TV REVIEW: Agents of SHIELD’s Season 2 Premiere Delivers on its Promises

By Felicia Kudronowicz

After last season’s intense finale, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is finally back in our lives. It seems some time has passed since we’ve last seen our team, based on Skye’s new hair style and Ward’s impressive beard.

The premiere episode “Shadows” opens far away from our team in Austria in the year 1945. It appears that we are getting a closer look at when HYDRA was first demolished (supposedly). Peggy Carter makes an appearance as she locks up a mysterious weapon that the evil organization got their hands on.

Flashing forward, we finally get to see what our agents are up to.

Coulson has been busy recruiting any agents that are left from the fall of SHIELD, but it’s proving to be a very tedious process that necessitates traveling the globe in order to meet people in person to make sure they are trustworthy. Apparently jet-setting Coulson doesn’t even have time to speak with his team regularly. We can forgive this oversight because he has managed to find us some new faces to look t this season, including Xena herself, Lucy Lawless.

Eventually (after I start to panic) we see Fitz and Simmons at work in the lab. It turns out things aren’t quite back to normal for Fitz. He suffered severe head trauma from the incident in the season finale and can no longer remember things very well. His leans on Simmons (literally and figuratively) for support. It’s very touching to seem them together.

So the team seems to be mostly together with a few additions. This new and improved SHIELD 2.0 soon discovers that HYDRA has stockpiled a bunch of weapons –  including the one from the opening in Austria. They also have a run-in with the Absorbing Man who can absorb any material and become it. Throughout the episode he is able to turn into diamond, glass, cement, rubber and wood (So handy!).

Coulson decides to have Skye question Ward to get intel on how to find HYDRA and secure this super weapon. In the highlight of the episode, we see these two would-be-lovers reunited for the first time. Ward was surprisingly helpful and calm throughout his interrogation, leaving us with the hope that he can be redeemed. Or just simply back on the team in some capacity. Just as Skye is out of reach he exclaims that he has information about her father. Color us intrigued!

Following Ward’s tipoff,  the team tracks the mysterious weapon – with the help of their shiny new team members. But not so fast! Upon arrival, Hartly (Lawless) opens the weapon case and makes a grab for it. Um? Isn’t that the last thing you want to do with a weapon you know nothing about? Coulson has a lot to teach these new recruits.  Of course the weapon immediately fuses to her hand and starts to turn it black. Definitely not a good thing.

The team calls Coulson to ask if they should retreat but he tells them to press ahead. It seems he also wants them to steal a jet. As the team scrambles to follow orders, Hartley and her partner flee, with Hartley demanding that her partner cut off her hand. (She has a sixth sense about the mysterious weapon killing her. That could have come in handy earlier.) Just as he succeeds in cutting off her hand, the Absorbing Man shows up and crashes their vehicle, making off with the weapon and leaving the two new agents for dust in a pile of rubble.

The operation is still a moderate success with May and Skye successfully stealing the jet. But now for the heart-wrenching plot twist. Coulson had them steal the jet because Fitz’s brain damage is so severe he won’t be able recreate their old one. It turns out that this whole time Fitz has been hallucinating that Simmons was with him despite the fact she is no longer on the team.

It’s a huge and painful reveal, and it leaves the audience not sure what to expect for the future of our favorite pair Fitzsimmons. But hey, if they can bring Coulson and Skye back from the dead, surely they can get Fitz’s brain back together?

Overall this episode deserves a huge thumbs up. With Coulson’s plan looking more and more about staying in the shadows in order to bring down HYDRA it’s going to be a season of rebuilding SHIELD and the team that was ripped apart last season.

Tune in next week for “Heavy is the Head” on ABC.