Episode Title: "O-8-4"
Episode Grade: C+
Shows focusing on the adventures of a team always feature the group conflict episode. In formulaic procedurals with standalone stories, these episodes tend to exist so that the audience gets a little twist and a look at something different. The fight is resolved at the end of the hour and it's forgotten by the start of the next.
In shows with serialized ambitions and interests in exploring characters, the group conflict episode is a chance to examine the dynamics of the team and the personalities of those involved. The conflicts can last longer, and the consequences can resonate more deeply.
It's obviously too early to say where "O-8-4" fits in. But its position within the show's run (quite early) and its tone (the episode ends with a round of back-slapping and knowing glances) all indicate that the conflicts of this episode will stay in this episode. The conflicts explored here are only moderately interesting, the plot is shrug-inducing and much of the wit that defined the pilot is missing here.
"O-8-4" is a reasonably entertaining hour of television, and there are some nice moments and performances here. But this is a trifling and insubstantial episode that leaves no lasting impression, even with Samuel L. Jackson's much-hinted-at pre-credits cameo.
So, what happens tonight? Agent Coulson and his ragtag team are called to Peru to retrieve a dangerous artifact. They do so, but only after a firefight with some rebels in which they are aided by the Peruvian army and Camilla Reyes, an old friend of Coulson's. Agent Beige Drywall (Brett Dalton) is pissed about something or other. Reyes and the Peruvians, brought on board SHIELD's fancy plane in order to escape the fight, betray Coulson in order to retrieve the artifact. The team works together to defeat the bad guys. They shoot the artifact, which is a weapon built by German scientist refugees from the Hydra organization we saw in Captain America, into the sun. The end. Oh, and Skye is still communicating with Rising Tide. The end. Oh, and Samuel L. Jackson. The end.
It's not that any of this is bad, really, but it's just workmanlike, uninspired and forced. Part of the reason the conflict here falls flat is that it doesn't seem to be based on anything. Agent Drywall (his name is actually Ward), Skye, Melinda May (a delightfully taciturn and no-nonsense Ming-Na Wen) and the science team of Fitz and Simmons (good lord) return from their firefight and immediately get to bickering.
Thing is, there's no reason for it. They retrieved the artifact. Every member of the team survived. No one even got hurt. And yet Ward starts complaining about being stuck with unprepared non-combatants, while the scientists take shots at Ward that seem rather ungrateful considering he protected them from a bunch of guys with guns.
Coulson even points out that nothing really went wrong, but that observation is lost on his team, who continue fighting. At no point are the stakes to this conflict really made clear. Ward mumbles something about being trained to eliminate obstacles and finding it awkward to work with a team, but Dalton isn't nearly compelling enough to sell any of this.
A little better is Skye's sense of helplessness and open self-doubt. Chloe Bennet does a reasonably solid job of conveying the emotions one must feel at being thrust into a group of hyper-trained, hyper-educated professionals who are used to dealing with superheroes. The character is constantly aware of being in the way, of an apparent lack of worthiness in the presence of all the chaos swirling around her.
But taken as a whole, we're too early in the show's run for any of this to have much meaning or impact. We don't know these characters very well, and while some of what we know is interesting enough, plenty of it us thoroughly uninteresting. The show needs to give me a reason to consider Ward a human being and not a fleshy piece of furniture before I actually care about his feelings toward those who lack his training or skills.
It's probably unfair to read too much into this episode or worry about what it augurs for the rest of the show. You have a give a show a chance to breathe, and that entails watching a few awkward gasps.
Notes
- Hard not to think about the plot to The Avengers, which also featured a heavy emphasis on team conflict, while watching this episode.
- With the entire team bundled into a truck, fleeing the firefight, Dr. Fitz points out that the artifact is unstable and over-heating. Simmons says, "I can roll down a window!" *gunshots* "Do not roll down your window!"
- "Do you need anything else before I check in on the device fueled by evil sitting in our cargo hold?"
- Coulson reminds Ward that he speaks six languages (riiiight) and Fitz and Simmons that they have doctorates in "fields I can't even pronounce," tells them to pull it together and walks out. Skye quietly points out, "I'm good at stuff too."
- "So...everything that I'm against?" "Yep."
- Coulson keeps referring to Tahiti, where he supposedly spent his rehab, as a "magical place." Skye points out that it's the sixth or seventh time he's used that exact phrase.
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