Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Debrief: Episode 1.19, "The Light in the Darkness"

So here we are, back again! After two pretty decent episodes (even though you couldn’t tell that from my writing about it), we are somehow back to a monster/bad guy-of-the-week episode. I really don’t know why they chose to do that when it seems they have enough possible stuff to draw from, with the whole fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the team on the run. Yet here we are with Team Coulson, off to deal with another D-list Marvel comic villain when we could have more HYDRA or even that grand Hulk hater Talbot.

This is episode is called "The Only Light in the Darkness." It starts with some guy walking around at night looking quite disheveled, and somehow all the electricity goes away when he walks past it. He asks a guy for a ride to Portland but the guy refuses so he touches this guy and kills him to steal his truck. With that we head back to the secret Koenig base, where the team is talking to Ward as he lies to them about what happened to the Fridge (which he just doesn’t say he was in fact robbing and killing too). Once Coulson finds out all the bad guys got out, he goes all altruistic and decides on taking a small team to go and find this Marcus Daniels, a.k.a. the guy that just killed a dude for truck because he is dangerous. Agent Koenig says no one can leave before orientation, which is basically a S.H.I.E.L.D. lie-detector test. Everyone passes, and we find out that Agent Triplett is a legacy agent since his grandfather was a Howling Commando (probably Derek Luke’s Gabe Jones from Captain America: The First Avenger) and that Simmons is a Doctor Who fan. After that Ward goes last, and after almost being shot for lying, he saves himself by basically saying he’s thirsty for Skye and Koenig is like, "OK, I can understand that" and gives him a lanyard (so dumb).

So with everyone cool Coulson takes Fitz, Simmons, and Triplett on this mission to Portland to get Daniels. All the time Fitz is treating Triplett mean because clearly Simmons is into Triplett and Fitz has got it bad for Simmons. I’m telling you this show is too focused on teenage love triangles to really be about super spies; I tell you! The four get into the cool S.H.I.E.L.D. Johnny Quest-like jet after Coulson and May have another argument about trust. You know he doesn’t trust her and won't forgive May for following Fury’s orders, like he never mislead anyone or not told the truth, like say to a rich industrialist or a Thunder God’s girlfriend or nothing. Just saying.

On the jet Coulson tells the group about Daniels and how basically he’s going after Coulson’s ex-girlfriend Audrey Nathan, who thinks Coulson is dead because you know Loki deaded him in The Avengers. Fitz and Simmons cook up some super flashlights to fight this guy because “pure light” hurt him before. They get to him, just as he found Audrey, to shine those flashlights on him, just to find out that S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t helping these people agents like Coulson locked up; they ran tests on them to make them more powerful (actually it could’ve been them secret HYDRA agents, though) so he easily blows up the flashlights with powerful Darkforce energy. During all of this Audrey escapes and Daniels leaves as Mini Team Coulson licks its wounds.

Then the team goes back to the jet to make something all new to fight this guy while hearing the sad story about Coulson’s lost love Audrey. How she can’t know he’s alive but he must protect her and all of that. The three besides Coulson actually meet up and keep Audrey informed about what’s going on as she tells her respect for S.H.I.E.L.D. and about Coulson.  Fitz keeps asking questions since it seems he doesn’t have the courage to tell Simmons his feelings for her. The two brainiacs make a new bigger version of the flashlights based on designs by Bruce Banner. They decide to use Audrey as bait for Daniels so they can corner him and the boogeyman with the super flashlights. Of course he comes after her, falling directly into their trap, but he overpowers the team with his powers, but once Audrey is in true danger Coulson grabs one and it’s somehow more powerful than before and the man is defeated and blown up or disintegrated, knocking Audrey back. Coulson goes over to her in slightly unconscious state and tells her that he’s always going to protect her and then he skates out before she fully wakes up. Letting her think it was all a dream.

On the jet back, Coulson and Fitz talk again as he asks Coulson why he didn’t tell her he’s alive and if he ever will. Coulson gives him some Coulson dad talk and advice and has now lost all his current cynical nature. He also resolves to forgive May when they get back to the secret base. Simmons then talks to Fitz to understand why is he so mean to Triplett, which Fitz just lies about and says he’s just not into change, instead of just saying how he feels about her.

Now during all that, back at the base Skye and Koenig are there having big nerd conversations as Ward creeps around the base being a creep. Ward ends up talking to May about the Bus, which is fine, but also sees that she’s leaving. May is bummed that Coulson doesn’t trust her and that she isn’t needed, so she decides to go away. Skye suggests they hack into NSA satellites, which Koenig is afraid to do but then goes ahead and lets her win. Skye does that as Ward does away with poor Koenig in secret. Ward then decides to put on his best sorry bad boy I have feelings too game for Skye and before things get hot and heavy Skye sees some blood on his ear (which is Koenig blood) and he goes to clean it up. This lets Skye wander around looking for stuff. She finds Koenig's tablet with the map of base that lets him track everyone with a lanyard. She follows a dot right to dead Koenig, and at that point this episode becomes like House at the End of the Street or something. Skye goes to hide in the bathroom as she figures out that Ward is HYDRA; she then, I guess, makes a plan. She starts counter seducing him and he takes her to the Bus so they can leave because Skye’s encryption on the hard drive (the whole reason he’s here) is location-based.  Off they go with Ward thinking he’s successful in his trickery with Skye going headfirst into the unknown danger, per usual.

Mini Team Coulson gets back to see no Bus and wonders where everyone is. The last thing we see is that May is walking the street like 70s Bruce Banner, then her mom picks her up. Her mom checks her a bit and then gives her an envelope with some secret stuff in it, being that her mom is also a spy or something. It seems that spying is the May family business.

Did You Know:

So Marcus Daniels in the comic is known as Blackout. As I said earlier a pretty D-list bad guy that first appeared and fought Nova in the 70s. He popped up later facing Captain Marvel Monica Rambeau and then later on the Inhumans and Dazzler. He ended up being used a lot by Baron Zemo in the Masters of Evil and really never amounted to much bad guy wise. His powers do come from a place called the Darkforce dimension, which he got by accident while working as a lab assistant. From that point on the powers drove him crazy. Maybe he’s in here to put a little fan Easter egg connection to Guardians of the Galaxy since the Nova Corp is pretty important to the plot of that film, along with the Kree.