Agents of SHIELD Episode 21

By Mark Rodriguez

The Agents of SHIELD take it easy for a while after having rescued Skye from the traitors Grant and Garrett. Now they have to get back into it and take them down. Coulson also finds out that he himself was the one in charge of the TAHITI project, except he had his memory erased of the whole thing. Now what will happen?

renewed for season two!!!

The episode opens 15 years earlier when Grant Ward was in juvie and he first meets John Garrett, making him an offer. Grant was sent there since he burnt a house down with his younger brother still inside. Garrett tells him his parents and older brother are on their way to press charges and have him tried as an adult. He offers him to go with him and says he comes from an organization that's always recruiting people like him. Grant hesitates but takes his offer, and suddenly gunmen storm the room. Garrett tells him 'I told it'd be fun'.

The agents are still in their hotel and watch news of Deathlok having killed a Columbian drug lord with ties to HYDRA. Coulson calls everyone in and shows them a chart demonstrating that Cybertek has been behind all of the things they have been facing, including Deathlok, Quinn, and the Clairvoyant. Garrett's been wanting the GH3-25 to stabilize his Centipede soldiers, which is why they wanted the info on Skye's hard drive. Skye left a trojan horse that will lead them straight to then, but for it to work they have to hook in another flash drive into one of Garrett's computers at Cybertek. The agents will sneak in, but since SHIELD is no more, they'll basically be working as vigilantees.

Garrett congratulates Peterson for killing the drug lord and making news. Grant is still upset over Garrett having Peterson nearly kill him earlier with the heart stopper. Garrett says he's close to getting something he's been looking for over 25 years. Reina tells them they're almost done replicating the serum that brought Skye and Coulson back to life and should be done by the time they land.

The agents get ready to infiltrate Cybertek and Triplett brings in a suitcase of his grandfather's old gear when he was a Howling Commando. The old tech includes things like hypno-beams and other secret weapons that look like innocent items like cigarettes, which Fitz accidentaly sets the hotel curtains on fire with. Speaking of Fitz, he's still convinced Garrett must be putting Grant up to this, but Skye is sure he's just evil.

Back to the flashback, Garrett and Grant walk through the woods with some rabbits they caught. Actually Garrett caught them and he tells Grant that if wants food he'll have to hunt and kill it himself. He leaves his hunting dog with him and says he'll leave him in the woods for a few months to see if he can survive on his own. Garrett drives off, leaving him alone and enraged.

Coulson and May apply for Cybertek posing as SHIELD scientists trying to sell their products... with Fitz and Simmons feeding them what to say with hidden mics. So far the Cybertek guys aren't impressed by the icers. Meanwhile Skye is trying to hack into UHF frequencies to get onto Garrett's computers. After being rejected, Coulson and May pretend to leave, but head to the fourth floor after Skye tells them that something important is there. They take out any guards they see and use the laser cigarettes to burn their way inside a secret room. On the fourth floor Coulson tells Skye she couldn't find a mainframe because everything is in actual paper files. Coulson and May decide to look around.

Coulson and May find Deathlok files going as far back as 1990 and discover that Garrett was the first Deathlok. Coulson tells Skye to get read for a big file transfer... and then literally throws a file cabinet out the window. Fitz and Simmons carry it into their truck and Triplet fires a grappling hook so that Coulson and May can zipline down towards them.

Grant and Garrett continue to argue over how Peterson was ordered to nearly kill Grant assuming Skye would save him. Garrett argues that he's still acting like the same scared kid he met before, and then has some kind of attack. Grant and the others quickly carry him off to get help. Grant tells everyone in the room, including Reina as Grant helps stabilize Garrett's Deathlok attachments.

The agents discuss that Garrett was the first Deathlok and wants the stabilizer for himself... if he happens to create an army of super soldiers for HYDRA it's just an extra bonus. Fitz still thinks that Garrett is forcing Grant to side with him, but Skye tells him that he kills people and that she should have had Peterson kill him when she had the chance.

Garrett is stable but he tells Grant that his organs are failing and he has a month or two to live. May and Skye discuss Grant's betrayal, and May says she's saving all her hatred for when she faces him in person. Coulson comes in and tells them they found a lot of Cybertek shipments and and heading off to Cuba.

