Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Couldn't They Have Done That Earlier?

Tonight's episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the weakest stand-alone episode we've had in a few weeks, and it was totally avoidable. The show has been on a hot streak for a while, having addressed many of the complaints that fans have brought up with it since the beginning. And you'll note -- this isn't about super-powers, which were hardly in use over the last few weeks.

Rather, recent episodes of S.H.I.E.L.D. have nailed the tone of the concept as a spy organization working within the Marvel Universe. From Bill Paxton's jokey references to The Griffin to various gadgets and background villains being referenced as having come from Marvel Comics stories, the show has managed to latch onto what makes Arrow so special: a feeling that things are all connected and matter, even when they really aren't and don't, particularly. This week's episode, while it had plenty of Easter eggs and Marvel Comics references (and, hey! A guy with super powers, for those of you still complaining there isn't enough of that), felt largely disposable...and even the important bits seemed like they could easily have played out more quickly in the opening act of another, more vital episode. This is very much the second act of a three-act play, presumably starting at Captain America: The Winter Soldier and ending in the Season One finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. That's why there was so much less buzz on social media this week than there has been (in spite of the fact that, in all likelihood, ratings will reflect stagnation or continued improvement; it doesn't feel like fewer people were actually watching, just that they were less engaged); in the grand scheme of things not a lot happened and the A plot with the cellist was old-school Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- fairly forgettable freak of the week stuff.

It's obvious why they needed some of the events of this episode to get them where they want to go -- and there are admittedly a few strong character moments -- but it feels like a return to disappointing form after a few truly enjoyable, smart, standout episodes. The Ward-driven B plot is way more interesting and relevant to the story than is the Coulson-driven story that dominated the promotion for this week's show. Ward's story, in fact, feels like it was robbed by this compulsive need to shoehorn the cellist into the show, and it makes me wonder why they couldn't have done that earlier in the season when it seemed like many of the episodes were treading water, if all they wanted to do was make sure they did it as a token gesture to the fans. Introducing her and another procedural episode at this juncture killed a lot of the momentum they'd been building up over the last four episodes or so. Bringing in Amy Acker as the cellist felt like pandering to the hardcore fans, giving them something that they'd been asking for simply because it was there to give, not because it actually furthered the overall narrative. And again: that's frustrating because there was nothing at all about the whole story that couldn't have happened before the events of The Winter Soldier. It just felt like it was giving Coulson Something Else To Do, while SkyeWard was off in another place doing their thing. All that, of course, was done in service of Skye, who has frequently been The Star Of The Show, whether fans like it or not. Here, it seems that she's determined she'll earn that lariat, concocting an elaborate plan to fool/defeat Ward and HYDRA on her own. If it works, though, you have the additional problem that doing so really undermines the credibility of Ward as a mole for all that time. If he can't stay one step ahead of somebody with virtually no experience in the spy game (pardon the Robert Redford reference), how dd he manage to fool Coulson and May for all that time?

Coulson's episode had its own small logical problems in the form of Fitz's often-repeated question: why the heck wouldn't Coulson just out himself to Audrey at this point and admit that news of his death had been overstated? There's that kind of mealy-mouthed objection Coulson makes about being not ready yet, but it feels like it's the writers/producers who aren't ready to deal with the consequences of adding Acker to the cast, not that there is anything remotely organic about how this story fits into Coulson's current character arc. There was that weird introduction for Ward's character, too; rather than including the pertinent information in a "previously on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." intro, they seeded the revelation that Ward is a HYDRA mole into this version of the story of last week's break-in at The Fridge. It's not a totally unprecedented creative choice, but seeing as it's just flashing back to last week (not the beginning of the season, or new information that just happened to take place in the past) it seemed a bit out of place and will certainly be jarring when people binge-watch the series on home video. Like comics, TV is getting more and more decompressed -- something that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has often been faulted with in the past, but its showrunners have defended as a way of telling a more complete and complex story. If that's the case, their decision to recap the previous episode in the middle of this one is a bit inconsistent with their own storytelling philosophy. This wasn't a bad episode by any means; it was better than most, and a reminder that even when it's not at its best, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can still be a fun show. It just seems that it would have served the series better to play this episode out earlier in the year, when everyone was hungry for "real" super-characters and Marvel references and The Cellist was still a thing that was fresh in fans' minds. Instead, it feels like two squandered opportunities in one -- that they didn't use this earlier and that using it now burned up a good deal of the momentum the story had built up recently.