TV Recap: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1-8 - The Well

I was worried how much of this week's episode I'd miss out on since I haven't seen the new Thor movie.  Turned out to not be much of an issue.  If there were in jokes or moments, they went completely over my head.

Of course, the early part of the episode certainly did cover the aftermath of the movie as our crew are part of the effort to clean up the aftermath of what must be the climatic battle.  They are scanning for anything alien related so they can sterilize and haul it away.

However, in a national park in Norway, two people wander in, cut down a tree and find a staff inside.  Or more specifically a third of a staff.  When they touch it, it glows red and they are filled with power.

Naturally, this gets our team out of clean up duty and out in the field again.  A scan of the tree reveals the outline of where the staff used to be.  Certain that it is something Asgard (Norse gods) related, Coulson leads his team to a mythology professor who just might have the answer.

And he does.  This is a part of a staff from the old Asgardians according to old legends, the other two parts are hidden around, although it's not clear exactly where.  Our crew leaves, and they quickly figure out that the second piece must be in some crypts in Spain.

When they get there, Skye and Ward go searching for it.  Ward finds it along with the professor.  Before he can escape with the second part of the rod, it hits Ward, and he goes ballistic with rage.  The professor gets back to the street, however, the two people who got the first third of the staff and their followers show up and take it from him.

Coulson moves in and captures the professor while the scientists examine Ward.  The professor attempts to blow it off and saying it would be cool to have a piece of an actual Asgard relict.

Meanwhile, Ward continues to fly off the handle, and he goes to Coulson and expresses his concern about this.  But Coulson says that concern is exactly why he is okay.  And maybe it's time to use that rage to get the truth out of the professor.

So Ward goes in there alone, and when the professor doesn't exactly cooperate, Ward tries to stab him.  The knife bends, however.  Yes, the professor is really an Asgardian who hid his staff in three locations.

The professor tells them where the third is, but they get to the monastery too late.  The rage group has gotten there first.  When their leader stabs the professor, Ward goes off and beats him down.  More of the group comes in, and Ward gets more enraged and more powerful.

At this point, we go into full flashback mode.  As the episode has gone on, we've had glimpses of a boy in a well.  Now we see the full picture.  Ward is watching his own brother drown in a well, and someone (older brother? Bully?) is telling Ward he can't do anything to stop it unless he wants to be at the bottom of the well.  Ward tries to lower a rope anyway, but it looks like it is too late.

Then he wakes up to find all of his attackers are down.

Then the female leader of this group comes in.  Ward is tired but stands back up to fight.  Only May steps up in his place, grabbing two of the pieces of the staff.  She quickly defeats the leader of the other group, reuniting the pieces of the staff in the process.

Meanwhile, Coulson has reached into the wound on the professor and saved his life by holding the hole in his heart long enough for his alien body to heal itself.  Coulson alson considers touching the restored staff before S.H.I.E.L.D. carts it away, but he doesn't, hinting that he doesn't want to know what he can't remember.

As the characters are debriefing, Ward asks May how she could stand having all the pieces of the staff assembled in her hand.  Didn't it take her to some dark places.  "No place I don't go on a daily basis."

The team is put up in a hotel for the night.  Skye finds Ward in the bar and offers her ear and shoulder any time he wants to talk.  He thanks her and walks off.  As he's about to go into his room, he looks down the hall and sees May going into her room.  She leaves the door open, and we are left to assume that he walks in.  Someone sure did.

But the final scene finds Coulson getting a massage on the beach in Tahiti.  He wakes up and asks if he'd dozed off.  The response is yes, but that is good, it means he's relaxing.  He confirms it - and then wakes up in his bed in a cold sweat.

So what exactly happened to Coulson in Tahiti?  They keep teasing us with it, but I'm really curious what exactly it is.  It obviously isn't quite the warm, relaxing time he's pretending it is.

And what exactly is in May's background?  It looks like we might get an insight into that next week, but that's another story they've hinted at repeatedly.

Any and all theories and comments are more than welcome.  After all, what I don’t know about the Marvel universe fills volumes.