Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Review by John Keegan

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD 2.15: One Door Closes

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD 2.15: One Door Closes

Written By:
Lauren LeFranc and Rafe Judkins
Directed By:
David Solomon




I don’t think anyone was expecting this episode to deliver on the level of the first season’s best episodes, but this installment grabbed the audience by the throat from the very start and didn’t let up even once until the end.  “One Door Closes” is everything that anyone could realistically expect from Agents of SHIELD, and with several episodes left of the season, there’s a lot of potential to top this before it all said and done. 







Between the flashbacks to what the “other SHIELD” went through on the day of the Hydra takeover and Gonsalez’s explanation of why he considers his organization to be superior, it’s rather clear by now that there is a firm philosophical basis for the difference of opinion regarding Coulson’s leadership style.  Gonsalez makes a salient point: Fury’s leadership style allowed for the Hydra takeover, because so much of what they were trying to do was deemed perfectly acceptable to Fury, so it wasn’t questioned.  Coulson is seen as both potentially compromised by his recent history and too enamored of Fury’s example.



There is, in fact, an argument to be made that SHIELD should be run in a more democratic fashion.  At the same time, giving more voices control over the future of SHIELD is probably hard to accept when any of those people could have ulterior motives.  The ideal situation should be finding a way to compromise and bring in Coulson as part of the leadership, but Gonsalez is unwilling to accept Coulson at all.  And yet, therein lies the problem: SHIELD still doesn’t have official backing so far as we know, and in the absence of such a validation of Gonsalez’s organization and command, Coulson is the only one who got a semi-official handoff of directorial power.








This may seem overly technical or political, but it’s at the heart of Gonsalez’s assumption that he has the authority to undermine, shut down, and otherwise absorb Coulson’s assets through the use of force.  Gonsalez isn’t necessarily wrong; it’s his tactics that are debatable.  Choices were made that led directly to armed conflict, and those choices were unnecessary.  Not to mention that Gonsalez’s SHIELD seems more than a bit prejudiced and willing to be dismissively violent as a result.



Gonsalez is hardly the only one making that kind of mistake.  With both sides treating Skye like an object rather than a very frightened young woman, it’s not at all surprising that Gordon could sweep right in and convince her that she had a much better option.  An option, I might add, that is going to bring her back in contact with her father, which ought to be interesting.  I have to wonder just how far they will go in introducing the Inhumans, though; previous episodes implied that Gordon was taking people to a higher level of leadership, but I can’t imagine the royal family would be brought in on a television series!








On a completely self-serving note, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed Bobbi more than in her initial scenes of this episode.  There’s no doubt as to why she quickly became a fan favorite!  The conception of the character conflicts is obvious, in terms of pairs of similar characters between the two SHIELDs (May/Bobbi, Hunter/Mack), but I tend to find Bobbi’s inner conflict a lot more palpable than Mack’s, for some reason.  For all that, one of the best moments of the episode was how Simmons took down Bobbi without a fight!

Our Grade:
A-
The Good:
  • One of the biggest action-packed episodes yet!
  • Everything is based in characters’ philosophical differences
  • The pacing has certainly picked up in a major way!
The Bad:
  • The other SHIELD is being painted as “evil” a little too broadly

John Keegan aka "criticalmyth", is one of the hosts of the "Critical Myth" podcast heard here on VOG Network's radio feed Monday, Wednesday & Friday. You can follow him on twitter at @criticalmyth

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD by - 4/1/2015 8:43 AM299 views

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