Back aboard the Bus, Coulson talking to another SHIELD agent, telling him to put the device in the deepest level of the vault, remove it from all records and don’t even let the Slingshot know about it.  He then spends some time attempting to dismantle a gun, complaining that his muscle memory of the movements seems to be gone.  May appears and tells him that she wants in and is “reporting for combat” the next time that combat is available.  Coulson questions whether her change of heart is because she believes in the cause, or because she’s trying to watch his back and keep him out of danger, but he doesn’t get a definitive answer.

Skye and Ward share a moment as she opens up to him about her past.  She was in the foster system, and still bears the emotional scars from when her final foster family sent her back.  She had thought everything was going great, and even called the wife “mom”, but the feeling just wasn’t mutual.  She’s never known what it feels like to fit in or to belong.  “Hoping for something and losing it hurts more than never hoping for anything.”

In this week’s post credits scene, the Gravitonium device is locked in a vault, and the vault’s label is removed by Coulson’s contact.  Inside the vault, the device sits quietly, with the Gravitonium pulsing inside its containment field.  As the camera holds on the ball of metallic liquid, a hand forms on its surface, reaching out as if trying to escape.

“The Asset” was another solid episode of SHIELD, from showrunners Jed Whedon and Melissa Tancharoen.  The humor was toned back quite a bit this week, in favor of character development and an expansion of the comic book mythology.  It was nice to get a focus on Skye and get to see a bit more of her background and motivation.  We still don’t know exactly where she stands in terms of the Rising Tide/SHIELD debate, but it’s clear where her conflict comes from.  I think she had some really nice moments with Ward, and the two actors seem to have a solid chemistry.  Plus, there’s nothing like childhood trauma to bring people together.

 S.H.I.E.L.D. Thoughts

So what do you think Coulson’s muscle memory problems mean?  It seems to be implying that his body may not be the one that was stabbed by Loki, as his brain seems to be functioning as normal even if it can’t communicate with his body the way it used to.  This would seem to indicate something along the lines of a Life Model Decoy or an android, or something where Coulson is inhabiting a new body of some sort.  We’ll have to wait and see, but each week gives us more clues.

He also seems willing to work outside of SHIELD’s oversight a bit.  Coulson has seen first hand the damage that SHIELD can do when it misuses the technology that his crew might uncover.  And while it’s nice to have super powered weapons with which to blast Loki, the potential for abuse is also there.  It’s clear that Coulson agreed with some of Hall’s points about SHIELD, and I can’t wait to see the dynamic between his crew and the greater SHIELD organization as things progress.  At this point in time, I could easily see a scenario in future seasons where Coulson’s Crew separates from SHIELD and goes their own way for a while, as a new A-Team but with better gadgets.

It will be interesting to see how SHIELD handles Dr. Hall’s story going forward.  For those who don’t know, Hall is a character from the comics who eventually became the villain known as Graviton, who had the ability to control gravity.  I haven’t read his story, so I can’t tell you how closely this origin story meshes with the comics, but I know that he fought the Avengers and various other Marvel heroes repeatedly over the years.  His powers also varied a bit, allowing him to grow to enormous size.  Assuming SHIELD continues for a while, will we see Graviton emerge from the vault and battle SHIELD or the Avengers, or was this simply a tease for comic fans?

Every time that SHIELD brings in a character from the comics presents the show with a delicate balancing act.  The average audience member doesn’t know who Dr. Hall or Graviton are, and probably doesn’t care, so the show has to make these comic characters appealing for the masses.  However, they also have to remain relatively true to the comics in order to appease the fanboys and fangirls, who desperately want these connections to the comics but who also want them to be done a particular way.  The showrunners and producers have made it clear that they don’t want to be tied down by the comics, but that they want to be able to bring in characters and references when the story calls for it.  I think this will be the show’s biggest challenge going forward.

Luckily, we got a bit more personality from Fitz and Simmons this week.  It wasn’t a lot, but they’re slowly starting to develop as separate individuals.  Fitz is actually a bit of a jerk, demanding at Simmons hand over the headset and let him use it while investigating the semi-truck crash.  Simmons obviously has better people skills, taking a more active role along with May in guiding Skye during her infiltration of Quinn’s party, all while Fitz sat around eating popcorn.  But she also defended him when Coulson was trying to pressure him into dropping the laser shield.  I think there’s a lot of potential in FitzSimmons, even if we haven’t seen much of it yet.  I hope we’ll get a future episode devoted to them, just like tonight’s was focused on Skye.  Regardless, FitzSimmons are adorable.

Don’t be too quick to give up on SHIELD.  It’s far too easy to write off a show when it has built up such high expectations.  It’s easy to compare SHIELD to Whedon’s other shows but forget that Buffy, Angel and Dollhouse all took a while to get going.  (Seriously, go back and watch season 1 of Buffy and compare it to seasons 5-7 to see how much it grew.)  The exception, of course, is Firefly, which was immediately captivating, but it’s important to remember how rare a show like that is.  You’re certainly entitled to dislike SHIELD, but I would hate for people to miss out on something that clearly has a lot of potential even if it hasn’t found its footing yet.  There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on what is disappointing people about the show (seriously, go on any forum or message board and you’ll see drastically conflicting opinions that show the wide range of expectations people have for it).  I have no personal reason for wanting the show to succeed, except that I admire Joss and his abilities as a storyteller, and would like to see him get a chance to create something special.  And that will require patience from all of us.

What did you think of “The Asset”?  Did you like getting more of focus on character development and backstory?  What did you think of SHIELD‘s first dive into the comic world, and what character would you like to see appear from the pages next?  What do you think Coulson’s lack of muscle memory means for the circumstances of his resurrection?  Are you excited for another super powered individual in next week’s episode?  Let me know in the comments!