Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Debrief: Episode 1.18, "Providence"

Well here are back in the post Cap 2 Agents of SHIELD world. Still spoiling stuff for those that didn’t see the movie if that’s something you care about. This episode is called Providence, and as our little team of heroes is still dealing with a world where Hydra is back, it also shows things from Ward in that Hydra life. For me the episode felt like watching National Lampoon’s Agents of SHIELD as Coulson basically became Clark Griswold (ha ha Clark right) trying his best to lead his group even though things look like utter failure.

Let’s do this episode in the two parts: the SHIELD vacation part and the Team Hydra part. At the Hub we see our team watch all the news as it talks about the fall of SHIELD. At the moment we have Coulson leading the Hub with Skye as his main Ops person. Meanwhile they show Fitz, Simmons and Triplett working on the Bus. Here we have a full-on love triangle as it looks like Simmons is into Triplett while Fitz, who’s still into Simmons, is getting heated as he see her looking all dreamy eyed at Triplett. So Fitz is just being salty and yelling at folks. Then in the main room Coulson gets contacted by Colonel Glenn Talbot, aka the second best Hulk hater in the world. Talbot is talking about coming in and talking to SHIELD, in which Coulson looks like, 'This dude is shady, we need to bounce post haste.'

He had Skye erase all of his team’s identities (plus Ward’s) to go underground on some Mission--Impossible: Ghost Protocol lifestyle. Triplett asks to go and Coulson tells him 'No, I don’t know you,' but then Simmons in full thirstiness co-signs him and Coulson make him her responsibility as we see Fitz over there sulking. Coulson takes all the badges and puts them in the Coulson safe behind his desk as Skye laments that she just became an Agent and now they are Agents of Nothing (lame hashtag placement). At the same time we see Coulson’s badge light up with some coordinates, which Coulson thinks is from Fury. He then tells May to fly to those even though no one knows where they are going. They land in some place in the Canadian wilderness and are completely lost, and just when it looks like Coulson is losing faith, the secret bunker base reveals itself to the group. There they meet Agent Eric Koenig who tells the group about what’s going on and Fury is dead (aka more Cap 2 stuff), then he take Coulson to another room for a sidebar. There he tells him that Fury isn’t dead and what else is happening, and that he can’t tell his team about Fury. May and Coulson are still having their friendship issues with him still not trusting her and her constant reliance on saying she was following Fury’s orders. Coulson learns from May that Fury didn’t head up the T.A.H.I.T.I. project.

Meanwhile in that HYDRA life, we see Ward breaks out Reina, aka the Girl in the Flower Dress, and gives her a new Flower dress from the Clairvoyant. He takes her to meet the Clairvoyant, who we know as Garrett. When she learns that Garrett was basically just leaking files like Snowden, she is quite salty and annoyed with being played this whole time. Her concerns are quelled once Garrett says she has money in Project Centipede so she can learn how to use that Kree blood from the T.A.H.I.T.I. project. So right then Garrett tells Ward that they are going to hit the Fridge, the jail of SHIELD to go get some stuff.

Once there, it’s basically a recap of sorts of all the stuff the show has shown Team Coulson acquire over the season: Berserker staff from The Well, the 0-8-4, and even the Gravitonium that has a person in it. They also basically break out all the bad guys there, because why not. They head back to their HYDRA base and there Reina, after questioning Ward’s allegiance and his game, tells Garrett that the hard drive that they have with all the research data on the T.A.H.I.T.I. project is super locked down from super hacker Skye. Ian Quinn pops up and yells at Garrett for lying, beating him up and messing up his cred. That whole scene is just like stuff in the old GI Joe cartoons, with Cobra Commander and Destro or the Twins dissing his evilness. Garrett hushes him once he shows him the Gravitonium. Garrett tells Ward he needs to go back and get Skye or the password, and reminds him he better think with his head and not his heart. They make it look good with some scratches and bruises on his face as he contacts the Skye so he can find out where they are. He pops up with a thirsty-looking Skye waiting for him.

The More You Know:

One cool thing in one of Garrett’s constant war stories to Ward while breaking into the Fridge was talking about a guy he locked up with tiger paws for hands. That, my friends, is the Griffin. John Horton is a pretty smart Easter egg for this story arc being that he got his powers from the Secret Empire (a storyline I think greatly influenced Cap 2 along with the titular Winter Soldier). The Griffin is pretty much a C-list or D-list villain. It was a nice throw-out mention for the hardcore Marvelites watching.

Remember in that Gravitonium that Quinn just got back, Dr. Hall is still in there, going by that last scene from episode 3. Graviton is coming.

They’ve been making it a point in the recaps to focus on Simmons’ and her “poor ability to lie”; yeah she’s bad at lying, huh? C’mon son.

Ward really held onto that Berserker staff. It seems to be calling him like crack did pookie in New Jack City.

Eric Koenig is from the old Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. So it makes sense that they used him as a person Fury trusts. It’s adding to my theory for the MCU that I’ll put at the end of the season.