Aftershocks: Agents of Shield Returns to Mourn Tripp and Meet a New Raina

And we’re back! Marvel’s Agents of Shield returned with a bang this week, to our screens and our hearts, and while I for one was a definite fan of Agent Peggy Carter, Jarvis, Sousa and the gang at the SSR, I’m so very happy to have my favorite crime fighting/mystery solving group back on TV! Please note that if you’ve not watched the most recent episode, I’d probably recommend that you give this review a miss, as there are quite a few spoilers in the text below.

With the shocking mid-season finale and the death of Tripp, plus the transformation of Skye and Raina in the Terrigen Mists down in the temple under the city, there were many questions and many unanswered fan theories and suppositions left outstanding and in the air. Some of these were definitively answered in Aftershocks, but as with all good TV we’re probably left with just as many questions at the end of this episode as we started with, if not more.

Skye, Raina and a team without Tripp

I guess really quickly we should talk about the fact that Skye, who we now know is Daisy Johnson (and anybody who reads the comics knows she’s headed for Quake), has become an Inhuman after passing through the Terrigen Mists, and in addition to her, Raina has definitely been transformed into something new as well. There were questions about Tripp’s possible survival, which I think have been pretty conclusively put to bed (although who really knows … we’ve seen heroes and villains come back from the dead many times before, Coulson of course being a prime example), and quite a few outstanding questions about what Raina becomes, as her transformation seems to be a lot more physical in nature than Skye’s.

We do see that Simmons has a very negative reaction to the whole idea of transformation, as she speaks quite harshly about all of the other people with powers in this universe and the impact they’ve had on normal humans. We also see that Fitz is still struggling with his brain injury after Ward dropped them both into the ocean, back when he truly turned to the dark side and HYDRA. The other members of the team are all somewhat shattered by the death of Tripp, and they each deal with it in a manner suited to their characters, and May (as expected) really lets her frustrations out.

One thing I really liked in this episode (and I wasn’t the only one glad to have the show back on form) is that they didn’t gloss over Tripp’s death. They addressed it head on, and they also addressed the impact that losing a loved partner, friend and colleague has on the survivors too. It was very nice to see them hold a mini wake for him at the end of the episode, where they all acknowledge that Tripp was the laughter in their lives. And while Coulson uses this as motivation for the team, is this any different to what Fury did in the Avengers when Coulson himself died? Another thing that really did strike me is the change in Raina herself. I mean, for a person who took such care over her appearance it was quite ironic what they did to her, and as transformations go it was extremely drastic.

Who is Raina now?

Unfortunately, as we didn’t get a specific answer as to who she could be, there’s still much speculation, and she’s the one who seems to have come off worst from the Mists. One possible candidate is the Inhuman character known as Naja, who has appeared in several Inhuman comic books. Naja is one of the new Inhumans who underwent Terrigenesis after Black Bolt set off the Terrigen bomb in Infinity. There are some distinctive body changes that could absolutely support this, but I’m very curious whether the transformation takes into account the character of an individual (similar to the sorting hat from Harry Potter) or whether the eventual change is completely random?

Another possibility is the character known as Quills. However, as she’s a mutant and quite possibly already on the Fox list of characters Marvel can’t use on screen, they probably can’t touch her, and I’d give this the least likelihood of success. If we do go by looks alone though, I have to say that there’s a lot there to match and she looks very similar.

Another character she could possibly be, although in this case he’s a male, is the character known as Jolen. Jolen developed a special affinity with plants after passing through the Terrigen Mists and became able to cultivate them and grow them by linking to them. We already know that Raina has a great love of flowers, as she’s shown over the course of the last two seasons, and with her new look, which is very “thorny”, this one personally has a significant likelihood of coming to pass in my book, although they’d obviously have to change the character from male to female. However this does presuppose that a person’s likes and dislikes shape their powers, which might be completely bogus.

So, long story short, I guess we still don’t really know who she is for sure (which is somewhat frustrating). They’ve also introduced us to a couple of other Inhumans, Skye’s mom again and the eyeless man we all thought was Reader but who seems to be some sort of Nightcrawler clone, and I think we can safely say that Tigra is not one of the options. I’m very curious to see who she actually ends up being.

