Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Melinda - Review

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., “Melinda,” was written by DJ Doyle and directed by Garry A Brown, who is also a co-executive producer and second AD on the show. This episode finally reunites Skye (Chloe Bennet) with her parents, but as the title suggests, the hour really belongs to Ming-Na Wen who brings us the gut-wrenching story of Melinda May’s transformation into The Cavalry. In addition to the one spectacular fight sequence, the episode also has some pretty great reveals, particularly in regards to Raina (Ruth Negga).

The episode begins seven years ago on the morning May left on the mission to Bahrain that would change her life. We see her in the shower with her then husband Andrew (Blair Underwood). It’s almost creepy to see May smiling and laughing so much! They are trying to have a family and are clearly a happy loving couple. Coulson (Clark Gregg) arrives – early as always as May complains! – and it’s also jarring to see him so relatively light-hearted. Both actors do a great job portraying their characters at very different times in their lives. Andrew asks Coulson if he’s bringing him a new patient. It’s ironic because the “patient” actually turns out to be a traumatized May. It’s important to note, however, given the present storyline that Andrew was counselling “gifteds” even back then for S.H.I.E.L.D. This also parallels with the present storyline with Skye and Jiaying (Dichen Lachman) who is acting as Skye’s counselor and Gordon (Jamie Harris) with Raina.

There are lots of parallels and echoes between the past storyline and the present and leading toward Avengers: Age of Ultron. May remarks in the past that S.H.I.E.L.D. is putting all its money into the Triskelion – this is before Captain America: The Winter Soldier remember. Coulson tell May that not all the money is going there because Fury has quietly started a new initiative. Instead of catch and release with gifteds, he’s forming a team to see if they’re heroes. This is a nice tie in between The Winter Soldier, which focused on the Triskelion, and Age of Ultron, which will focus on the gfteds. This discussion also fits in to the present discussions over Coulson’s recent actions.

In the present, Bobbi (Adrianne Palicki) and Weaver (Christine Adams) are debriefing May. They tell her that Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) is being tailed, and then ask her about the powered people – a more loaded term than gifteds as it makes them sound more dangerous. May seems to be caught completely flat-footed about Deathlok being active and more importantly the Theta Protocol. May tells them that “Coulson doesn’t bore me with the details of every little operation” but Bobbi tells her this is huge.

May manages to convince them to let her take command of the base in exchange for bringing Coulson in peacefully – of course, we don’t know if she’s really in charge or if they are simply watching her the same way they let Fitz go but put a tail on him. May tells them that all Directors have secrets, but as we know, this group it totally against secrets – unless they are keeping them. They do give May all the intelligence they have on Coulson’s movements and money transfers, however.

While flying to the base, Bobbi tells May that she knows May didn’t know and that the gut punch she felt was the same they all felt for months. Bobbi says that they can’t ignore a secret as big as the Theta Protocol. Of course, that ignores the fact that all those working with Coulson had the same gut punch in regards to Hydra – I’m not seeing why they think they are so different. May tells Bobbi, “You’re worried that I don’t understand your choice. Sometimes that’s the price of doing the right thing. No one will understand and it hurts like hell.” And of course, May could be talking about the events in Bahrain here.

Once she gets to the base, Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) is so happy to see May, she hugs her! May asks Simmons if she knew she was working on Deathlok technology and it appears that she didn’t nor does she know anything about the Theta Protocol. May suggests that they look at the information she’s been given to see find out if they’re telling the truth. May tells Simmons that Coulson “doesn’t go off the reservation without a good reason.”

        They discover that Bobbi wasn’t lying – it’s a whole other life than what they thought Coulson was doing. They also discover that Coulson has been consulting with Andrew for some time. Mack (Henry Simmons) walks in and says that they think Coulson is building another base for powered people. Simmons insists there could still be another explanation, but May insists that underestimating powers is playing with fire. May tells Simmons that she needs her to get into the toolbox – and that’s going to be a problem.

