“Making Friends and Influencing People” is my favorite episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season two so far. Last season’s run-out from the events of The Winter Soldier saw the show dedicated to fleshing out its heroes and setting them at cross-purposes in order to make them stand out better. (Always a challenge when your ensemble dresses in black and spends the majority of their time in shadowy nondescript settings.) It also used a big flashy threat to focus them into action.
That focus and flash is gone but the enemy isn’t and the show seems to be putting a great deal of thought into how to grow this season’s threat in the same manner it grew the main characters last season. In essence, how do you keep Hydra interesting when you’ve already seen them do nutty things on TV and in the movies?
But first, who’s that girl? Look at her! She’s tackling her problems head on and blazing a trail through life! She doesn’t need no boyfriend to distract her, or to use up all the toilet paper, or to loudly watch like five episode of Bob’s Burgers while she’s trying to talk to her mom. She’s got the world by the tail!
She also went to work for Hydra after her hetero-lifemate killed some of his brain to save her from certain death, so…her judgment…what is up with that?
Yes, RealSimmons finally arrives on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and she’s trying to figure out how Donnie “Blizzard” Gill’s cellular structure works so Hydra can…well, it turns out that’s not so important to Hydra. What is important is that she’s undercover for Coulson in order to infiltrate the organization since, as we’ve seen, their numbers easily overwhelm S.H.I.E.L.D.’s. The episode gets a really nice pre-credits twist out of this (with appropriately twee Belle & Sebastian soundtrack) before dropping the pretense by having Coulson show up at Simmons’ apartment and win Director of the Year by making her dinner in exchange for debriefing.
Memo to Talbot: this is the difference between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra. One will make you dinner, the other will strap you to a torture device and slosh its frankly enormous glass of scotch in your face until you comply. Comply!

But first, who’s that girl? Look at her! She’s tackling her problems head on and taking lessons in being in constant control from her Fitbit. She can shoot your heart out and erase your identity with a flip of her Skyebangs. She’s got the world by the tail!
She’s also about to learn that no matter how you condition your body and your emotions to respond when you want them to that you can still entirely lose control of a situation and be forced to do something that you’d never thought you’d have to do. It doesn’t get easier to scratch someone off, May warns Skye during shooting practice. Skye hasn’t had to experience that yet. But she knows that she’ll have to eventually. Maybe even in this episode.
Maybe even against Donnie Gill, who the team saved in a variety of ways back in season one’s “Seeds” and who continues to make poor decisions. He went on the run as soon as Hydra liberated the Sandbox last season and he’s been freezing everyone who looks at him funny ever since. He doesn’t seem to be enjoying the tremendous mastery of his ice powers that he’s since gained, mostly because everyone else wants that mastery for their own ends. Just like in the Academy, it’s him against the world, and he will kill over and over and over to escape that world’s demands upon him. So what if he’s capital-G Gifted, not just with powers but with engineering knowledge?
Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. could help protect Donnie if they could just get him to calm down and listen to them. S.H.I.E.L.D. knows the good that Donnie could do utilizing his talents to protect, to shield, to nurture.
Memo to Talbot: as Ward points out to Skye during their second crazy-eyes session this season, while S.H.I.E.L.D. is considering those ramifications, weighing the good and the bad, Hydra has already taken the shot. This is the difference between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra. (Also S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t have any scotch because Lance probably drank it all immediately.)
Who then is really doing the work that S.H.I.E.L.D. wishes it could be doing? Donnie freezes a tanker in Morocco as a sort of signal flare—come and get me, here I am. He’s ready to eliminate Hydra head on so they’ll finally leave him alone and Hydra responds with Simmons in tow. Coulson sends S.H.I.E.L.D. in right behind them.
But it’s Hydra, in the form of Simmons, who tries to reason with Donnie as a person, who tries to talk to him, who presents itself through a face that has previously saved his life. And it’s S.H.I.E.L.D. who takes the shot. First through L.A.N.C.E. H.U.N.T.E.R., and then, finally, through Skye.
