Simmons on thin ice in the Hydra's lair - Review of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D S1E3 'Making Friends and Influencing People'

After two episodes of vaguely hinting at Simmons' departure from the team we finally get to see what has happened to her. She is currently undercover as a scientist working at one of Hydra's bases of operation. With a sweet and honest girl like her undercover, issues seems indeed unavoidable! 

The episode gives us a nice pace in the narrative while switching between the team and Simmons' life undecover at Hydra. It's nice to see one of the minor characters taking the center stage for once, especially when Skye and Mai seems to steal the show often when it comes to the women of the serie. 

But it is through Simmons that the team learns that Hydra has set their eyes on Donnie Gill, who by an accident at the S-H.I.E.L.D Academy last season got turned into a "gifted human", who now has the ability to control ice. He has been trying to lay low, but is now a target. 

This episode also saw another Ward/Skye "interrogation" if you will. This time Ward conveniently tells Skye about Hydra's brain washing program, but at the same time he reveals that all he did was out of loyalty to Garrett, and not to Hydra. This poses an interesting dilemma for the show, as I am now split on wether or not we will see a Ward redemption story or not. The fact that he was not brainwashed shows that he was acting out of his own free will, and thereby nearly killing Fitz and Simmons, so he cannot be excused as an innocent man, but at the same time, it would feel weird to get him back on the team just like that, so I think there are 2 likely outcomes: 

1. He heroically sacrifises himself in order to safe Skye and thereby dies as a hero .
2. He manages to escape in the middle of a confused situation, and afterwards he helps the team from afar.

Either way, there is a potential for a lot of things with Ward still in their custody. 

The way this episode was handled with both S.H.I.E.L.D and Hydra chasing after Donnie on an abandoned ship, really pushed the intensity of Simmons' situation, as she was tasked to go with Hydra to catch Donnie to test her loyalty. She manages to keep her cover, and convinces them of her compliance. 

After a lot of training with Mai, Skye manages to take out Donnie (or seemingly doing so) with a sniper-riffle, right after Hydra had reactivates his dormant brain-washing. and he falls overboard. But as we have seen many times before on the show, you have to make sure the persons are actually dead. But with this being a return of Donnie Gill, I highly doubt he will return. 

But the absolutely best moment for me was again a scene with Fitz, as he seems to be stealing the show this season so far. His suspiciousness towards the other leads him to find out that they have been keeping Ward locked up at their base. This being the first time Fitz has seen Ward since he tried to kill them, Fitz takes all of Wards oxygen away, as to show what he did to him. This moment of utter frustration really showcases Fitz fragile state of mind, and he only reactivates the oxygen after Ward tells him about the brain washing program. 

It is at the end revealed that despite the failure of the mission, Whitehall decides to promote Simmons, and we as audience gets a slight chill at the fact, that we might see her going through the brain wash. 

I had a few issues with this episode, but it mainly focused around the "filler time". The constant need for Skye to check her puls to check her composure while in the field, just to have it go out of control when Ward at the end tells her about her father still being alive. Also the training scenes with Skye and Mai was also a bit dragged out in my opinion. 

And speaking of Mai, where is the obligatory "Mai kicks all sorts of ass scene", it has quickly become one of my absolute favorite things about the show, so I feel kinda cheated! 

Coulson also seemed to have taken a step back in this episode, but I enjoyed his scene with Simmons in the begining, when he says: "Don't you think I wouldn't find out" making us believe that it was not an undercover, but that Simmons really had betrayed them, only to find out that he was refering the the insides of her fridge. 

Good stuff once again, expect the next episode to be reviewed in a few days, I have been delayed because of mid-term breaks, and I had made the break family time. But I will get back on track! 

Popcorntroller out!