TV Recap: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1-7 - The Hub

Last week it was Simmons, this week it's Fitz.  Okay, so maybe he didn't get to shine quite as much, but he still got plenty of screen time and a mission in the field, and that's got to count for something.

It all starts with a trip to The Hub, the central home base for S.H.I.E.L.D..  While Skye isn't too thrilled that she is kept out of everything thanks to her electronic bracelet, she is hopeful that Coulson can dig up something about her parents from the redacted file.

Meanwhile, our little team is needed for a mission, or at least two of them are.  One side in a Civil War in far north Russia has a device that will destroy all weapons.  They plan to turn it on in the next 24 hours, and it will take Ward and Fitz to go in and disable it.  So they set off, only to be captured almost right away.  Fortunately, the power goes out when they are about to be shot, and Fitz is able to gain their captor's trust by fixing the generator.  It also gets them a ride across the boarder until their truck is stopped and Ward and Fitz have to strike out on their own.  Finally, they use a camouflage bag to hitch a ride on a truck and get into the compound where they need to extract the bomb.  Frankly, I thought that piece of technology was way cool, so I'm not quite doing it justice.

Meanwhile, back at The Hub, Simmons is going crazy worrying about Fitz, so Skye starts asking around.  Only no one will tell either of them anything since they don't have high enough clearance.  So Skye devises a way for Simmons to hack into a secure server for her.  She'll have three minutes to get the information.  Simmons has to stun a superior officer who catches her in the act, but they get in.  Skye starts to use the time to research her parents, but when she realizes she won't have time for both, she focuses on the mission.

That's when she learns that there is no extraction team.  Ward and Fitz are on a suicide mission only no one bothered to tell anyone on our team.

Coulson catches her hacking in and reads her the riot act for it, but she also tells him what she learned.  He then goes to his superior officer and demands to know what is going on.  He gets told exactly what he's been telling Skye all episode, "Trust the System."

Skye tells Simmons and May, and the three of them are ready to extract the guys, but Coulson shows up.  He's going to join them.

Which is a good thing because Fitz almost has the devise ready to be deactivated, but Ward has figured out there is no extraction.  He offers to give Fitz a head start in trying to get out, but Fitz won't take it.  He deactivates the device, and an alarm goes off triggering soldiers to rush in.  Fitz has managed to take part of the device and use it to kill the soldiers' weapons, and Ward fights them off as they come.  Fitz even takes one or two of them out.  They rush outside to find many more rushing toward them.  Too many to fight.

That's when the cavalry in the form of our plane shows up.  May repositions the engines to knock over the soldiers.  We assume the plane lands long enough for Ward and Fitz to get on board, although we don't see it.

Back at The Hub, we learn that this was the extraction plan all along.  Everyone on the team got manipulated into picking Ward and Fitz up.

As the crew flies off into the sun set, Coulson goes to visit Skye.  He was able to pull her file.  All he found was that a woman, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, left her at the orphanage.  The identity of the woman is a mystery.  Skye is grateful for even that much information.  But Coulson then goes to talk to May, who is looking at the file.  We learn that Coulson held some information back, like why (not that we learn that May means by that).  We also see some crime scene photos of a person's murder.  Is this Skye's mother?  Or is it possibly the person who dropped her off?  Or are they one and the same?

The final scene of the episode focuses on Coulson.  He's placing a call to get more information on a file - not Skye's file but his from his recovery in Tahiti.  Some comments made in The Hub made me want to look into it.  Only it's classified from him even though he's a Level 8.

They've hinted in the past that there was more to his recovery than he really knew, so I'm glad to see that brought up again.  Meanwhile, the knew clues about Skye's history are also intriguing.

While I mentioned Fitz at the beginning, this actually felt like an entire team type episode.  No one got a ton of focus and everyone played a part in what happened.  I liked it and feel the series is continuing to entertain me.

I'm trying to figure out if I can see the new Thor movie before next week's episode airs since apparently it forms the backdrop to the show.  I suddenly wish I hadn't decided to stay home all day Saturday this last weekend, but I needed the down time.  I may have to see the episode before I watch the movie, but we'll see what happens I guess.

In the meantime, feel free to leave your thoughts on this episode.  Are you still enjoying the show?