Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “T.A.H.I.T.I.” 

One of the unfortunate results of the month-long break imposed on Agents of SHIELD by the Olympics and whatever else, is that I, hand to God, had completely forgotten that Skye had been shot. That? Is not good.

Now, in my defense, had it been, say, Simmons who had been gut-shot by Quinn and was hovering between life and death, I’d be lighting candles in a homemade shrine and preparing to rend my yoga pants and second-favorite hoodie out of grief, because I love Simmons like I love puppies and mojitos.

Which is probably why it rang a little false to me when Coulson told the doctor who had just informed him of Skye’s imminent passing, “We’re her family.” While it is certainly in Joss Whedon’s wheelhouse to take a rag-tag little group of individuals and have them gel into a sort of dysfunctional little family unit, that sort of thing takes time, or more distinctive personalities.

Simply telling us that the group is a family isn’t enough. We haven’t seen enough non-SHIELD related interaction between the principals for me to buy that. When did all this family bonding go on? Was there a trip to Disneyland that I missed? The Twins are sweet and they’d love anyone who was brought in and didn’t bully them. Coulson has that weird parental thing going on with Skye that I don’t quite understand, but, ok, I’ll buy it. But Ward and May are planks of wood. If they’re a family, it’s of the, “Go to the shed and get me the switch, boy. You know what you done,” variety.

In the “anything for family” sentiment, Coulson decides to take Skye to the facility where he was ‘treated’ (where men and women of science broke the laws of God and man) so she can suffer just the way he did when he was actively begging to die? Thanks, Dad! I get that he was dead. Really dead. Heart ripped asunder dead, and Skye is simply hovering that fine line between life and death, but come on, this is some moral grey area we’re working in.

The best part of this decision is that it brings the wonderful Bill Paxton (Big Love) as Agent John Garret into our lives (If you haven’t yet seen Tombstone, go, do it now. You’ll thank me). Garret is dispatched to retrieve Quinn when Coulson ignores a direct order to bring him in. I don’t care why he’s there, as long as he sticks around.

Garret is surprisingly amenable to leaving Quinn in Coulson’s custody, after he hears that Quinn shot Skye. I think he just wanted to beat the guy senseless and didn’t really care where he got to do it, as long as it got done.

Turns out I was wrong when I said I thought Quinn shot Skye to make Coulson suffer, but I was right when I said he gut-shot her so she wouldn’t die right away (go me!). The Clairvoyant, whom/whatever that is, aside from something I’m officially sick of, can’t see what happened to Coulson (because he was dead?) so it ordered Quinn to shoot Skye, knowing Coulson would lead it right to where he was treated, then the Clairvoyant would have the secret of bringing things back from the dead. Because that’s something you want in a Super-Villain. But, you know, it’s for family.

There’s a pretty high cost to saving Skye’s life, or bringing her back from the brink of death, or whatever it is that happens after you resuscitate someone half a dozen times then inject her with a mystery drug. Two men were killed at the non-SHIELD facility where the Twins discovered Coulson had been treated, and it was all considered just the price of doing business.

The facility itself is now buried under hundreds of feet of rock and rubble, after the team had at least the foresight to destroy it, so anything useful to the Clairvoyant is now dust.

Included in that pile of rock is the big, blue, half alien (I think it’s alien) floating in a container and having massive amounts of the same drug given to Coulson, and now Skye, pumped into its body. And when I say, ‘half alien,’ I don’t mean like Spock. I mean ‘half’, like only a torso. It’s as if they were trying to grow the rest of him, whomever was in charge of the project named T.A.H.I.T.I. (The Alien Hybrid In Turkey Initiative? That’s all I got. The soldiers at the facility mentioned Istanbul, so…)

And now that same drug is in Skye, who is an 084, so who knows how it’s going to affect her. You get the idea that thought ran through Coulson’s mind as he tried to stop Simmons from giving her the drug. It has to do something, or else that whole exercise was just pointless, and I don’t want it to be pointless. Welcome to the family, New Skye. Try not to get shot again.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC.