Yeah, I’m a bit late, I was away. Sorry. I will make it up to you I promise.
Anyway, recap time!
So you remember what happened at the end of Shadow? Creel crashed the truck with Idaho, Hunter and the newly armless Hartley in it, killed Hartley and Idaho and took off with the 084 Obelisky thing right?
Well May turns up and Hunter sends her after Creel and the 084 just as Talbot’s goons show up and take him into custody. May is hot in pursuit of Creel and ready to take him out but Coulson orders her to tail him to find out who he is working for.
Back at the Playground Skye and Tripp arrive with the QuinnJet, Skye tells Coulson about the symbols appearing on the 084 when Hartley grabbed it but Coulson is more concerned about the captured Hunter selling them out to Talbot. Hunter is offloaded from the trunk of a car in the middle of nowhere as a chopper containing Talbot arrives.
Skye, Trip and Mac are discussing the cloaking tech from the QuinnJet, Fitz arrives but he is so disconnected he leaves without helping.
Talbot grills Hunter on giving up SHIELD. Talbot wants Coulson and tries to buy Hunter off. He succeeds, Hunter wants $2 million and a proper burial for Hartley and he’ll give up Coulson. Seems like a merc can always be turned.
Coulson is researching the 084 and we see a brief flash of Peggy Carter’s ID. Is this going to be a thing? Is she going to appear somewhere in every episode to make sure we know who she is when the Agent Carter series kicks off? I really hope not cos even two episodes down it feels a bit much. Anyway. Skye finds out from Coulson that Idaho and Hartley are dead and wants to help May find Creel. Coulson sends her off to box Hartley’s things instead.
Down in the lab Fitz is talking to Simmons about his failure to develop the cloaking tech, Simmons encourages him to work on neutralising Creel instead.
Creel meanwhile is in a bar-diner waiting for his handoff of the 084, his skin is now showing patches of a crystaline structure like that of the 084 and he’s not looking so hot. A waitress comes to clear his table and accidentally brushes against him and the next thing she’s toast and Creel is gone.
May reports to Coulson who has now taken to making those weird symbols out of paperclips but they are interrupted by a siren going off. Hunter is back and driving a very flash car, wonder how he paid for that? Surely the government don’t pay up on bribes that fast? He demands to know how Creel got away from May.
Coulson knows that Hunter has made a deal with Talbot but still lets him make demands from SHIELD too. He wants all of his pay, and for Hartley and Idaho’s pay to go to their families. Coulson agrees.
Skye is clearing out Hartley’s bunk and finds a photo of her and her sister, Hunter turns up and takes a necklace that belonged to Hartley’s mother. He talks about Hartley’s family and you do get the impression he cared very deeply for her, could that be what keeps him from selling out Coulson and the rest of the team perhaps? Anyway, after some slightly flirty banter he tries to woo Skye to the merc-side but she is far too committed to SHIELD.
Creel is back at his van (seriously? How haven’t SHIELD just impounded that thing yet?) trying to find something to absorb to counter the 084’s effects when he gets a call from his handler telling him about a new rendezvous right before little miss Flowery Dress herself shows up. Raina wants the 084 and tempts Creel with a new substance in trade. He just snags the substance called Carbine and bails when the obelisk’s effects start to spread.
At the Playground May is debriefing with Coulson and Trip, Skye informs them that the HYRDA comm channel is back up and someone has sent them a message. They call the number and get through to Raina. She says she isn’t working with HYDRA anymore so she is willing to trade, but Coulson sees through her, Raina gives up the fact they can track Creel using the Carbine and SHIELD swings into action. Hunter is front and centre to go after Creel, for Hartley.
Mac is trying to work with Fitz and somehow makes a breakthrough, Fitz has already developed the tech they need (as he kept saying, “I haven’t solved this today”).
This was really interesting, everyone else has been treating Fitz like he is a broken machine ready for the scrap heap so who better to fix him than the mechanic? They make an odd couple to be sure, I think you could probably fit about four Iain DeCaesteckers into one Henry Simmons but Mac seems to have the knack to deal with Fitz in Simmons’ absence.
Out in the field the team has Creel in its sights, they are about to ID Creel’s HYDRA handler but Hunter picks that moment to double cross them. He ices Skye and May and then goes for Trip (“Oh hell no”). Hunter shoots Creel but the Carbine deflects the bullet and the fight is on. Raina nabs the 084 and skeedaddles. Creel is about to crush Hunter when Coulson arrives and nails the Absorbing Man with the tech Fitz and Mac have engineered (YAY FITZ) and it takes him down and turns him to stone.
Izzy gets her funeral and Hunter leaves the necklace he took for her sister, yeah, he might be a merc but he still has a heart. Coulson offers Hunter a place on the team since despite his, um, indiscretions, Coulson needs soldiers in the field, especially ones with the kind of record Hunter has. Hunter seems to accept the offer but can we really trust someone who has been turned twice in the space of one episode? Thinking about another Whedon-verse Merc, Jayne Cobb was always my favourite character in Firefly/Serenity, the Alliance almost bought him off in Ariel to betray the Tams but in the end he helped them escape from the Blue Hands and he remained with the crew (If everything I just said means nothing to you then you need to pick up Firefly on DVD, give yourself a day and fall in love.) Coulson says that there is just one thing Hunter needs to do, and that’s sell Coulson out to Talbot.
Skye asks May if Coulson is okay, May lies to reassure the girl and then goes to see the Director himself. They discuss his ‘episodes’ and May says he is due for one, she tells him to let go, that she is there for him and he does, carving the symbols into the wall while May records them.
Elsewhere Raina has the 084, the man she is working for orders her to pick it up and she does so, it reacts, the symbols appear but doesn’t burn her/turn her to stone. The man says that if she brings him his daughter he will show them both what it can really do. Who the hell is this guy and who is his daughter?
Talbot turns up to meet Coulson who hands over Creel and offers the Brigadier General a deal. Leave SHIELD alone and they will keep doing their thing, protecting the world from the wierder world, handing over gifted individulas like Creel and Talbot can keep getting promotions. Talbot sneers that they don’t have the weaponry to keep their end of the deal as the Bus de-cloaks right over his head (and yet more Firefly feels for me, that was totally like the time Serenity appeared to break up the bar fight Mal, Zoe and Jayne got into on Unification day). Coulson boards the QuinnJet that had been parked beside them the whole time and takes off. With a QuinnJet and the Bus now fitted with cloaking tech I’d say SHIELD might just be able to do their part.
