Previously. On “Agents of SHIELD.”
* David Straiton (“House,” “Grimm”) directed the second episode from a teleplay credited to Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon and Jeffrey Bell.
* “That’s exactly what I’m imagining during this frown,” Agent Ward told Coulson at the prospect of Skye consulting with SHIELD.
* Coulson explained that SHIELD director Nick Fury gave him the big black plane after the Battle of New York, during which he took a bullet-ish.
* Coulson continues to refer to Tahiti, the place to which he says he disappeared subsequent to his death, as “a magical place.”
* We learned that prior “084s” include a divine hammer and an antimatter meteor that nearly devoured Miami.
* The new team found itself dispatched to an Incan archaeological site in Llactapata, Peru, full of pre-Incan artifacts that date back more than 500 years.
* “The object’s placement in fossiliferous rock formations suggests it’s been here for at least 1,500 years. That pre-dates this temple by more than a millenium” said Jemma Simmons of the glowing machine embedded in the ancient wall. “Ha! Maybe it’s alien!”
* “Yeah, but the shape and the craftsmanship,” argued Leo Fitz, “it’s almost German.” Good, eye, Leo Fitz.
* Meanwhile, Melinda May advised Grant Ward that “The Cavalry” is not a name he should ever call her. (Because she once failed to come to the rescue?)
* Coulson happens to run into Camilla Reyes, the hottest commandante in the Peruvian federal police. “We used to work together back in the day,” he explains. We learn they once worked out of an RV while stationed in the Peruvian city of Cuzco. Small Marvel universe.
* Rebels turned up. There was much shooting and fleeing before everyone arrived at Coulson’s plane.
* Fitz explains that the device isn’t 1,500 years old after all. “The 084 is fueled by tesseract technology. Hydra. World War II. Captain America. It’s full of lethal amounts of gamma radiation.” Coulson tells May the device is “fueled by evil.” Simmons adds it is in fact a weapon, powerful enough to “melt through 50 feet of solid rock to bury itself.”
* Reyes monologued. “My country commissioned that weapon decades ago. After the fall of Hydra, many scientists followed their Nazi friends to hide on this side of the world,” she explained. “The weapon was lost during a clash in the jungle until today. With it, we’ll end the rebel uprising and finally stabilize my country.”
* When Camilla chides Coulson for undergoing a midlife crisis, Coulson counters, “More an afterlife thing, really.”
* I quite enjoyed Jemma Simmons’ relief and excitement at learning the Cavalry had been imprisoned beside her. And The Cavalry failed to disappoint.
* Fitz made the tesseract weapon blow a hole in the plane. Which depressurized the cabin and allowed May to exact vengeance against the Peruvians who gassed her.
* Skye may be the first to read the plane’s safety instructions; she finally proved herself useful to Ward by unleashing the surprisingly sturdy raft that saved his life.
* As the evil device was rocketed toward the sun, Skye texted that she was “in.” I’ve every certainty that Coulson was copied on that particular text.
* “It’s got a bar!” lamented Fury. “A really nice one.”
ABC says of tonight’s “The Asset”:
When the brilliant scientist Dr. Franklin Hall is kidnapped, Agent Coulson and his S.H.I.E.L.D. agents must race against the clock to locate him. Skye is their only way in -- pushing the team to their limits when the entire plan turns upside-down.
8 p.m. Tuesday. ABC.
