Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1E21 “Ragtag” recap

Everything has been building rapidly since the big Hydra reveal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been at the front line! Tonight’s episode “Ragtag” is the last before the “epic” season finale. So what happened this week? Let’s find out!

Last night’s episode slowed things down a little and went into the back story of why Ward feels that he owes Garrett so much. When Ward was a younger he burned down his house and killed his younger brother in the process. Luckily for Ward, Hydra was out recruiting at the time so Garrett took Ward under his wing and convinced him to join up. But how do you take an unskilled kid and make him into the killing machine he is today? Well you throw him out in the wilderness and MAKE him survive. This of course is all a test to see if Ward has what it took to be a survivor/soldier. Garrett leaves him and a dog (Buddy) and tells him that he will return in a couple of months, which ends up being 6 because Garrett goes on mission somewhere else. Of course Ward survives and starts to live off the land, well also by looting nearby cabins for the supplies he needs. When Garrett returns he finds that Ward is ready for the next step and he teaches him how to use a gun for killing. But let’s talk about the expanded details of Garrett’s past as well.

So much has been tied up in Cybertek, and as Coulson explains at the beginning of the episode, everything is connected to Cybertek. Skye has created a Trojan horse virus to be planted in one of Hydra’s computers but they just need to access one. This sends Coulson and May off undercover. Infiltrating the company as ex-SHIELD scientists looking for a job, the duo is able to access the Cybertek mainframe only to find that the files they need are actual physical files! They learn that Mike Peterson isn’t the first Deathlok and that the project dates back to the early 1990’s with Garrett himself being the original Deathlok! In a rather comical scene they throw the file cabinet out of the window and then zipline to freedom!

Back to the Ward and Garrett relationship. The flashbacks in this episode act as a comparison to what is happening in the present. The big question has been: “is Ward really a bad guy?”, and the straight answer is yes. There is no one controlling his actions, he is acting of his own freewill, which is something that his ex-teammates are having a hard time coming to terms with. Everyone wants this to be a nightmare that they can just wake up from, but the more Ward does bad or murders people it’s only getting harder to redeem him. You see Garrett is dying and Ward is willing to do anything to save his mentor. Even though he has the implants, Garrett’s organic body is failing. Which leads to the answer to why he is so interested in everything that has happened to Coulson regarding the GH-325. Lucky for him, Flowers is able to make one dose that could save his life, and will.

Agent Tripp, who is really starting to grow on me and I hope he becomes a regular on the show, has brought along some cool “toys” from his grandfather’s Howling Commandos days. When Fitz and Simmons are captured by Hydra, Fitz uses “joybuzzer” EMP to disable the Bus and nearly kill Garrett. This forces them to use the GH-325 on Garrett and it revives him, and what he says after is rather disturbing, when he is asked what he is feeling, he responds the universe. Does the big bad have some new powers that the team will be dealing with come the season finale? Let’s hope so. One thing we do learn is that Ward does care about his teammates. When forced into the situation of “taking care of” FitzSimmons, Ward decides to spare them. This is nicely paired with a flashback scene to when Garrett tells Ward he has been accepted into SHIELD and that it’s time to get going, but he has to kill his dog first! Ward ends up shooting the gun into the air and scaring off the dog, so we learn that he may have some compassion for those he cares about. Instead of killing our favorite geeky duo, he locks them in an air tight box and drops them in the ocean. Let’s hope their friends can find them in time! But as I have been predicting, this means he is either on his way to redemption or being killed off next week.

Important things we learned this week. Skye is very special according to her DNA and Flowers even says that the two of them are “related”. Whatever this means, know that Flowers herself probably has some sort of superpower, and as Garrett puts it this week his more afraid of what’s behind her pretty eyes. Scary thing is that a little bit of Skye’s origin is revealed and that her parents were labeled as “monsters” who tore through a Chinese Providence looking for their child. What I liked about the Deathlok story this week is there is now a means to an end. This small Hydra sect has stepped into the world of arms dealing. Everyone’s favorite playboy is back, and Ian Quinn is ready to sell the government an army of Deathloks, and from the way we left our team, things aren’t looking so good. Especially after the assassination in Colombia that Peterson is “responsible for”, this show was put on to prove that the Deathlok is a one man army and that the technology is marketable. I’m betting we see Mike Peterson do a 180 and take on his robotic brethren, or of course there is the simple solution and that Skye’s virus will just shut them all down. I’m betting the latter. Oh and I can’t wait for May to start teaching Skye some “Hate-Fu”! The show has done a great job of tying everything neatly together as we head into the final episode of the up and down first season. Things have been pretty solid since Cap 2 so let’s see if this show can finish strong!