'Marvel's Agents of SHIELD' 1.12 'Seeds'

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Now that the mystery of how Coulson lived is (mostly) sorted it's time to tackle the next big question on 'Marvel's Ancients of S.H.I.E.L.D.', where did Skye come from? But this week's episode, 'Seeds' doesn't focus solely on the mystery of Skye's background as a near-fatal attack back at the agents' former training academy brings Agents Fitz, Simmons, and Ward back to school.

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It was a fun spin on things to have the so-called 'geeky' tech students be the ultra cool kids at the Academy--once jokingly referred to as a S.H.I.E.L.D. Hogwarts by Skye but we quickly learn that there are several schools within the campus and they train quite separately. Operations cadets like Ward were viewed by the Sci-Tech students like FitzSimmons as the lower rung of the social ladder. It makes sense that property from a comic book company would hold what FitzSimmons do in higher regard than the ability to break several bones in one move. After all, the ingenuity of these students are what keeps S.H.I.E.L.D. at the top of the espionage/tactical worlds and allow them to face off against any number of foes.

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Which brings us to the 'of the week' character of Donnie, a student that falls under the suspicions of the agents when an advanced freezing device is found to be the cause of the first attack. Pretty much the exact moment he nodded appreciatively at the mention of S.H.I.E.L.D. enemy groups like Centipede and Hydra, I knew he was the one behind the creation of the device especially when he wound up a 'victim' himself. Classic use of misdirection there. The surprising element of his story had to do with the fact that Donnie was in league with another agent-in-training, Seth, in order to create the device and sell it to the highest bidder. I'm sure you can guess what happened from there as a desire to prove themselves led to pushing the machine too far too fast and causing a chaotic super storm. I wonder if I was the only one that got some serious Andrew from Chronicle vibes from Donnie so it wasn't a shock in the least how his story ended.

The thing that seems to be true with a majority of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes is they employ familiar

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story and character types and they get a lot of shit for it. It works for what the show is and I enjoy the characters enough by now to watch how they get through it. One way to accept the level of storytelling in S.H.I.E.L.D. is to watch it with the expectations of what shows on the USA network mostly provide. S.H.I.E.L.D.'S characters are welcome and so I don't need the wheel to be reinvented every week to enjoy what's happening.

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That said, there is a special attention paid to keeping a few mystery threads going up until this point. Tonight's episode proved that you need to be paying attention to prior episodes since many of the themes and ideas come back around like how Skye's origin was partially revealed--she's an 084. Back in episode two that was the code name for an object of unknown origin but Skye's more than that as she apparently has, unbeknownst to her right now, strong powers. Strong enough to wipe out an entire village before S.H.I.E.L.D. became involved in her life. I love how her connection to Coulson only grows now that she knows some of the truth. These are two people that have had their lives forever altered by the actions of S.H.I.E.L.D. command and even though her paternal/maternal mystery didn't conclude with the soapy declaration that one of the agents we know was her parent, this group is still very much the family she was always meant to have. It's a bittersweet thing for Skye to know and I can't wait to see if they choose to explore her possible powers in upcoming episodes.

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It certainly seems like that's the next chapter to unfold for the show, exploring people with powers which is something that even very high-level S.H.I.E.L.D. agents claim is an impossibility. With the exception of constantly tech-powered individuals like Mike Petersen, we've seen two villains emerge with powers as a result of science screw-ups: Donnie (commonly known as Blizzard in the comics) and Dr. Hall (Graviton). But seeing an individual born with powers would be new for the show and I'm sure we'll get our first taste with that when we finally do meet the mysterious clairvoyant that keeps getting mentioned including by Ian Quinn tonight. Proving that these people exist outside of the realms of super-science gone wrong, aliens, or displaced gods would be something that could only kick things up a notch for all the agents. If anything it might put the final nail in the coffin for Coulson putting his trust in his organization--that's a huge lie to deal with and what happened to him was already enough to get him second-guessing following their lead in anything again.