Jabe the Tree, and Skye keeping secrets

One thing I do have to say though, in terms of the actual look, she struck me very much as the character Jabe the Tree from the second episode of the resurgent Doctor Who, when Christopher Eccleston takes Rose Tyler on her first trip to watch the Sun expand and destroy the Earth. On that observation space station all of the great and the good gather for a literal once in a lifetime event, and one of the key characters is a plant who’s very much a person … in terms of the overall look, she bears quite a few similarities to Raina, and the plant link in my mind gives even more weight to the Jolen theory.

With Skye as a modified human too, we get a very brief glimpse of her powers and also an understanding of the fear she herself feels about the changes that have happened to her. Now this is possibly something I might be on my own about (they’ve definitely taken a more humane view of things), but if I’d all of a sudden got superpowers AND was a secret agent with a team that liked and trusted me, I probably would have been a bit more upfront with them, as I’d think they’d all recognize the potential benefit that someone with powers could bring to the group.

I mean, over the course of just a couple of seasons we’ve seen the Absorbing Man, Sif and Deathlok, and now Raina’s transformation too, so who knows what else is out there. I would think having an ace in the hole like Skye would be an obvious benefit and something extremely positive. However, I realize I’m probably being a bit too black and white, as they’ve taken the view that the transformation itself, and the impact it has on Skye as a person, is the bigger deal, which I’m probably discounting unfairly.

What didn’t work?

One thing I probably wasn’t too keen on was the obvious stupidity shown by Bakshi. I mean, the whole SHIELD sting operation was an obvious ploy, and him immediately going and speaking to the other HYDRA leaders, who then turn on each other, wasn’t really what I would’ve expected from a group so devious and cutthroat. They hid literally in plain sight for decades and were cut down in one episode?? I did like the fact that they definitely weren’t taking prisoners when they took the shot, and Coulson’s actions, while somewhat vindictive, were I think valid. One point I probably should make though is that these actions shouldn’t be because of Tripp’s death, but rather they should be standard operating procedure when dealing with HYDRA, as otherwise SHIELD will never win. I know it’s a bit harsh, but I think we’ve seen in the MCU that they aren’t afraid to make those hard decisions, and while I’m not in any way advocating collateral damage, I think targeted eliminations make perfect sense.

Skye’s mom, teacher of Inhumans

Another thing I didn’t really like was Skye’s mom … her death in the previous episodes was somewhat touching and heartfelt. However, seeing her now as the trainer for Inhumans leaves a couple of major questions in my mind …

• How was she captured? If she’s trained all these Inhumans as it’s implied, shouldn’t she have been protected? She obviously cares for her charges and they seem to return her affection. Gordon appears in the opening scene as a young man who’s recently undergone Terrigenesis and is struggling with his new Nightcrawler-esque teleportation powers … and as we learn from the conversation between Skye’s mother (Jiaying) and the village elder, she’s managed to train many others thanks to her longevity.
• Where is the secret base she did the training in, and why wasn’t she there instead of the “village” she was taken from?

I’m assuming she was exiled from the Inhumans for some reason, perhaps her love for Kyle MacLachlan … Skye’s dad? … and as such no longer had access to her students and resources? I think it’s an unnecessary detail that doesn’t really add anything to the story though, but perhaps that’s just me.

Overall thoughts

It’s always good to get some AOS happening, and while I definitely miss Peggy Carter and her shenanigans (and I have to admit the overall look and feel of that universe), I’m extremely happy to see what’s going on with Coulson and the gang and how that ties into the larger MCU. A lot of people say AOS is a lot “greyer” than the vibrant colours in Agent Carter and other shows like Arrow and Flash, and I’d agree, but to some extent I think that’s very much a sign of the times. My wife says my wardrobe consists exclusively of blues, blacks and greys and I expect I’m not an exception in this!

Talking about the transformations themselves, how Skye and Raina looked and coped with each of them was somewhat eye opening. Skye unfortunately looked like she was acting, which was a pity … perhaps if she’d not played it as such a negative it would have been better. But Raina … wow … you could feel her pain and anguish and see why she wanted to kill herself to escape it. Raina truly has become Inhuman, all that beauty she took such care over is gone, and in its place is leathery skin, exaggerated features and thorns all over her body. She says her insides feel like gravel and she cuts herself every time she moves, and you believe her.

Was it a perfect episode … No, I guess it wasn’t … it was pretty good though, and one of the better ones for sure. I expect it was positively colored by how much I wanted to see the show back, and that definitely had an impact on how I saw it, but they addressed quite a few things and I was very glad to see they weren’t afraid to raise the stakes when taking on HYDRA.

Should Skye have told the team about her powers straight away, or was she right to keep it to herself for now? Tell me in the comments.