Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Ragtag' Review: The Calm Before The Hydra

Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. had a strong episode with last week’s ‘Nothing Personal’, can it possibly keep the momentum from the last installment. After the collapse of the show’s major foundation a few episodes back, it has managed to hold my interest, but not stay as consist quality wise in my opinion. Read on for a comprehensive diagnosis of tonight's episode.

Spoilers for Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. ‘Ragtag’ right now, GET READY.

Deathlok is in Columbia with Ward enjoying the fin scenery. Coulson draws a really nice chart, and comes to some sort of crazy solution that an entity called Cybertek is behind all of their issues and not Hydra somehow. The company built the Deathlock program, shipped items to Quinn, who was working with the Clairvoyant, who planted Ward on the team’s bus. Garrett has been using the Centipede serum and GH-325. They all wanted to discover how Coulson survived the injection, and put Ward in charge of putting all the data he could collect about Coulson in the hard drive. Skye took it, and implanted a virus in it to track them. Information dump over, lets never speak of this incident again, even if it makes sense. There is a twist though, Skye didn’t finish putting the info on their drive. Phil gives another rousing speech about vigilantes teaming up together and I get sleepy.

Fitz has a hang up about Ward’s allegiance. Triplett rings back some fun Howling Commando gear that looks like it was plucked straight out of the first Captain America film. It’s cool that the team is going ‘old school’ retro on us. Now I feel old!

Coulson and his team infiltrate Cybertek together in fun ‘nerd’ style outfits. I don’t like using the term liberally, but I digress. The Joss Whedon style dialogue flows off the page nicely in this moment. Simmons sort ruins the moments with her cheerful asides. They try to pass of the super old technology that they have as lean mean killing machines. There is a certain amount of foreshadowing implying that the man in the elevator is attempting to hurt the team members. May and Coulson fight back with a nod towards itchy sweaters and cool action sequences with red telephones. They discover that Cybertech was holding onto all their documents in hard copy form. This also leads to new developments on the Deathlock program, where the team finds the original schematics. A scene regarding a large file transfer is a really nice moment in this episode that has struck a fun tone between irreverence and danger.

The team discovers Garrett’s robotic secret, and Fitz continues to doubt Ward’s allegiance to Hydra. Good heavens I hope he isn’t triple agent. DO NOT LET HIM BE A GOOD GUY, NOBODY LIKES WARD. May tries to console Skye, and reinforces the plotline that he is indeed not being controlled by an evil robot. Skye knows about Ward and May, which is super awkward. She is also good at controlling her rage, as she knows how to control her relationship with Skye as well. The team finds the secret Hydra base in Havana, Cuba. 

When team Coulson shows up, the Hydra squad has already left. They directly find Garrett, and Skye puts together a quick and dirty EMP plan. They ready the drones and attempt to send them towards the plane, when they do go too get them, Ward is waiting by the window frame. Que the flashback sequence that is waiting in backstage for it’s time in the spotlight. The team finds a submarine that is also secret Hydra base, how many of these things are there?

The episode gives us an establishing shot on a prison on Plymouth, Massachusetts. Instead of a dull procedural element, we are shown that this is really context into what was happening with Ward 15 years ago. It is also revealed that John Garrett went go visit him all those years  ago. Bill Paxton’s smug voice inflection makes this first scene a hell of a lot fun to watch. The younger Ward is well cast, and has a strong demeanor. Past Ward is freaking about what he is going to eat in the middle of the jungle. He’s like an evil Oliver Queen.

Not sure if these flashbacks with Ward are completely necessary. What light could they possibly shed about the character that we already know at this point. He finally figured out how set up shop and live life comfortably from nothing. Paxton teaches him how to shoot the hard way. The two men are finally sharing a meal together with seemingly few strings attached. He identifies as an Ex-Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. that nearly got him killed. Garrett informs Ward that he has joined S.H.I.E.L.D. but cannot get too attached to anything. This storyline is still not exactly going anywhere, but is an okay subplot for this episode. It doesn’t kill the momentum like a B storyline might have I guess. Ward can’t kill the dog, and lets him go free. Dang it! Screw his soft side, let him be evil.

John is supposedly dying in a few months, the poor bastard is getting what’s coming to him. Ward knows that Garrett is lying, he always does. His character has been utilized extremely well in an adversarial context this episode. The villains are finally starting to get more authentic than they were earlier. Reyna knows something strange about Skye, which obviously peaks Ward's interests. There's something fishy about Skye's DNA, she may have Chinese origins relating to some sort of monster style. Upon getting captured, Fitz puts a last minute EMP on Garrett that nearly leads to his death. Fitz once again attempts to appeal towards his good side. Garrett baits Fitz to kill off Ward, PLEASE LET HIM DO IT! Reyna finds out that there is centipede serum inside of Garett. Simmons tries to escape. Ward attempts to do something strange with both of them, and throws them in the middle of the ocean. Really disappointed that he didn’t try to kill him, their death would have been effective. Reyna tries to save Garrett one more time, but likely sealed his death because she wasn’t a huge fan of him anymore. Yup, that seems to be the case. He is going all extremis style, and seems to have a different outlook on life.

Quinn wants to sell Centipede soldiers to the U.S. Military. The proposition is intriguing, and could possibly have some large ramifications for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This episode was good, but as the episode before a finale, it was forced to set a lot of gears into place. Hopefully this one moved everything into place a for a strong ending to this season.

Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. ‘Ragtag’ Gets A 7 Out Of 10