Last week, I mentioned that it looked like the next episode would be a return to form: the return of light, fast and often funny episodes of Coulson and the team tracking down this week’s MacGuffin before someone worse gets to it first, and I was not disappointed. The team find themselves in South Beach, where a painting that survived a church fire, dubbed the “miracle painting,” is being sold at a charity auction. What makes the painting special is the alien language carved into the back of the painting, the same language John Garrett started writing at the end of season one and Director Coulson is now doing the same. He and Agent May are going undercover to retrieve the painting as a married couple, but their cover is immediately blown by the appearance of General Talbot, who is still hot on their trail. The entire sequence is a blast to watch, partly due to the rapport between Clark Gregg and Ming Na Wen, and partly due to how the writers poke fun at how espionage flicks like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, True Lies and several of the James Bond movies include this predictable cliché in their movies.
Like most spy thrillers that include this sequence, you know that the entire operation will go tits up, and this is no exception: the pair quickly realizes that this was a trap set by Hydra, and Agent May gets knocked out and kidnapped by one of their agents, having a lookalike take her place by using a high-tech mask to conceal her identity, sabotage the Bus and ensnare Coulson to work out what the alien language means. Why yes, they’re also using those deceptive facial and vocal masks in the Mission: Impossible movies as a plot point thought the episode. Despite blatantly borrowing that gimmick from that particular spy franchise, the show does do something extremely clever and entertaining with faking one’s identity: have the fake and the real person duke it out in a fight to prove who’s better; in this case, who’s the better, more skilled Agent May. It’s a wonderful action sequence that’s very fun to watch, and another highlight of this week’s episode. The entire episode itself is something I was hoping Agents wouldn’t forget: a sense of self-awareness about the proceedings.
That isn’t to say the episode doesn’t continue its darker, mature storyline. Coulson is worried that the serum used to bring him back from the dead will eventually drive him insane, the same way it did Garrett, and asks May to take him out if it ever comes to that point. For an entire season, we’ve seen Ming Na’s Agent May as this kick ass and take names kind of agent who keeps her secrets close to the chest, so to see her being put in this position of vulnerability, where she is being ordered to kill her closest ally for the good of all is a touching reveal of her barriers beginning to crumble.
Despite being told by the Director that Simmons left to infiltrate Hydra, Fitz is still seeing and talking to this ghost-like partner of his as a way to deal with his condition and feel like she’s still there with him, alienating himself from the makeup of the new team in the process. As in the previous week, Caestecker does a wonderful job conveying Fitz’s struggle to return to the person he was, adapt to a new group of people on the team and find his place without his best friend. Like watching a dazzling waltz between two lovers, this week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. blends together the fun and playful take on the spy genre from Season 1, with the seriousness and character-focused storyline in Season 2 to form this season’s most entertaining episode thus far.