On last night’s episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., “Girl in the Flower Dress,” Rising Tide causes Skye some unwanted grief; Agent Coulson loses his trust in Skye; a fellow hacker betrays Skye; and a girl in a flower dress sells a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset a piping hot dream.
Copyright ABC Networks
By Tara Moore–
It’s interesting that a lot of the assets the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have on their list of potential superheroes are so quick to flip their good guy switch and turn into something devious. First it was a mad scientist who got a little too mad, and now it’s a street magician that believed a desperate tale of his name becoming one to remember–or his new name rather, “Scorch,” as he was dubbed by the girl in a flower dress. Two kidnappings so far this season, and 2 men that have tried to kill Agent Coulson and Melinda May. Anyone else notice the reoccurring theme?
What did make last night interesting though was the fact that Skye‘s motives were called into question–twice. First it was the revelation that Rising hacked the S.H.I.E.L.D. network to obtain information about a Chinese facility that apparently has some attachment to Centipede (a villain S.H.I.E.L.D. is familiar with) which Rising Tide then sold to the same pretty girl in a pretty dress. This information resulted in the manipulation, capture and further manipulation of Scorch, before Coulson and his crew could get his hands on him.
Skye proved she didn’t sell the information by tracking down who did, but it turns out her Rising Tide beau did. The second questioning of Skye’s loyalties? When she sent her boyfriend Miles Lydon (guest star Austin Nichols, One Tree Hill) a warning text that they were coming, and then got caught half naked at his place by the ruthless Melinda May. Apparently, Coulson was already concerned about her loyalties and had May follow her when they got to Austin, but the level of betrayal sprawling across his face seemed like a lot more than he was expecting.
Luckily, ABC knows its audience is always up for a good sob story, and it turns out that Skye really is committed to S.H.I.E.L.D., even though she has been lying to them since she boarded their giant plane. She’s been working on undoing a redacted file about her parents, that apparently S.H.I.E.L.D. was responsible for, but she was getting nowhere. While she was getting nowhere, she was getting closer to the team, and Agent Ward in particular. He vouched for her when Coulson expressed skepticism about her not hacking their database, but then abandoned her when she ended up in bed with the real hacker. Could it be because he thought they might some day have a greater connection that S.O. and student, perhaps? Probably not, but someone needs to get some action on this show, quickly.
Every comic book story has to have a good, tragic love story, doesn’t it? Now that Coulson knows Skye knows nothing about her parents, she’s finally coming clean that everything she has on her past is really nothing at all.
Now that is tragic.
