TV Recap: Agents of SHIELD 1-5 - The Girl in the Flower Dress

When I saw the preview for last night’s episode, I was surprised.  Not that they were going there at some point but that they went there so soon.  I didn’t expect Skye’s double dealings to become an issue until at least the half way point of the season.  Then again, since this one really continued the pilot, that might be why.

The episode opens in China as a street magician is doing his act.  When his audience starts to discount his work, he pulls out his big trick – he can start and hold fire in his hand.  It so impresses a woman in the audience that she goes home with him.  After another demonstration, she drugs him and two guys in fireproof suits show up to kidnap him.

When he wakes up, he learns he is in a research facility, and it isn’t SHIELD like he first thinks.  (He’s been living under their surveillance for years.)  Instead, they want to help him achieve his true potential.  He could become a hero, say Scorch.  They inject him with something, and it makes his fireballs more powerful.

But this group is really Caterpillar – the group from the pilot episode.  They are experimenting on him hoping they can stabilized their subjects so they don’t explode.  The fire resistance on his skin is just what they are looking for.  Once that is confirmed, they knock it out and take that part of his DNA from him.

Meanwhile, our band of SHIELD agents have been trying to track down just how Caterpillar found him.  Skye is able to trace it to a hacker in Austin.  However, he is from her old group, Red Tide.  In fact, he’s her old lover.  When he manages to escape from their surveillance and get home, she is waiting for him.  She tries to confront him, but they wind up sleeping together.

As Skye is frantically trying to get dressed and get out of there again, SHIELD shows up.  She’s busted.  And as the crew is now flying to China, we learn that he had sold the information for money, which just infuriates Skye.  Furthermore, she is upset because no one will trust her now, and she trusts this group she is working with.

They land in China and storm the facility.  They can’t reason with Scorch and he winds up exploding like the guy in the pilot did, but not before killing the doctor from the pilot.

With the crisis averted, Coulson now has to deal with Skye and her former friend.  He offers the hacker a choice – wear a bracelet that will track him and keep electronics from working for him or be put in a cell.  He takes the bracelet and then they dump him off in China to figure out how to get home.

Then he calls Skye to his office.  He wants to know what else she’s hiding.  She pulls out a data chip we saw earlier and learn it contains everything she knows about her parents.  And most of that has been redacted by SHIELD.  Coulson takes it and agrees to find out what he can.  Then he gives Skye a bracelet of her own.  She’s still on the team, but no one will trust her now.

As a final scene, the woman who captured Scorch shows up in a prison.  She talks to someone who is obviously also involved in these genetic experiments they are doing.  Caterpillar is still alive and is working to create a super human army.  What their end game is, we don’t know yet, but I have a feeling we’ve met our big bad of the season.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like Skye, but isn’t it time that we get to know the others on the team?  Another reason I expected this episode to come later was we still don’t really know either scientist and the pilot could be better developed as well.  This is supposed to be an ensemble piece, right?

Still, it was a decent episode, and the revelation about Skye’s background is certainly interesting.  Can’t wait to see how that plays out as time passes.

What were your thoughts on the episode?  How might the Caterpillar plot play out as the season progresses?