I think there are a couple of possibilities here. It’s possible that May knows exactly what’s going on and is acting dumb to find out how much the others know. After all, Coulson was ready to bring her on at the very beginning as we saw in the flashbacks. Andrew’s involvement would seem to reinforce the theory of gifteds being involved because Coulson would still need someone to help with counselling. It’s also possible that only Simmons knows. Coulson may have kept the entire operation from May because of her history – he might want to spare her contact with both gifteds and Andrew.

In the flashbacks, we see that Coulson and May have gone to pick up a gifted who seems to wield extraordinary strength. Coulson meets with Eva (Winter Ave Zoli) in a sketchy part of town. They are flanked by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and local agents. It was also a bit disconcerting to see May with an easy camaraderie with her fellow agents – sharing tunes with O’Brian (Derek Phillips) for example. As she stands watch, she smiles as she sees a young girl frolicking through the square – just before all hell breaks loose. The girl and several agents are taken hostage while the local leader is killed.

May wants to go in with Hart (Terrell Tilford) and his men when he says the cavalry are going in, but Coulson wants her to hang back until they “find out what kind of monster we’re dealing with.” Interesting language from Coulson, who I can’t imagine would ever call a gifted a monster now – not after getting to know some of them. This seen dovetails into the present with a nice bit of writing as we see Raina telling Gordon that she’s just a monster – more about that later…

In the past, Coulson calls for further orders after Hart and his 12 men are taken out in a minute. May again wants to go in, and in desperation, Coulson lets her go and stall the local army. I loved this scene as Coulson blows smoke up their skirts by telling them they can’t go in because a biological weapon has just been set off. I loved the look of smug satisfaction on Coulson’s face when it works to stop them!

May stops to call Andrew before going in and tells him “it’s a little girl.” It’s clear that she’s affected by her own desire to have a family. He tells her, “You’ve done this before. You always come home. She’s gonna be scared. Take a knee. Get down to her level. If not, grab her and run like hell. Do good Melinda, but come home.” Some of what he says is ironic – ‘take a knee’ isn’t possible after she’s shot in the knee for instance. Part of her guilt and ultimate withdrawal from Andrew has to come from his urging her to “do good” and what she’s done is kill a child. What follows in the flashback is a brilliant fight sequence as May takes out most of the men who have been turned into zombies who just “want her pain.”

I loved that the flashback also ties into the present storyline and the necessity of keeping Skye’s relationship to Jiaying a secret – ah, secrets. They never end well, do they? Jiaying explains Skye’s gift to her – and I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking it sounded an awful lot like Obi-wan Kenobi’s description of the Force to Luke in Star Wars. Every object is vibrating, and Skye’s gift is not that she make things shake but that she can tap into those vibrations and cause an avalanche or create music or explode glasses. Bennet is great as Skye suddenly learns to be in awe of her gift rather than afraid of it. Lincoln (Luke Mitchell) tells Skye that he’s never seen Jiaying take anyone else under her wing because she is actually the one in charge.

Skye tells Jiaying that she is feeling uneasy because it’s starting to feel like home there. She tells her she’s 25 and she’s never lived anywhere for longer than two years. She also tells her that S.H.I.E.L.D. was the closest she’d ever come to feeling like she had a family and even that ended up with them chasing her through the woods. Jiaying insists that they are not going to turn on her or abandon her. When Skye pushes her about why she cares, Jiaying finally reveals that she is Skye’s mother. Bennet is fantastic in this scene. Jiaying says she thinks that deep down Skye knew, and Skye says she was too afraid to hope.

Jiaying explains that she didn’t run right to Skye for two reasons. Because Skye was forced to go through the Mist against her will, Jiaying wanted Skye to have the freedom to choose whether or not to join them. Jiaying is responsible for everyone and favoritism undermines trust. Isn’t this part of the problem that Coulson faced with Skye too? She tells Skye that people have died when selection and training rules were ignored, and she’s protected Skye from the swift response that normally happens to those who break the rules. Jiaying then goes on to tell Skye the story of Eva – and this is the voice over during May’s climactic fight.

