TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 Episode 2

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 Episode 2 “Window of Opportunity”

Director: Kevin Tancharoen

Starring: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, Natalia Cordova-Buckley

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 43 minutes

After the absorbing and jam-packed season premiere, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. slows down this week to get some of the plot and story mechanics of the new season on sturdy foundations.  “Window of Opportunity” finds the show settling into the new status quos and storylines, which allows the viewer to do the same.  It’s far from a quiet or uneventful episode (S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t really make those) but it is more about moving the characters into position for more dramatic confrontations and events down the road.  Still, some nice character moments, especially for May and Fitz, and a standout fight scene make it highly enjoyable.

The Sarge storyline receives precedence, as the members of the Earth-bound S.H.I.E.L.D. team, especially May, reckon with facing an enemy who looks exactly like Coulson.  We also spend a considerable amount of time with Sarge himself as he and his team prepare for whatever their mysterious mission is.  While some of this screentime is clearly meant to flesh out the rest of the reality-travelers, it mostly serves to emphasize the differences, and more importantly, similarities between Sarge and Coulson.  Clark Gregg is clearly enjoying playing such a dangerous and menacing character, but it’s the moments in which he uses Coulson-like mannerisms, particularly his sharply witty humor, that are the most unnerving.  The way in which Sarge reacts to May calling him Coulson in their latest confrontation hints that he’s connected to the late S.H.I.E.L.D. director in more ways than just appearances and that makes his villainy effectively disturbing to watch.

May’s reaction to Sarge’s existence is predictably the season’s main emotional center so far.  Ming-Na Wen is doing really great work here, with her angry and overwhelmed declaration at the end of the episode that she “lost” a brief but startling moment with a significant emotional charge.  Still, one would hope that the other characters, especially Daisy, are shown to struggle with the Sarge dilemma in their own ways eventually.

Speaking of Daisy, with the exception of a brief scene at the very end of the episode, she and the space team are absent this week.  Instead, we catch up with Fitz, who along with Enoch (the always amusing Joel Stoffer) has been posing as a humanoid alien, working aboard a spaceship.  It’s not long, however, before their cover is blown and Fitz must outwit cruel space pirate Viro (Paul Telfer) and protect the other engineers on the ship.  It’s not a particularly exhilarating plotline and indeed seems to be essentially filler until the Fitzsimmons reunion, but it is enjoyable to see Fitz once again be a fundamentally good guy, risking his life and happiness to ensure the safety of innocents.  A brief dialogue with Enoch reminds the viewer that this Fitz still has the Hydra persona from the Framework somewhere in his head, but it seems he will make a more active effort to keep the monster at bay than the Fitz who died did.  Fitz has always been one of the series’ most intriguing characters, with Iain De Caestecker giving consistently excellent performances, and Season 6 seems poised to continue the character’s excellent arc about self-control and identity in a fascinating way.

Beyond Sarge, several of the other new characters are briefly fleshed out here as well, with mixed results.  Doctor Benson adjusts to the strange life of working with S.H.I.E.L.D. and while he’s mostly a grouch about it, he does have some sympathetic moments.  Still, something about Benson just seems off.  The way in which we’re being introduced to the character, with the sad backstory of his dead husband and his drinking problem pre-packaged, is unusual for S.H.I.E.L.D.  New arrivals to the cast are typically made vitally important to the plot first, with their characters and personal storylines fleshed out later.  The idea that we should care about Benson already is odd.  Keller (Lucas Bryant), a.k.a. Yo-Yo’s new boyfriend and the latest plain white guy in the show’s history to seem suspicious simply because of the memory of Grant Ward, is shown grieving Agent Fox, the young recruit Sarge killed during his dramatic intro.  Bryant gives a fine performance so far but it’s still yet to be seen whether Keller will be anything other than a romantic rival for Mack and or a mole.  Among the new supporting players, Snowflake (Brooke Williams), the female member of Sarge’s crew, is the most entertaining so far.  The writing for the character makes her amusingly insane and Williams gives a delightfully unhinged performance.

While this episode displays some of the growing pains that usually come with a new season it’s still an entertaining installment that moves along with the series’ characteristic energy.  MVP S.H.I.E.L.D. director Kevin Tancharoen also delivers one of his trademark exhilarating hand-to-hand combat sequences, taking great advantage of the teleporting gateway Sarge and company use to deliver some really creative choreography and camera angles.