My review of the mid-season finale episode 2×10 What They Become
The pace of this episode pretty much matched the whole of this season so far, the outcome of which opens up a whole world of possibilities for the rest of the season and beyond so let’s break it down, starting with casualties.
1. Coulson kills Whitehall (yeah let’s just get the spoilers over and done with). This came as a surprise to me as I was expecting Whitehall to also undergo some kind of terrigenesis (more later) and somehow become the Kraken but all it took was a well aimed shot by Coulson. This leaves the series without a major villain, except of course that by denying Skye’s father his revenge, he may have paved the way for “Cal”, that is Calvin Zabo, to become Mr Hyde.
2. Skye shots Ward. For everyone, Chloe Bennett included, who was hoping for a rekindling of #skyeward that will have pushed it back even further. Ward ends up escaping with Agent 33 – as deformed May, who finds herself in the same psychological space as he was when Garrett died. These two will be out for revenge too, though not as Hydra, but that most likely makes them all the more dangerous, Bonnie and Clyde – like if you will (or Natural Born Killers if that’s a better frame of reference)
3. Triplett makes his last rescue attempt. I wasn’t really surprised to see him killed off but that didn’t make it any less sad. Until the end I was hoping he was “special” too so we didn’t have to see him die but that was not to be. Unfortunately, unlike Mack, he’s not likely to come back having been turned to ash by the mists. Of course this begs the question on what’s happening with the rumours that he was going to be in Age of Ultron having been spotted on set and all that. Maybe he was just a visitor, maybe turning people to ash / stone isn’t the end of it (I still think Huntley will be back)
4. Bobbi’s secret agenda. This was somewhat subtle but you have to wonder a) what is on that thumb drive and b) whether she’ll let Hunter in on it. Remember what Fury said at the end of 1×22 The Beginning of the End “I’ll be everywhere”. There’s a case to be made on whether she is the link between what happens in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the plot of Age of Ultron by being an agent reporting to Fury (she wouldn’t be the first one)
5. Are the Koening brothers LMDs or not? The way Sam (or was it Billy) said his brother was “recharging his batteries” sounded like a joke but that’s what you would expect from them so it would be easy for writers to sneak a truth as a joke and make you wonder which is it…
6. Skye is confirmed as being Daisy Johnson. It’s a bit of a deviation from the comics as Quake isn’t an inhuman, she has powers because of her Dad not her mum but given that her mum was a prostitute in the comics, it’s probably better that way. I’m guessing the earthquake at the end was her doing, the question now becomes, who will teach her to control her powers? It’s not like Coulson has access to open-air training facilities anymore. Also I’m guessing her mother had already undergone terrigenesis which is how she wasn’t ageing and how Cal knew about it all.
7. Raina is … ? Well I’ll have to do a bit more digging on this. All we’ve seen are quills of some sort and yellow eyes, a quick look at known inhumans didn’t yield any results but if she’s moulded the way they did Skye, she might not be an inhuman from the comics so we may have to look elsewhere, maybe in X-Men assuming some of them still belong to Marvel. (see the link for more on that – image removed to prevent spoilers)
8. The deviner is a container for terrigen crystals. This was wildly speculated to be that case by many Marvel fans and they turned out to be correct. Of course they are not “named” as such but they’re as good as named given that they couldn’t really be anything else.
9. There are other inhumans out there and the deviner speaks to them somehow. I have no idea who that last guy was and what ability having no eyes gives him but it raises a whole lot of questions about inhumans and their place in society and how they relate to Attilan and the Royal Family. I guess Marvel has 4 years to build up that story.
10. If the city is Attilan, why is it deserted, and where is the Royal Family? I’m sticking with my theory that the city is in fact Orollan, and I hope we get more back story on how it was created by the Kree and why the GH-325 subjects were called to it but not “special” people like Skye / Daisy.
and a few side-thoughts
– Fitz and Simmons seem to return to their team dynamic so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
– it would have been interesting to see what happens to someone injected with GH-325 being exposed to the terrigen mists
– I’m wondering what will happen to Mack now.
To conclude:
The show now goes on a hiatus for nearly 3 months and will return on Wednesday 4th of March 2015. It will likely pick up where it left off as at this stage Raina and Skye still haven’t left the temple. In the meantime, I can’t wait for +Agent Carter to start on the 6th of January. Whether the storyline there will directly relate to the current agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. story remains to be seen but it wouldn’t be improbable given that the 2 Peggy Carter cameos were directly related to Reinhart / Whitehall and the Deviner (aka the original 0-8-4)
Now people, let me hear your theories on what just happened!