Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Asset (1x03)

Mehhhh. Not good. Just... not good. I wanted it to be good, I really did. But there were so many problems with both the plot and the characterization in this episode that I'm left feeling rather discouraged. I'm still rooting for this show to get better, but it still has a long way to go, to be honest.

A scientist and former teacher of Fitzsimmons has been kidnapped by the unambiguously evil Ian Quinn. Dr. Franklin Hall (the kidnapped guy) is being kept in a country outside of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s jurisdiction, so going in to rescue him is going to be tricky.

So what do they do? Oh, just let Skye infiltrate, since she's not actually an official agent yet. That is the stupidest plan in the world, and Coulson is really lucky that it's too early for the big reveal about Skye's continuing allegiance to the Rising Tide, or else this could have gone very poorly for him.

But, yeah. Skye goes in to distract this Quinn guy and disarm some of the security so that Coulson and Ward could go in and rescue Hall. Skye manages to succeed by playing a double agent, but then things get pretty tense when Quinn discovers her betrayal. She saves herself by jumping into a pool, and Ward shows up to save her. Meanwhile, Coulson finds Hall. But... plot twist! He actually planned his own kidnapping to get into the research facility and get his hands on the Gravitonium.

It turns out that Quinn and Hall used to be partners, but that Quinn turned a tad bit evil and Hall knows that the Gravitonium stuff is really dangerous. So, in order to get access to the thing he discovered in the first place, he gets himself kidnapped. His plan is destroy the Gravitonium once and for all. Only one problem - that's going to destroy the whole compound, and kill every guest at the big fancy party going on upstairs. Coulson tries to talk him down, but Hall seems pretty determined. In the end, Coulson has to make the "tough call" by sending Hall down to his doom among the Gravitonium reactor thingy-ma-bob. (Okay, so I'm not a scientist... it was all BS anyway).

And of course, at the very end we have a glimpse of the big ball of silvery Gravitonium goo, as a hand emerges from it. Graviton is officially born. Those of you familiar with the comics should know exactly who that is.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, I am not a happy camper. Let's take a look at why. 

First of all, there's the attempt to show the growing relationship between Skye and Ward. He's putting her through brutal physical training, she's not committing, so Ward uses a story about an abusive older brother to get her to connect. Later, when trying to escape from Quinn, Skye recalls this story and it gives her the courage to escape. Ugh. To make it worse, we later learn that Skye was a foster kid and therefore also had a really tough childhood growing up. Oh my God. Honestly, could they have come up with a more cliche back story for her? Ultimately, this was an episode that focused on Skye, who is thus far my least favorite character.

(Brief tangent, here - when this show started, I thought Ward was our "new kid on the block," and that we would be experiencing the world through his eyes. Now, only three episodes in, he acts like he's the leader of a well-oiled machine. He didn't even know Coulson when the pilot started, and now he's talking to him like they're old friends. The same thing goes for his behavior around May, as well. Point is, I'd rather see Ward struggling as the new guy than Skye. He's so much more interesting and less annoying).

Then there's the general witty banter thing they're all trying to do. I don't know if it's just a problem of chemistry with the actors, or what, but the Whedon-esque dialogue is just not working for me. Almost at all. There are always a few lines that hit their mark, but unfortunately most of them do not.

The plot this week was generally... well... I have to keep reminding myself that they are working with comic books as their source material. So I'm going to have to be okay with very transparent villains (Quinn) and silly over-the-top gadgets like Gravitonium. I'm not okay, however, with the stupid double fake-out thing with Skye, since everyone saw that coming from a mile away. Or how about at the ending, where I literally said out loud to the screen: "and then a hand is gonna appear out of the - yep, there ya go." It was just so predictable that even for a comic book story I was rolling my eyes.

I'll admit one bright point in the plot though. I thought it was a pretty cool twist that Hall had planned his own kidnapping to save the world. That was a decent moment. (Although Quinn is seriously incompetent - why would he leave him down there with all that equipment unattended?)

There were also too many references to The Avengers. I think they're leaning too heavily on the connection between this mediocre television show and the masterpiece that was that movie. Every time they bring it up, it just draws more attention to how the show suffers in comparison. 

One last comment: there was some almost interesting commentary here about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s moral standards. As Quinn points out, S.H.I.E.L.D. conceals the truth from the populace and uses morally grey tactics to do so. This episode could have been a cool way to explore this tension, but unfortunately there has thus far been nothing morally grey about the things this team has done. Quinn is clearly a super duper bad guy, and there's really nothing ambiguous about wanting to stop him. And Hall is presented as a well-meaning guy who clearly lost it a bit, so we don't really feel like he has much of a point either. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if Quinn was a sympathetic character and S.H.I.E.L.D. came across as almost the bad guys here? Sadly, it was not meant to be.

I could keep going, but I'll let you all off easy. Long story short, (way too late) this episode was pretty weak. Skye isn't doing much for me, Fitzsimmons are funny but not well developed yet, the witty dialogue isn't hitting the mark, and the plot was over-the-top silly at moments.

5/10