TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “The Only Light in the Darkness”
By: Brandon Wolfe
I want to like ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Honest, I really do. For as much fun as mocking its ineptitude has consistently been, I still find myself rooting for it to turn it all around. I don’t know how it could possibly do that at this point without a top-to-bottom shakeup, but I see that Marvel logo at the beginning and that Mutant Enemy logo at the end and I want to believe that the stuff sandwiched in between could surprise us all at a moment’s notice and become the show we wanted and expected it to be. But “The Only Light in the Darkness” is not the episode where that happens.
Ward is back with the group at Providence and informs Coulson of the inmates set free from the Fridge by Garrett, whom Ward lies and claims to have killed. One of the more notorious of those criminals is Marcus Daniels (known as Blackout in the comics, though no one calls him that here, because this show is no fun), a man cursed with the ability to absorb energy and harness it as a weapon. Coulson believes the onus is on the team to stop Daniels before he kills innocent people, but Providence’s caretaker, Eric Koenig (still played by the only light in this show’s talent darkness, Patton Oswalt), does not fully trust the non-Coulson members of the team and subjects them to an advanced lie detector test designed by Nick Fury to be foolproof. This is a concern for Ward, but he manages to pass the test due to carefully worded answers and a large needle buried in his thumb.
With everyone cleared by Koenig, Coulson and the team (minus Ward and Skye, who stay behind) set out to Portland, under the assumption that Daniels will resume his pursuit of a woman named Audrey Nathan (played by the patron saint of Joss Whedon-related projects, Amy Acker) whom he stalked for years until he was apprehended by Coulson himself. We learn that Audrey is none other than the cellist mentioned in ‘The Avengers’ as the object of Coulson’s affections. She believes him to still be dead, and Coulson, who seems to enjoy castigating himself over things for no real reason on this show, is inclined to let her continue believing this. After an attempt to nab Daniels using energy-radiating devices created by Fitz fails, due to Daniels’ admission that his incarceration at the Fridge cultivated his powers rather than suppressing them, the team intercepts Audrey and comes up with a plan to draw Daniels out using her as bait. Fitz comes up with a more advanced weapon to overload Daniels with energy, using technology designed, we’re told, by Bruce Banner. This does prove to be successful, and in a scene that’s way too visually reminiscent of ‘Ghostbusters’ to have been a coincidence, the team manages to successfully bust Daniels into a cloud of nothingness.
Back at Providence, Skye manages to hack into NSA satellites to use for surveillance of the Fridge escapees, and she also has a heart-to-heart with Ward filled with dreary dialogue about their feelings toward one another. Brett Dalton and Chloe Bennet are such lifeless actors that this scene is a chore to get through, but the end result is that Skye has started to feel closer to Ward than ever, which is a dramatically perfect time for her to find Koenig’s dead body and figure out that Ward is not what he seems. And ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s halfhearted disposal of Patton Oswalt once again proves that this is a show where boring always triumphs over entertaining. Ward then insists that Skye come with him on the Bus immediately to rescue the team, which she agrees to do even though she now knows what he’s capable of. Maybe she has a plan or whatever. Who knows. Is it next Tuesday yet??
Meanwhile everyone’s favorite granite statue, Agent May, is still deemed untrustworthy by Coulson, prompting her to leave the team. On the road, she is picked up by her mom, of all people, another impassive scowl-face whom we learn is also a retired agent. The big takeaway from this scene is that Mother May provides May with the contact information for Maria Hill, who will be appearing in the final few episodes of the season and will give Cobie Smulders a shot at her second unsatisfying finale of the spring.
“The Only Light in the Darkness” gives the strong indication that ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ isn’t really going to be helped along by the world-changing events of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ as one might have figured it would. Here was an opportunity handed to the show, if not forced upon it, to reinvent itself, and here the show is, telling the same bland supervillain-of-the-week story that it constantly trudged through last fall. The show keeps making references to S.H.I.E.L.D. having fallen, but operationally, Coulson’s team is still functioning as it always has, with the same resources that have always been available to them. The events of the film, rather than acting as a catalyst to prod the show to life, are just background noise as the show keeps doing what it always has done in the forefront.
One thing I noticed this week is that the show is making more references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe lately than ever before, which is not surprising, given that there’s a movie out right now, nor, in theory, unwelcome. But the manner in which it does this feels so forced and shoehorned in. In addition to the Banner reference mentioned above, when the “orientation” lie detector machine is described, we are told that it was designed so that “not even Romanoff” could beat it, and Skye also takes an awkward dig at Koenig by comparing him sarcastically to Steve Rogers. Finding organic ways of peppering references to the films into the series is certainly encouraged, but whenever the show attempts this, it comes off ham-handed and clumsy, like it’s checking “make nerds happy” boxes at random. I suppose this could also be chalked up the difficulty inherent to reconciling the films, which are good, with the series, which, well, you know.
Now we’re down to the final three episodes of the season, and the last remaining shot for ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ to pull something out and make us care about it. Pulling in Smulders and Jackson for guest stints can’t hurt, but guest stars are a Band-Aid. The show needs to function without outside assistance, and I fear the parts are too broken for the sum to rise up. I don’t expect there will be light at the end of this disastrous first season, only darkness.
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