Looking back on ‘Agents of SHIELD’
In its first season, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. focused on conflicts that fell within the background of the MCU. The enemies faced by the cast were small, localized, not the world-ending threats that the movies’ heroes went up against in each outing. However, in the second season and onward, AoS transitioned to plots with higher stakes, particularly as the entry of the Inhumans raised the villains and the agents themselves to levels of power beyond even some of the ‘proper’ heroes. The episode ‘What They Become’ is a clean break from the mundane threats of the first season to the supernatural threats of the new, with character deaths and transformations serving to contrast the old and new styles of the show.
From the events of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ on, the primary antagonist to SHIELD as an organization was its opposite, HYDRA. Dr. Whitehall, and his forces and resources, were the mirror to Phil Coulson and his own agents. While other villainous forces existed, they were all in the end subordinated to HYDRA. That changes in ‘What They Become’, not only with Whitehall’s death, but with the breakaway of secondary antagonists to become the new leading forces on their side of the show’s grander conflict. Grant Ward, previously subordinated to other villains, is not only loosed from Whitehall but takes Agent 33 as a subordinate of his own, perpetuating the more mundane side of HYDRA. Meanwhile, Cal Zabo and Raina, both more acquainted with the mystical side of HYDRA’s affairs, move on from the organization to set up new and more mysterious threats. Where the first season and a half of AoS focused on conspiracies with central leadership (the Clairvoyant and HYDRA), the second dissolves ties between villains to form a more diverse landscape of conflict going forward.
On the protagonists’ side, the death of Trip and transformation of Skye/Daisy serve as a sign of changing priorities for the heroes. Skye was to this point primarily a supporting character, while Trip has supplanted Ward as the ‘action man’ of the team. The final scenes of ‘What They Become’ see Trip rushing in to attempt a rescue of the hapless Skye, only to invert the situation as the Diviner activates: Trip’s heroics accomplish nothing but his own death, while Skye is elevated to a new level of prestige as the first real ‘superhero’ of the show. An earlier scene, where the leading man Coulson is laid out and nearly killed by minor villain Cal Zabo, likewise inverts cast roles to ready the viewer for a change in the ranks, with Skye and Zabo, characters tied to the Inhuman plot, taking a more prominent position while the former leaders of the SHIELD and HYDRA teams move more to the backseat as those with powers take more of a role in the show’s new arcs.
Where the pilot was about constructing a team and establishing roles, ‘What They Become’ dismantles the organization of both hero and villain teams. The episode’s role is to turn established roles on their head, to prepare for AoS move out of the background, out of the shadows and into high-stakes, world-in-the-balance plots more in line with the MCU movies themselves.
