TV REVIEW: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’s “Making Friends and Influencing People”

By Felicia Kudronowicz

This week Agents of SHIELD finally delivered a few answers concerning our favorite loveable scientist duo, Fitz and Simmons. (The show just hasn’t been the same without them together.) The episode kicked off with HYDRA performing “A Clockwork Orange” style brain washing session on someone who we initially thought to be Simmons but just turned out to be a random HYRDA recruit. Even though this doesn’t seem important at the time, it helps build the plot of this episode and showed just what HYDRA is capable of.

Right after this, we finally do get to see what Simmons is up to, and for the most part it’s pretty routine. We see her getting up for work and performing an almost robotic like routine that she clearly does everyday. Then she waltzes right into a HYDRA lab and it’s still unclear whose side she is on. During her workday, she finds out that HYDRA is looking into recruiting Donny Gill (the freeze guy from last season). They want to use him as a weapon.

Simmons goes home and Coulson is there to meet her. Oh oh? Not so much. While it may appear at first that she’s been caught in the act, it turns out Coulson actually ordered Simmons to go undercover for SHIELD. She informs him that HYDRA wants to recruit Donny, so Coulson immediately puts a plan together so SHIELD can get to him first.

The SHIELD team heads out to find Donny, leaving Fitz, Mac and Ward behind. Fitz is increasing annoyed that he is being left behind on missions. He decides to go have a talk with Ward since it is his fault that he has brain damage. He tortures Ward by depleting the oxygen in his cell to show him what he did to Fitz. Ok show of hands; Who wanted this interaction without even realising it? Fitz deserves some kind of retribution for what happened to him, after all and it was a refreshing surprise to see Fitz display his darker side for once. While they are talking Fitz lets it slip that the team has gone to find Donny and Ward warns Fitz that HYDRA has brainwashed Donny before and can easily get him under their control again.

Fitz hurries to warn the rest of the team who have already arrived on site where Donny is. HYDRA is already there with Simmons helping. They are able to re-trigger his brainwash programming and he complies with their requests. HYDRA orders him to kill May and the team but before he gets too far, Skye shoots him down. This is Skye’s first kill but it doesn’t seem to affect her, at least according to her heart monitoring watch. Stone cold killer?

The team makes it out with some confiscated HYDRA product and Simmons is able to with keep her cover. Once the gang is back together, Coulson has a nice talk with Fitz and apologizes for excluding him in certain aspects of their missions. He also expresses how difficult it is to have Ward so close but they need him to find out more from HYDRA. It doesn’t seem like they are using him nearly enough though. I kind of wonder what Ward does all day. I’m guessing 24/7 pushups.

The final scene is Skye visiting Ward. You can tell that Skye is desperately hoping that Ward was brain washed by HYDRA. It would be the perfect explanation, but Ward tells her he did everything out of his own free will. He also finally tells her that he knows her father is alive and looking for her. I live for Ward/Skye interactions. There is so much hate and… hope there. Skye wanted so badly for this to be the excuse for Ward’s actions but it couldn’t be. It’s also admirable how stoic Ward is. He’s so calm it’s creepy. I hope they find some real use for him soon.

Overall this was another strong episode for season two. It’s good to see that Simmons is still on SHIELDs side (for now), Skye is acting like a real agent now, and Fitz is coming to terms with his situation. There’s still no word on when we will actually get to meet Skye’s father, but next week at least promises we’ll see May and Coulson undercover… dancing.