Reina tells Grant that she found out more about Skye's history. She saw her DNA and it reminded her of a story of people that killed everyone in a Chinese village looking for a baby. It turns out those people were Skye's parents.

Back to the flashback we see Garrett return 6 months later to see how Grant adjusted to the wilderness by himself. He resorted to raid cabins to get weapons and tools. Grant gives him a gun and shows him how to shoot with it.

Raina shows Garrett the only vial with enough of the miracle drug that revived Skye and Coulson as they get ready to pack up and move out.

In Cuba, Fitz and Simmons find their plane and see that Garrett is inside. Before they can leave, Grant finds them. Elsewhere the others find the Cuban barber shop and Skye says if they can find a computer in there they can activate the trojan horse from there.

We flashback 10 years and Garrett tells Grant how he was attacked on a mission and SHIELD never came to help, he had to make it on his own. Then he tells him he's actually working for HYDRA since they understand survival.

Grant takes Fitz and Simmons to Garrett and he determines that the others already figured out the barber shop. Grant finds a joy buzzer in Fitz' pocket and Fitz activates the EMP that screws up Garrett's Deathlok wiring. Grant brings emergency equipment to save Garrett. Fitz, still believing there's good in him, tells Grant he doesn't have to obey Garrett anymore and can just let him die. Grant tells everyone to clear the area.

Another flashback shows that Garrett tells Grant that he was accepted into SHIELD. However, since he's working for HYDRA within SHIELD he can't form any attachments and not show any weakness. He then tells him to 'take care' of their dog as they get ready to leave.

Garrett tells Grant to kill Simmons and Fitz and Grant shows reluctance, but does to do it. Fitz and Simmons run from the HYDRA soldiers and hide in a room away from Grant. Fitz continues to plead with Grant to show his good side and admit he cares about them. We show a flashback of Grant shooting at the air, letting the dog run away. Grant admit he does care about them... and considers it a weakness. He then releases the room they're in and dumps them off the plane into the seas below. Grant's flashback reveals he did shoot the dog after all.

Garrett is dying and asks Reina to give him the miracle drug. She warns it's the only one they've got and would take too long to make another one. Garrett says he's dying anyway and she injects him with it. The drug fully heals Garrett and makes him powerful. Grant tells him he did get rid of Fitz and Simmons.

The other agents find the secret room in the barber shop with the HYDRA computers, but are discovered by Centipede soldiers, and one of them is using the Asgardian rod. Elsewhere Quinn is offering a thousand super soldiers to the US military after the display Peterson did towards the Cuban drug lord.

My opinions:

I do have to apologize for being late with this, things have just been too busy. I was finally able to catch this episode an even thought you've all seen the season finale by now... I'll keep my thoughts on that one tomorrow.

This episode was interesting with further insight on Grant as he's basically a troubled and lost youth which was manipulated by Garrett. He pretty much treated him like crap so I still don't see the blind devotion.... but I guess he would have been in jail most of his life if he didn't go with him. That and he turned into a kick-ass military guy.

I was surprised to find out that Garrett had the Deathlok devices in him, apparently his organs were so far gone they never made him super strong like it did to Peterson. You have to feel sorry for Fitz, blindly believing to the end that Grant was good all along. I didn't think they got along all that well beforehand though. I mean Grant shoved the fact that he jumped out of the plane to save Simmons instead of him in his face several times. Where does this strong devotion from Fitz come from?

As for Grant, it's clear he'd so anything to save Garrett's life.... but that given the choice, Garrett would just let Grant die. There probably is some good in there somewhere, but he'll just always be blindly devoted to Garrett so it's a moot point.

I am kinda surprised Quinn compared the use of a super soldier to the amount of manpower it took for us to finally find and kill Bin Laden. It's just kinda strange hearing real life references like that from not so distant events. Plus, if the Bin Laden tragedies existed in the Marvel world I'm sure Iron Man or someone would have found him and stopped him anyways, without the need of Quinn's Centipede soldiers.

I'll be dealing with the season finale as soon as I can as we see how all of this wraps up. I have to say though, I did like the 'very big file transfer' scene.