Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ‘The Magical Places’

Walking away from last month’s mid-season finale, I found myself still very much disappointed in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  The show felt like it had little focus, instead preferring to rely on bite-sized chunks to whet the appetites of its viewers.  Put together by Joss Whedon, most fans that know the man’s style expected something a bit more.  Unfortunately, none of the characters really shined forth, meaning that, aside from the super hero-related stories, there was nothing to keep me watching.  Yet still I came back, trying one last time to see if maybe, just maybe, S.H.I.E.L.D. would gain momentum and become the show I hoped it would be.  As it turns out, the mid-season premiere was pretty decent.  I would even venture to say it is one of the best episodes they’ve done so far.

The story begins with Agent Coulson in the hands of the enemy, Project Centipede, and the rest of the crew is left without a leader.  So in comes Victoria Hand once again, ready to steer the team in the right direction - or not.  She kicks Skye off the team and basically tells everyone else to stop thinking for themselves (typical hard-ball, new boss type stuff) and they, naturally, do the opposite.  So while Hand has S.H.I.E.L.D. teams all over the world, the proper stars of the show track his position to a lonely town in the desert.

In the meanwhile, Coulson is tormented by Edison Po, the guy that got broken out of prison in the last episode.  But apparently Po isn’t that important after all, because he gets offed by his superior - the mysterious Clairvoyant - and then flower-dress Raina is put in charge.  Using a fancy machine, she attempts to probe Coulson’s mind (with his help) and find out the secret behind Tahiti, the “Magical Place”.  Partially successful, Coulson discovers more than a few unpleasant truths about his resurrection and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s part in it.  Oh, and it turns out that Mike is still alive and has one of those explodey things in his eye.  Sucks to be him!

Well, I have to say that I’m impressed that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going a darker route.  The truth of Coulson’s past is screwed up and is a lot more intriguing than pretty much everything they’ve done with the show thus far.  I was waiting around for the show to get more serious, to pass on the whole serialized, week-to-week format and bring out the big guns.  It looks like they may be doing just that.

My biggest issue was the presence of Po.  Or rather his immediate absence.  After making such a big deal about bringing him in last episode, why just toss him to the side?  My only reasoning is that the lukewarm reviews the show has been receiving caused some sort of a rewrite and so they ended up writing the guy out.  Otherwise, it was all just a huge waste of time.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Coulson’s character unfolds during the rest of the season.  Hopefully they can, much as Arrow did, finally find their footing and build some momentum.  And with the way the preview for next week’s episode, ‘Seeds’ looks, they may be doing just that.  Cross your fingers, S.H.I.E.L.D. fans.

Photo Credits -

The Magical Place courtesy of screened.com