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Last Night on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.": Hail Hydra!

Phil and his team confront the Clairvoyant at last. And S.H.I.E.L.D. is rocked by treason from within.

Welcome to the recap of Captain America: The Winter Soldier—the Epilogue. Obviously, this going to have spoilers for the movie, so if you haven’t see it, as I have not (damn cold) then you might get spoiled and also a little bit confused.

We pick up right where we left off last week with Melinda May and Phil Coulson facing off and the plane having changed course to who knows where and Fitz being adorable. Fitz wasn’t doing anything in particular, he’s just naturally adorable and sometimes I feel the need to remind people that I called dibs.

I had to just giggle at Coulson. For one, holding a gun on May in no way shape or form means you are safe from her major ass-kicking mastery. For two, he keeps looking away from her to have a conversation with Fitz. This should well have been proof enough that he could trust May because if she was the enemy she could have kicked his face in a dozen times or so.

May tries to deflect suspicion onto Fitz. He flounders and stammers and then tells them all about his secret project with Simmons. He probably would have told them about every test he’d ever cheated on and all the times he had lied to girls about being straight. Though to be fair, no one could withstand both May’s Glare of Intensity and Coulson’s Paternal Look of Doom.

As if they don’t have enough problems already, Phil’s friend John Garret is getting shot at by S.H.I.E.L.D. drones and needs their help. Fortunately, since he is Phil’s pal, all he has to do is fly by the Bus and Coulson shoots the drones down.

I like it when Phil says, “Booyah!”

It is revealed that Agent Hand sent the drones. She and her secret cabal are out to complete some mission and it’s all to make us believe she’s a double agent, but I’m not buying it. She’s just too incompetent to manage that sort of duplicity.

Coulson, though, does not share my doubts. He is completely convinced that Hand is the Clairvoyant which makes me question his judgment. I mean, really. Hand can barely put her boots on the right feet each morning. I guess May’s betrayal has really shaken him. Now he’s all, “Hand’s the Clairvoyant! May killed Kennedy! Ward was behind Benghazi! Fitz faked the birth certificate!”

Garret is all, “Whoa, there, little buckaroo, Hand may be crazy and all, but this isn’t Fox News.”

And then they get the news that all this badness is because HYDRA is back. Well. Crap. I guess when you cut one head off (or a limb, as Garret thinks) two more really do take its place. And since Hydra was stomped into the dirt seventy years ago, that’s, what, a gajillion heads?

Since they’re all out of options, Coulson has May call Nick Fury to find out what they should do next. Good idea. The problem is that Fury is dead. (Hey, I did warn you about spoilers!) I’d seen hints of this in the Cap 2 trailer, and I’m still not buying it. First, Fury is way too smart to get taken out by some gadget-wielding assassin. Second, in a world where Phil Coulson was brought back from the dead, it’s a little hard to believe anyone dies long term.

But for the moment, all our team knows is that Fury is dead and they are all truly and monumentally screwed.

May fesses up to Phil that she was just making sure he didn’t have a meltdown. The fact that she cared is erased by the fact that she knew all along what had been done to him. It’s beautifully played by Ming-Na Wen. It’s clear her first and only priority was to look after her friend, but Phil doesn’t want to hear it.

Simmons, meanwhile, is holed up with Tripp. The show is working way too hard to get me to believe that he’s a bad guy. It’s so ham-handed it actually sort of annoys me. There was a little mystery to him that was great, wherein it was hard to tell if he was a Clairvoyant devotee or just a dude with a crush. This episode they just went way overboard trying to convince us he was a bad guy.

Anyway, Hand finds them and gives them a choice—cake join Hydra or death. But it’s all just a test of loyalty. I told you Hand was way too incompetent to be a double-agent. However, because she is incompetent she thinks Coulson works for HYDRA.

She rides the Little Bus to work, is all I’m saying.

Team Coulson heads off to wrest Simmons from her clutches. May is allowed to come along, but she is made to stay in handcuffs. I guess Phil was out of his anti-naughtiness bracelets. Naturally, being cuffed isn’t enough to slow down the unstoppable Melinda May.

Skye and Ward have to take out the Hub’s systems. And so naturally something horrifying happens....

Not since Paris and Helen of Troy has there been a couple people were less interested in seeing together. It’s sort of like a train wreck, and one you saw coming way in advance and told the conductor to change tracks but he wouldn’t listen.

Ugh.

Ward makes a big show of having to take out twelve guys, when he took out at least that many when he stormed Quinn’s villa. Nevertheless, he prepares to go to his doom. Oh, if only....

Team Coulson uses the oldest trick in the book to gain access to a control room. But since these are not the world’s finest agents or anything.... Oh, wait.... It’s just, you know, when Joss Whedon himself made fun of this ruse way back in Titan A.E. it’s even more painful to have it trotted out.

Garret slips up and reveals that he is in fact the Clairvoyant. Can’t say I saw that coming. I suspected he worked for the Clairvoyant, but didn’t think it was him. He takes our heroes captive and chit chats with Phil about how evil he is and how he liked the HYDRA Facebook page and how he kicks puppies and whatnot.

“This is me being honest, Phil.”

“No, John, this is you being a psychopath.”

Garret plans to kill Coulson and May, but Fitz gets the “good” news that he is being drafted. OMG, my sweet Leo. He’s so scared he’s crying, even as he quietly mutters his defiance. Someone needs to cuddle him STAT.

Just as the bullets are about to start flying, Skye’s bomb goes off. Mayhem ensues; Phil and John tussle, May kicks ass and poor Leo hides under a desk. Yet, even though he is terrified, he still takes an opportunity to blow a bad guy away.

Hand shows up (too late to help, of course, because she’s Hand) and says she heard everything while she was trying to remember how to tie her shoes. So she no longer plans to kill Coulson.

The day is saved, sort of. S.H.I.E.L.D. is basically in ruins. HYDRA has taken over whole operational centers. No one knows if Cap is alive or dead. And worst of all, Hand is one of the two last high ranking agents, so they’re really screwed.

Ward asks to go along on the ride to the fridge to lock up Garret. “You know, we were buds for so long, I just want to make sure he’s punished. This is in no way a really thin excuse to get on that plane to betray you.”

I really, really hope that after an agency-wide revolt, Coulson and Hand didn’t miss that really lame and clumsy excuse of Ward’s. Coulson’s expression gives me hope. But Hand is, you know, Hand.

Also suspicious is Hand telling Ward, “Hey, would you like to kill this bound and unarmed prisoner just for giggles?”

It didn’t make sense. I am hoping this was all a set up to get Ward inside HYDRA. Or, at the very least, I hope they realized he had been compromised and took steps. But if this is the end of Agent Hand, it’s sort of appropriate—death from her own idiocy.

The show has really come together. It’s still not as good as it could be, but I am overall really excited about the story and the way it’s weaving into the movies. What do you guys think?

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