Eva isn’t the gifted one, but she did steal the Terrigen Crystals so that her daughter Katya (Ava Acres) could go through the Mist. Jiaying had already determined not to let Katya transform because she saw something dark within her. As May fights, she is shot in the knee and still manages to kill Eva. She realizes that it’s the Katya – the young girl from the market. Jiaying tells us that Katya’s gift was to feed off of other’s emotions, like a parasite.

May begs Katya to stop. To just put down her hand and stop. But May realizes that she can’t get through to her. She then tells her “Everything is going to be alright” just before she shoots and kills her. When Coulson runs in, he finds May with the dead girl’s body in her lap. Does this help explain why May told Coulson she couldn’t help Skye? Was she afraid this would happen again? Wen knocks it out of the park in the aftermath. As the camera focuses on her devastated face. It’s one from which all emotion has been drained. We see her completely break down in Coulson’s arms. We also see that both Gordon and Jiaying were watching. We overhear Hart saying, “the cavalry went in after all” in reference to May saving all of them – and thus a legend is born.

The final flashback shows May back at home in a parallel to the opening scene. However, she is showering alone and can’t bear to be touched by Andrew. Clearly, she has pushed him away. She had assured Coulson on the way to the mission that she was staying in the field even after having a baby, but we see she’s put in for and gotten her transfer to the desk job we see her in when the series first starts.

Meanwhile, unlike Skye, Raina is having a very difficult time. Far from feeling at home, she feels caged and wants to leave. She feels that all the transformation has done is make her a monster and subjected her to constant terrifying nightmares. She dreams of herself being hunted and of Skye having dinner with Cal (Kyle MacLachlan). There are daisies and Skye is so happy! Gordon assures her that she just hasn’t uncovered her gift yet. He promises to take her to beautiful places, but being in public isn’t going to be an option for her – as it isn’t for him: “People like us have to live differently” but it can still be a wonderful life. It seems that Gordon is winning Raina over – is she perhaps falling for him?

Gordon gets very angry at Lincoln for trying to help with Raina. But it’s Lincoln who realizes what her gift really is when he comes in to serve the food at Cal’s dinner party. Jiaying has asked Skye to have dinner with Cal because it’s a debt she owes him. She tells Skye that he was good once and points out that he never gave up on her. She promises that if Skye has this one dinner, she never has to see him again and she’ll take him away. Skye agrees and does seem to be enjoying herself. MacLachlan continues to delight as Cal who is at his most charming. Skye learns that she’s actually 26 – not 25. But most importantly, Lincoln realizes that Raina didn’t have dream – she saw the future. Raina has become the very clairvoyant she was seeking!

The final scene is of Fitz opening the toolbox while locked in a gas station washroom to contact Coulson. Hunter (Nick Blood) picks up. Coulson is thrilled to see Fitz and is very happy that he managed to steal the toolbox before opening it. Coulson asks him to meet up with them. Fitz tells them that he’s being followed, but that he’s still like to meet up, but maybe they could tell him how to shake a tail first?

         Hunter asks if he’s in a bathroom with an electric hand dryer. When Fitz confirms it, Hunter tells him, “You’re going to be ok, mate!” We’d better get to see how Hunter gets Fitz out of that washroom!

This was a great episode with a couple of big reveals and a terrific performance from Ming-Na Wen. It was great to finally get the story of the Cavalry and to see it woven so seamlessly into the plot. The next three episodes are said to feed into Avengers: Age of Ultron, and I can’t wait to see how that will play out! What did you think of the episode? Were you satisfied with the Cavalry story? Do you think May is really in the dark about Coulson? Do you think Simmons is too? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

About the Author - Lisa Macklem

I do interviews and write articles for the site in addition to reviewing a number of shows, including Supernatural, Arrow, Agents of Shield, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Forever, Defiance, Bitten, Glee, and a few others! Highlights of this past year include covering San Diego Comic Con as press and a set visit to Bitten. When I'm not writing about television shows, I'm often writing about entertainment and media law in my capacity as a legal scholar. I also work in theatre when the opportunity arises. I'm an avid runner and rider, currently training in dressage.