Damn, this show is good now. It's just so... good! No Simmons this week, which was a bummer. But I hardly missed her, because there were so many other good things going on.
We start with a mysterious old painting, that happens to contain the same strange symbols on the back that Coulson has been writing. The painting ends up in a private man's home, so Coulson and May go under cover as guests at a big party, in order to track down the painting and figure out its mystery. While there, they see Talbot, and figure their cover is blown. Coulson asks Talbot to let them complete their mission. At first it seems as if Talbot will comply, but later he tells on them. May and Coulson quickly try to find the painting, but they learn that it's not there - Talbot has already taken the painting.
Talbot then makes an odd offer - he says he'll let Coulson take a look at the painting, and the weird symbols on the back, since Coulson might be the only person who can figure them out. May is suspicious. She goes to spy on Talbot ahead of time, to see what the deal was. Turns out, she was right to be suspicious - Talbot isn't Talbot at all, but an undercover member of HYDRA, using tech that alters people's faces.
May has to fight against the Talbot impersonator, but she is taken down by another HYDRA person, the young woman, 33, who we saw being mind controlled last week. 33 then impersonates May. Fake May finds Coulson and says that Talbot's deal is legit, and Coulson goes off with Fake May to see about the painting. Before Fake May leaves, she sabotages the plane, where the rest of the team have been waiting and monitoring the mission.
Coulson has been trying to talk to May this whole episode about a contingency plan, in case he goes the way of Garrett and needs to be taken down. May has refused to talk to him. Fake May, obviously unfamiliar with this whole thing, cannot quite impersonate Real May well enough to fool Coulson. Particularly when she agrees to go get coffee, which May hates. Coulson punches Fake May. At this point Real May, who escaped from her bonds, comes out. While Coulson chases after the other HYDRA agent, we get an epic showdown of May vs. May. Which is, of course, won by the genuine article.
Back on the Bus, Skye, Tripp, Mack, and Lance Hunter are all bonding, while Fitz feels left out. Hallucination!Simmons encourages Fitz to join in, but he's not sure he can. When Fake May's sabotage begins, it looks like the Bus is going to blow up! Fitz is the one who knows how to save the Bus, but of course it's hard for him to communicate effectively. It's a group effort to interpret Fitz' incomplete sentences. In the end, Hunter follows Fitz' instructions and stops the Bus from exploding! They all bond with some beer, and Fitz finally gets the strength to talk about what he's feeling, revealing that he told Simmons how he felt, and that she left because she didn't feel the same way.
The mission complete, Coulson talks to the real Talbot about what went down, lying and saying that the painting was destroyed. Turns out, the weird symbols on the back of it are recent, meaning that there's someone else out there like Coulson, drawing the symbols and potentially going mad, like Garrett did.
Coulson and May finally have the talk that Coulson has been trying to force on her - if things get bad, May needs to kill Coulson. May says no - she'll take him away and look after him. After some pushing, however, Coulson finally gets May to agree to kill him if it becomes necessary.
In terms of complaints, I really only have some nitpicks. For example, as cool as it was to watch the May vs. May fight, how exactly did 33 have the exact same body as May? The face part I get - that's the whole point of the undercover face morphing tech thing. But the body? I mean, 33 and May have very different body types, but some how... ugh. Whatever. It was still awesome.
The opening scene with Hunter seducing the girl for information was perhaps a bit over the top. We get it, he's a lovable jerk who can get all the girls. Maybe it was just too... on the nose for my taste.
Enough of that. Let's talk about the good stuff.
Going in to this episode, I was a bit nervous. After all, the idea of going under cover in fancy clothes and trying to steal a painting is very cute, but it's also easy to overdo it. I was very pleased, then, to discover that the actual under cover part of the episode was fairly brief. We got in all of our laughs, seeing May force herself to flirt and laugh, and watching Coulson and May dance together. But we dispensed with the whole setup early on, to move on to something new and unique. The best moment here was when May walks right through the laser grid, reminding Phil that they've already been discovered, so what does it matter? That was a really hilarious way to shatter a cliche.
Some other highlights of the under cover scene: May saying that her face hurts from smiling. May making fun of Coulson for not being able to use a camera phone. And, especially, when the fake Talbot rats out May and Coulson to security, we get the great moment of Coulson wondering why Talbot would turn on them: "Maybe Talbot's still pissed 'cuz we kidnapped him that time." A few seconds later, he yells "yo!" at a guard and then punches him in the face to get him out of the way. Coulson was in fine form!
Of course, the May and Coulson relationship was firmly at the center of this episode, as it should be. We got to explore the fun, adventurous side of their relationship, with the dancing, and the reminiscing about the good ol' days, and the bad ass fighting. But also the softer, more vulnerable side to things, as May, oh-so-logical May, insisted she would never kill Coulson, no matter what, and Coulson ordered her to do it anyway. Excellently portrayed by these two actors. They've got some serious chemistry.
And, despite my complaint about 33 and May suddenly having the same body, I'm very, very happy with the way that fight sequence turned out. Super impressive fight choreography!
There were great plot twists in this episode - I was all ready to be enraged and intrigued - Talbot is HYDRA?! But then, no, it's not true. Something else entirely is happening here. It was fun to see that face-changing tech again. It's the same stuff Natasha uses in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Then there's the other plot, the one with darling little Fitz being surrounded by Alpha males (and Alpha female Skye, of course). This plot was brilliant. It showed us that Fitz isn't going to magically get better, but at the same time, he can still be a part of the team, and he can still save the day and be the brave man he's always been. I loved the way that everyone else helped him communicate and nobody got frustrated at him during the crisis. He was able to calm down and think, and in the end, it was Fitz and Lance's teamwork that saved the day. I love Fitz so much. He's got such a surpassing sweetness to him. It's lovely. The saddest bit was when Halluci-Simmons told Fitz to tell people how he was feeling, and he said that it hadn't worked out so great for him in the past. As much as I want Fitzsimmons to be together eventually, the angst is just so much fun for the time being. (I'm sick, I know.)
We end with Raina and Daniel Whitehall (our main HYDRA baddie). Apparently, HYDRA will do whatever it takes to get that mysterious Obelisk back, and Raina's a dead woman in 48 hours if she doesn't hand it over. Not sure what I think of the ongoing mystery here, with Skye's dad and all that, but it was still a tense scene, and a good way to continue developing our cliche yet still creepy HYDRA villains.
At the end of the day, this episode didn't provide a lot of new questions or answers, but it still kept things going, and it was very important in the development of Fitz' character, and the relationship between May and Coulson. I enjoyed watching from beginning to end.
9/10
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