grant were talking. Coulson manages to find Skye and he's surprised to find out that Deathlok is on the plane. As Grant and Peterson see them and start shooting, Coulson and Skye hop onto Lola, and drive it off the plane. The car turns into um... hovercar mode and manages to land in the middle of the city where they can hide.

Grant threatens to kill Peterson if he ever tries something similar to the heart stopper on him again. Peterson tells him he was just following orders.

The Agents see that May is back with them and the other agents relax in a hotel-type pool. May later shows Coulson what she found on who was behind the TAHITI project.... And the video turns out to have Coulson himself, presumably sometime before he was killed by Loki.

In the video Coulson announces he's resigning from the TAHITI project since it's a lot of drugs and procedures that should never be done on human beings. The only way to cope with the trauma was to erase the memories of the procedure and replace them with happy ones. 

Coulson is simply dumbfounded upon discovering that he himself was in charge of this project. 

My opinions:

Another awesome episode and it's great to see then bring back Mike Peterson. I still wish they didn't lump Centipede in with HYDRA, it could have even its own thing. Are we to assume Garrett is also typing the instructions that Peterson sees through his Killswitch Eye?  

I also want to see how Grant will act when he sees that Garrett doesn't really care about him and only cares about the mission. When Grant threatened Deathlok over the heart stopper, he should have emphasized that Garrett wanted that flash drive info even if they had to sacrifice him to get it. I know the next episode dealt with how a younger Grant met Garrett and explain why the blind devotion. I wonder if they'll use this as a way to redeem him, although c'mon, they have to be a bunch of idiots to forgive him and trust him and welcome him back into the team. But then again he is one of the main characters and cast members... And good guys can be pretty stupid and trusting whenever the plot demands it....

As for the big reveal at the end of the episode... whoa, talk about Total Recall. The thing that confuses me is when the hell was all of this going on? Coulson sure didn't seem preoccupied or guilt-ridden over a hellish human revival project during the Avengers movie. And they were already dealing with alien drugs before the Chitauri ever invaded? Well, when Fury showed up at the end of Iron Man, he did mention that he wasn't the only superhero out there... and this was before Thor arrived and they found Captain America.... and then we also have mention Coulson took down Blackout some time ago in the past..... but still.... aliens? Well... I guess I'll find out when I catch the next episode online.

One last thing I'd like to add is the fact that Paige just watched Labor Day last night and noticed the guy that played Phil Coulson was in it. She joked that every time she saw 'Coulson' enter the scene, she kept thinking to herself 'this must be Tahiti'.