SPOILER ALERT: This blog is for people watching Agents of SHIELD on Channel 4 in the UK. Don't read on if you haven't seen episode two
Click here to read Graeme's episode one blogpost
They may not have invented the concept, but the Marvel movies have perfected the "post-credits sting": addictive choc drops for fans faithful enough to sit through screeds of acknowledgements. These scenes featured surprising cameos and dangled enough common plot threads to sell the idea of a shared Marvel universe, where Tony Stark could sashay into the world of the Incredible Hulk or the Avengers could silently enjoy some post-New-York-saving shawarma.
Since it worked so well on the big screen, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that the same gimmick has been applied to Agents of SHIELD. And after the ABC network confirmed a post-credits cameo appearance in episode two to sustain the initial hype, the smart money was always going to be on Samuel L Jackson. As eye-patched Nick Fury, he technically heads up the whole SHIELD operation and watching him carpet Agent Phil Coulson for nearly destroying "the Bus" – everyone's preferred nickname for SHIELD's airborne mobile command station – was undoubtedly a thrill. Even just hearing Fury exasperatedly refer to science spods Fitz and Simmons felt like it helped establish them as "real" characters.
This, of course, all happened after the episode proper, which was technically the first field-test for Coulson's hand-picked crew of loners and outcasts: two antisocial yet lethal operatives, two science geeks and now Skye, an embedded hacker unfamiliar with all the barked military jargon, feeling essentially like a spare part. The episode title was 0-8-4 – SHIELD code for "an object of unidentified origin" – but this was really a team-building exercise in all senses, an opportunity to flesh out the relationships and dynamics hurriedly established in the pilot. And for the most part, it worked – in that by the end of the episode, the squabbling team had found some common ground. Turns out nothing clears the air like an unexpected rapid depressurisation at 30,000ft.
The 0-8-4 in question was a volatile Hydra, super-laser powered by the Tesseract, the neon-blue cosmic energy MacGuffin previously featured in both Captain America and Avengers Assemble. After retrieving it from a Peruvian temple – an action encounter with local rebels that, deliberately or not, evoked the A-Team in its jeep-flipping, arbitrary-machine-gunning heyday – the team regrouped in the relative safety of the Bus. There, they fraternised with a squad of military police led by Commandant Reyes (Leonor Varela), a lady with some tantalising history with Coulson.
Watching these former lovers reconnect over tales of espionage and memorabilia showcased perhaps Agents of SHIELD's greatest asset: Clark Gregg, who imbues Coulson with both stoicism and self-amusement. When the inevitable double-cross came, with Reyes and her lackeys hijacking the Bus in an attempt to secure the 0-8-4 for the motherland, Coulson's faith in his imprisoned team seemed genuine rather than a desperate bluff. These bickering agents of SHIELD are elevated when we see them through his eyes.
The hero fightback involved the five prickly talents each applying their skillsets – "Pieces solving a puzzle," according to Skye – and the operation even shaded in more backstory for neck-snapping ninja Melinda May. The Bus, however, took a hell of a beating, although it remained structurally sound enough to accomodate some post-0-8-4-saving beers on the boarding ramp. The heartwarming scene of backslapping and bonding was undermined at the death by the texted revelation that Skye might be an infiltrator rather than ally.
So that was episode two, which had far less hands-on involvement from Joss Whedon himself, but generally seemed to stay on course in terms of tone, garlanding the necessary exposition with gags and keeping things shuttling along at a decent clip. The trip to Peru managed to imply SHIELD's global bailiwick, even if most of the action was restricted to the more manageable interior of the Bus. Plot-wise, things perhaps still feel a little inconsequential, but there is already an emotional fuse running under the surface – the more time we get to spend hanging out with Coulson, the bigger the emotional wallop when the dark secret of his resurrection is revealed.
Notes and observations
• The cute little quadcopters introduced in the pilot look set to be recurring gadgets. Like Marvel, ABC is owned by Disney, which must make it easier to get away with naming these sensor drones after the seven dwarves.
• As Skye settled into her new SHIELD digs, a lot of visual emphasis was placed on the hula-skirted dashboard doll she brought from her hacker van. Could it be a memento from Tahiti? I hear it's a magical place.
• Simmons snapping a quick selfie of her and Fitz at the Peruvian ziggurat: very 2013.
• Did Coulson's old flame Reyes look familiar? Chilean actor Leonor Varela previously starred as a vampire ninja princess in Guillermo del Toro's Blade II, yet another property based on Marvel characters. Here she is (SPOILER) turning into dandruff in Blade's arms.
Biff! Bang! Quip-ow!
• "Imagine what she'll do with our resources." "I am. That's exactly what I'm imagining during this frown." (Agent Ward smuggles a joke into his sternness.)
• "You took a bullet?" "Ish." (Coulson downplays his return from the dead.)
• "This is my fault. I should have learned kung-fu." (Fitz feels bad about being overpowered by a Peruvian squaddie.)
• "Oh Phil, you're not even aware! Your renewed idealism, your collectibles, your airborne man-cave! Surrounding yourself with young, attractive agents! You're having a midlife crisis!" (Double-crossing Reyes offers her own recap of the show.)
• "Are you mental? I did explain in great detail what I meant, using the Queen's bloody English!" (Fitz drops some lines that sound more Misfits than Marvel.)
The SHIELD book club
After guerilla-marketing the Travis McGee series of novels in the pilot, there was another reading recommendation in episode two. Skye catches straight-arrow Agent Ward thumbing a paperback. "Hunger Games?" she asks. "Matterhorn," he replies, referring to Karl Marlantes' gruelling 2010 novel about Vietnam told from a GI's point of view.
Comics callbacks
In this episode, we learned the callsign for "the Bus" was SHIELD 616. With so many comics stories involving alternate dimensions, Marvel eventually had to create a filing system to keep track of their bulging multiverse. Earth-616 is the mainstream Marvel universe, the "real" one. Days of Future Past, the apocalyptic X-Men storyline being adapted into a 2014 movie, takes place over in Earth-811.
Meanwhile, in the real world ...
The final tally of US ratings for the Agents of SHIELD pilot – factoring in timeshifted viewing and a Thursday night repeat that actually beat the season six premiere of Parks and Recreation – topped 22 million viewers. That's good news, right?
Not entirely. Those Galactus-sized numbers meant the ratings for episode two looked disappointing at first glance, down to 8.4 million viewers watching live, a drop of 34%. Still fairly respectable though.
Channel 4 will be happy enough – with over 3.1 million viewers, Agents of SHIELD was the channel's biggest drama launch of 2013. The first episode also rolled straight into the last ever episode of The IT Crowd, another show focused on abrasive backroom staff charged with keeping things running smoothly. (By accident or design, the opening minutes of the IT Crowd were littered with Marvel references too.)
If you fancy another ad-hoc Marvel double-bill, Sky Living is screening The Blacklist on Fridays at 9pm from tonight. It's an opportunity to catch up with how oily and evil James Spader can be – useful, since he's playing mechanical baddie Ultron in the blockbusting sequel to Avengers Assemble.
What did you think of Agents of SHIELD episode two? Has the show found its feet or do you expect more turbulence ahead? Let us know below.