4.01.2014

Television: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., "The End of the Beginning"

So it's been a while, but the short answer is: They're looking for The Clairvoyant.

Not just our regular team, but a bunch of other S.H.I.E.L.D. cadres as well. Garrett and Triplett, Hand and Blake . . .

Oh, and they finally make Skye an official member of the club. Level 1, of course, but still.

Playing by Scooby-Doo rules, they split everyone up into groups. Ward and Triplett are checking out a prison in the UK and (I think this is possibly important) Triplett mentions he would kill The Clairvoyant [insert sob story about having lost a partner to The Clairvoyant's evil plan]. May and Blake hit up a nursing home type facility only to have Deathlok attack. Thing is, May is conveniently not on the scene when Deathlok jumps Blake. (This is important later.)

Blake is at least smart enough to shoot Deathlok with a tag bullet (a bullet with a tracker that can be followed via satellite) before Deathlok put him into ICU, so the teams then head out and find Deathlok . . . And Brad Dourif?

[Remember that episode of The X-Files? "Beyond the Sea"? One of the best episodes, and I do think Brad Dourif was great in it—and probably right about the agony attached to Mulder's New York Knicks shirt.]

So here is Dourif again, playing a similar role as in that X-Files episode, except now he's a quadriplegic and has to speak through a computer. And when he threatens Skye? Ward shoots him.

Now at least Coulson is kind of quick enough to realize that Brad Dourif (whose character's name was ostensibly Nash) may have only been a prop. I mean, how were they supposed to be able to tell whether it was him talking via computer? And here's where I think the Ward-Triplett conversation becomes important. Because it seems to me that Triplett planted the suggestion of killing The Clairvoyant into Ward's mind. The story about the dead partner? And Triplett even asked Ward to consider what he'd do if it had been Skye. And then "The Clairvoyant" (because I doubt Dourif was really him) threatens Skye? It's a little too on the nose, don't you think?

And speaking of Triplett, we last saw him with Simmons, and we last heard Simmons shouting at Fitz over the phone. Something about agents swarming. Hmm.

Deathlok, meanwhile, escapes while everyone is focused on Dourif.

Back at the ranch (no) bus (no) plane, Fitz discovers May's super secret telephone line and concerns that she might be the one plugged into The Clairvoyant rise. Fitz cuts the line and Coulson and Skye corner May in the cargo hold but she won't say who is on the other end of her encrypted line. Considering the way she managed to avoid being attacked by Deathlok, things look bad for her. But I'm willing to bet she's not actually the traitor.

So we've come to another X-Files tangent: Trust No One.

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