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travllingbunny · 5 years

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AoS rewatch: 1x07 The Hub

I’m late with this in relation to the fandom-wide rewatch timetable, but actual work takes precedence. I hope to be able to catch up soon.

This episode is the second one in a row that focuses on Fitz and SImmons and gives them more development. But unlike FZZT, which also had a really strong case-of-the-week, this one has a throwaway plot about agents going to Russia twice to...do...stuff...which is supposed to have something to do with South Ossetian separatists and anti-separatists. I’m not a fan of TV shows randomly throwing in references to real world conflicts that it has no intention of treating seriously. If you need some random Eastern European stereotypes, better use made-up stereotypical Eastern European countries like Sokovia or Markovia and whatever. A fictional world like that of the MCU universe has a perfect excuse to do that.

This is also the episode where me first meet Victoria Hand,. Agent Sitwell also pops up, and we get to see “the Hub”, SHIELD headquarters (one of them, apparently smaller than the Triskelion), in a secret location.

This episode begins in medias res - extremely so, with some guys interrogating Coulson, who’s doing the Black Widow from The Avengers thing, tied up to a chair, only in his case it’s in an underground prison in Siberia. In this case, the scary interrogator turns out to be SHIELD Agent Shaw. (A common name enough, I guess, or just one that the AoS writers like.) It would be fun to follow a story about Agent Shaw and what it was like to torture people brutally so you would maintain a cover, but AoS is not really a show that likes to go there, just like it never really went there with Bobbi Morse.

To sum up SHIELD’s international dealings: they have a close relationship with the US government, offices in China and Morocco, no office in Peru or Italy (see 1x13) but they cooperate with the police there; and no office or cooperation and a rather hostile relationship with Russia and Belarus and, in fact, go to missions unknown to the governments of these countries; Including breaking into government facilities. How many international laws are they breaking? To be fair, they’re also kidnapping US citizens on its soil, so they’re also breaking US laws.

Some weapon called “overkill device” is involved. (At least the show itself makes fun of it, pointing out its OTT name. “Something was lost in translation”.)

Victoria Hand is somewhat of a legend. Coulson has never met her before, but he knows her by reputation.

Skye is, of course, upset over the secrecy that surrounds the mission, now that a higher up is in charge. The others keep dismissing her concerns as silly - but she later turns out to be completely right. Fitz: “No need to start with one of your socialist rants”. *sigh* That’s not what “socialism” means, Fitz. I guess the SHIELD Academy didn’t provide a lot in terms of general education in the field of humanities.

There’s mission that Ward and Fitz have to go to as a team, but it’s just an excuse to get the Odd Couple pairing of these two on a mission and do the classic bromance progression from arguing to starting to respect or like each other more. In retrospect, this is what makes this episode important, other than the introduction of Hand - it helps build a stronger bond between Fitz and Ward, which will make Ward’s betrayal much more painful and hit Fitz very hard. This is one of the reasons why those people who go “oh, you can just skip the early episodes” are bozos - without the buildup of Ward’s relationships with the other team members, and without those early lighthearted moments, what happens later in the season would never have the same emotional weight.

Meanwhile, Simmons and Skye have their “bad girl shenanigans” at the Hub, where Simmons is responsible for some of the show’s funniest moments (”You certainly have a gorgeous...head”, “I like men who are about my height but heavier than me”) and we get a great Skye “WTF?!” face:

I like using it as a meme. In fact, I’ve seen it used even before I started watching the show.

Simmons is a rule follower, but the moment she hears that Fitz may be in danger and could be tortured somewhere, she changes her mind and is break the rules. Last episode we heard Fitz is afraid to go to the field, now that Simmons loves following the rules, but both of them are ready go outside their comfort zones to save the other.

There is noticeable new closeness between FitzSimmons after the events of 1x06, or maybe it is just because we have never seen them getting separated (yes, this is their first separation!) or Simmons worrying about Fitz.

I know that the Sandwich (TM) is something of a legend, but no matter how much the fandom has mourned it, Ward was right that it had to thrown away, or else we’d be mourning Fitz - dogs were, indeed, following them.

The nice version of Ward, which we see when he tells Fitz he has nothing to prove and that he knows he would have jumped out to save Simmons, will be contrasted with Ward’s darker side in the very next episode, when he bullies Fitz, targeting his weaknesses while under the influence of the staff. Both moments show that Ward was always noticing Fitz’ feelings for SImmons, maybe before Fitz himself fully admitted them to himself (which he’ll talk to Fitz about in 1x19).

Skye had a moment when she almost gave in to the selfish urge to use her brief access to confidential files to try to decipher the redacted file on herself, but then she gave priority to Ward’s and Firz’s safety and checked the mission file.

That blooper is right - Skye, May and Simmons lined up in that scene really make you think of Charlie’s Angels.

While Hand is portrayed as a SHIELD hardliner with a stern and somewhat ruthless attitude, she finally reveals a nicer side, when our protagonists can’t even see her. She lets Coulson and his team go on their rescue mission and is smiling seeing that they are safe, pointing out her belief that they can carry it out “We needed our resources elsewhere. And it’s Coulson’s team, they don’t need one’. This feels different than her portrayal in upcoming episodes like 1x11 or 1x16. She also obviously wasn’t suspicious of Coulson at this point. Is it just because she still didn’t know about Hydra? Or it was Coulson blowing up the facility in 1x14 and Ward shooting Nash after Deathlock lead them to him, that made her suspicious. Or maybe it was already the fact he let Mike be a part of the team in 1x10, which was one of her arguments against him.

Does Sitwell know about Ward also being Hydra? He didn’t seem particularly happy that they were getting rescued, so maybe he doesn’t, and identifies of many Hydra double agents were shared only on need to know basis or within smaller units. After all, Cap’s “Hail Hydra” ruse in Endgame wouldn’t have worked otherwise. Garrett was mostly running his own thing while making sure what he’s doing also remains useful to Hydra through the creation of supersoldiers, while pursuing his goal of finding the way to ensure his survival, so he may have revealed Ward’s allegiance just to a select few or almost no one.

Coulson spends a lot of this episode telling Skye things like “Some secrets are meant to stay secret” but doesn’t actually mean it, as he enlists May to help in trying to find out info about Skye’s parentage; and tries to open his own file about his recovery in “Tahiti”, learning his Level 8 clearance isn’t enough. I believe Fury is Level 10. I wonder who is Level 9? Hand also doesn’t seem to know the truth.

Hand notes that Coulson is a special favorite of Fury - “Not everyone gets sent to Tahiti” (cough). Which the season 1 ending will certainly prove.

Foreshadowing

Ward to Fitz: “How long can you hold your breath underwater?” (This line will never sound the same.)

Fitz: “You should know by now, Agent Ward, that looks can be deceiving.” (Oh Fitz, you have no idea.)

Fitz to Ward: “I am every bit the SHIELD agent you are”. (Oh, Fitz, you have no idea.)

Skye about Coulson: “He’s acting like a robot version of himself right now.” (..No comment.)

#aosrewatch #aosrewatchS1 #aos #aos 1x07 #the hub #agents of shield #agents of s.h.i.e.l.d.

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