Because unbeknownst to Simmons and S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra already had control of Donnie via a trigger phrase. They just needed to get close enough to use it. Skye’s orders are clear, even if her thoughts aren’t, and she ends a life for the first time and clears the way for Simmons to progress into the upper echelon of Hydra.
Who’s that girl?
Thoughts:
- Ward saved his crazy-eyes for Fitz this week and the effect was captivating. (“Despite all of this, it’s really good to see you!”) Fitz’s break down at discovering Ward imprisoned in the same building where he sleeps was intense, and it’s to Coulson’s credit that he completely understands why Fitz would drain the oxygen from Ward’s cell, even if he doesn’t like it.
- Ward is a wonderful poison to the team. After rattling Fitz he finally gets to Skye, revealing that her father is alive and searching for her. She loses control in a way in much the same way Fitz does. Even her Fitbit knows it!
- Simmons: “My loyalty is to science.” And to S.H.I.E.L.D., but mostly science!
- Mac: “Koenig’s on assignment and won’t be hogging the X-Box.” I wonder what assignments Koenig gets? I like to think Patton Oswalt is out there in the field, recruiting the finest in admin and support staff.
- Nice callbacks in the beginning of the episode. Whitehall mentions “the Faustus method,” which is a reference to Captain America villain Dr. Faustus. Short explanation: He’s a crazy psychiatrist who is really good at breaking your mind with drugs and hypnosis and nightmares and then brainwashing you.
- Agent 33, the one being brainwashed in this episode, exists in the Marvel Universe as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and historian specializing in Norse mythology. One wonders if the show will end up using that aspect of her character.
- Especially since Hydra has possession of Loki’s staff from Avengers. (It’s not Asgardian, I know, but they don’t know that yet.)
- I was really pleased that the episode took its stakes seriously and killed Donnie off. A last second save would have thrown off the consistency of the episode’s conflict and Donnie’s character. There’s a quieter theme running here in that, as opposed to the Marvel movies, getting superpowers doesn’t always instill a larger purpose within you. An Avenger is more than a hammer, a shield, or a suit of armor.
- I like it when the show touches on the larger moral and social entities that Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. represent. Both of them use the same methods and seek the same control over this dawning age of heroes, but where Hydra seeks a precise and unquestioned domination that submits to a single, rigid will, S.H.I.E.L.D. realizes that the genie is out of the bottle in regards to Gifted individuals and that the best outcome is to offer guidance, boundaries, and connection. Coulson, and his very personal experience with the Avengers, embodies this progression and I hope Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues to explore this caretaker approach to superheroes and how it grew out of the rigidity that Hydra introduced to the previous incarnation of S.H.I.E.L.D. It took Fury creating the Avengers under everybody’s noses to break that rigidity, and it will take Coulson to sustain its newfound flexibility.
- Of course, Skye committing to being inflexible about the mission is what leads to her killing for the first time and to everyone losing Donnie. Hail Hydra?
Teacher never cared for, preacher said a prayer for Chris Lough and his recaps of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Doctor Who here on Tor.com.
Did they really kill off Donnie, though? The water around him froze the moment he hit it. Hypothermia can delay death in real life, and as Steve Rogers could tell you, it does so way better in Marvel life.
Donnie froze in a chunk of ice, if you think that kills you in the MCU, I have a bridge to sell you.
So Ward’s still creepily invested in Raina’s “You’ll be monsters together” fantasy, as now he’s steering her towards finding her father.
And the way that Coulson keeps pushing Skye away(more on that below), is only going to make her more vulnerable to Ward’s promise of finding her biological family.
Coulson continues to fail his team, by thinking that the only way to be the Director of SHIELD is to be Fury. This is(another reason) why Agent Carter will be interesting, because it will allow us to juxtapose these two different leadership styles.
I was a bit bugged that we got ANOTHER white guy to replace Ward, but so long as rotating members of the team shoot him every other week, I’m okay with it.
