Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01 E10: The Bridge

Supposedly this is the one. The producers are saying that tonight’s “The Bridge” is the episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” that puts it all together, all the subplots that have been running throughout start to make sense. Did they pull it off? We’ll see tonight as Agent Coulson recruits Mike Peterson, from the series pilot, to take on the evil mystery of Centipede. Join me, after the jump, for my thoughts on “The Bridge,” the show’s mid-season finale.

Jail Break

We open on a prison break perpetrated by Centipede wearing super soldiers. They’re there to rescue one man, a peculiar inmate who commands respect in the prison and demands his liberators call him sir. Who could this dainty yet intimidating man be?

Edison Po, we’ve seen him before with ‘the girl in the flower dress,’ Raina. He’s a former Marine with some sort of link obviously to the folks behind Centipede (not a good name, I know I keep thinking of the old school videogame). He also seems to be something of a sociopath.

Fire with Fire

Cut to The Bus, with Coulson and Skye discussing her deadbeat mom, while collects the gang for a briefing. Next we have May and Ward training, beating the hell out of each other in the cargo bay. Am I the only one whose first thought was foreplay?

The briefing is of course about Po, a dangerous sociopath in the company of Centipede super-soldiers is a high priority for SHIELD. To fight fire with fire, Coulson wants to recruit Mike Peterson, played by J. August Richards, from the pilot. As Coulson approaches him on the training field after pushing a bulldozer, Mike has the best line, “Did I beat Captain America’s time?”

Hard Feelings

I did not care for the attitude of the agents when Mike comes on board The Bus. It’s almost childish. No one trusts him, everyone remembers how he was a homicidal time bomb. What a bunch of babies, and babies with short memories! How many times has Skye double crossed them, and may yet again, and they haven’t tossed her out yet.

Mike seems have a good attitude however, and seems to have his head on straight now. The rest of the crew seem to get over it quickly, let’s hope it stays that way. I dislike the two-faced children stuff. And, I’m glad Mike’s here, I’m looking forward to some super-action.

Talk Talk

Coulson and Ward have some guy talk in the Lola while looking for one of the super-soldiers. What begins as chatting about women, and Coulson possibly hinting he knows about Ward and May returns to the big question we have all had since before this show was on the air – how did Coulson survive the Avengers movie?

Meanwhile there’s girl talk back on The Bus, but one sided. Skye pesters May to help her find her mom, but is deflected. It appears May and Coulson have conspired to keep the info from her. Here’s a scary thought – could May be Skye’s mom?

Connecting the Dots

The chatter turns to business as there’s prison footage of Raina visiting Po before the breakout. Mike confirms that it was Raina who recruited him into the Centipede program. From the footage they can decipher the weird phrase Po said at the end of the other episode, “The Clairvoyant does not like to be touched.”

That phrase is bandied about again when we cut to Raina and Po making their next move. Who is the Clairvoyant? Regardless, with their super-soldiers depleted and on the run from SHIELD, Po maintains they should make a stand. They should put a stop to Coulson and his Agents.

Powers

Again, there is this annoying thing that SHIELD has with psychic powers. They maintain they don’t exist, for the second time. This position just seems ridiculous in a world where gods walk the earth. Bonus points go to Skye for countering with “So is Thor.” when Coulson says psychic powers are a myth.

For all of you comics fans who have been clamoring for super-powered action, here you go. Mike and the agents take on not one, not two, but three super-soldiers. And yeah, the bad guys kick the crap outta our guys. But, another dot gets connected. The super-soldiers have the same eye technology from “Eye Spy,” so yeah, Centipede was behind that too.

The Bridge

The episode earns its name when Centipede kidnaps Mike’s estranged son. After a pep talk from Coulson, who is turning out to more father to the team than May has been mother (well, she’s a different kind of mutha, but…), Mike knows what he has to do. The switch is to be made on a bridge. There is a real switch however. The team thinks the deal is to exchange Mike for his son, because Mike’s body has the tech Centipede needs to stabilize their soldiers… but the deal is really, Mike’s son for… Coulson.

Yeah, apparently Centipede has learned something vital (pardon the pun) about Agent Coulson’s resurrection, and they want that secret, no matter how afraid he is of it, or what he does or doesn’t know. This places my bets back on Coulson being a LMD, after all, what self-respecting evil organization wouldn’t want a Life Model Decoy, right?

The Cliffhanger

This is the last episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” for the year, and as the mid-season finale it is its duty to end on a hell of a cliffhanger, and man, does it ever. The team is not only shattered, but not getting along all that well, add into that that their leader has been kidnapped and things just get worse. Is Mike really dead? Is Agent Ward dead? And how did Agent Coulson come back from the dead. Those are just a few of the questions we’ll have to wait for. “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” returns January 7, 2014, as do these reviews. See you then!