And Mac is the greatest.
Simmons. Oh my sweet baby, look how you’ve grown! I was very concerned we were about to get a very painful “lesson” in the dangers of Coulson perpetuating Fury’s compartmentalization, but thankfully May was in the loop.
And Fitz, my other sweet babby. Did you notice that as he got angrier with Ward, he lost his words less? That’s interesting. And what he did to Ward was cold and brilliant, and I LOVED IT
@1, JINX
Donnie is dead enough for the purposes of this episode. For the harrative, I think it’s more important that Skye made a successful ‘kill’ shot than Donnie actually dying. I liked Donnie enough that it’s good he can come back later.
Speaking of coming back, when’s Peterson going to show up? We’ve gotten a good look at how everyone else is dealing with last season’s fallout but not him. It’d be interesting to see how he deals with his trauma from Hydra’s coercion compared to Ward’s or a brainwashee.
If Donnie froze into a block of ice… and ice floats… and it’s like the only piece of ice floating around for hundreds of miles… then the only good reason the Morrocan authorities wouldn’t be able to find it would be that either HYDRA or SHIELD got to that Donnie-berg first.
In addition to Loki’s staff, HYDRA also has the
Angry StickBerserker Staff (we saw Ward [very carefully] collect it when they raided the Fridge).From what I recall of the Winter Soldier credits scene, Strucker isn’t that invested in being HYDRA. His statement was to let SHIELD and HYDRA duke it out and see who came out on top, and to let neither of them interfere in their work.
So I don’t know if HYDRA has a lock on Loki’s staff
Actually, there are some ices that can sink. Most require very cold temperatures (Which Donnie might have) and a high pressure (That might take some handwaving). See Ice XII near the bottom; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice#Phases
Plus, this ice has Donnie’s body in it, which might help explain it.
This season has been consistently good at pushing the characters into interesting and uncomfortable places. Except I guess May–somebody has to be the Mom. At least she’s a badass mom. And I hope that Tripp and Mack get a lot more screen time. There has been a lot going on, but those guys deserve more–Lance Hunter already seems to be accepted as a regular.
I really like that May’s sense of humor is coming out more. It adds to her overall awesomeness.
Fitz telling his hallucinatory Simmons that she’s not there broke my heart a little bit.
@10, Well May’s in a dress next episode, does that count as an interesting and uncomfortable place for her?
I’ve heard Mac referred to as the Fitz Whisperer.
Tripp will be relegated to Guest status for at least another season, he has a starring role on Being Mary Jane with Gabrielle Union.
But looking at his IMDB page says he’s rumored for Age of Ultron….
I expect that May is in fact excellent at everything she does, including dancing, so I’m not sure it does count!
It’s okay–May works well as the stable center right now, when the rest of the family is falling apart. I’m surprised there aren’t more people complaining about earnest Simmons being chosen for an undercover operation. It makes sense to me though–there are only three people Coulsen could trust for that job, and HYDRA probably already has two giant files with Skye and May’s names on them.
@2: “Coulson continues to fail his team, by thinking that the only way to be the Director of SHIELD is to be Fury.”
I don’t see Fury cooking dinner for his undercover agents. That’s pure Coulson right there.
And yeah, in terms of regular billing, we got a white guy to replace Ward (or actually to coexist with Ward, since they’re both there), but we also got Triplett to replace Ward, and Mack to replace Simmons. I’d be happier if they were contractual regulars too, but they’re not being shortchanged in the story department, at least.
@13: Simmons is perfect for undercover work. Who could distrust that sweet, guileless face?
No, Fury isn’t cooking dinner, but the whole, “Keeping important actionable intelligence from those pulling the trigger” is right up his alley.
@6 Yes, but late last season we also saw the staff in the hands of a Hydra mook, until May took it away from him, and used it to bring down the entire building on the Hydra thugs—and the staff, which she dropped as they left. I suppose Hydra could have dug it out, but it seems like they’d have had bigger fish to fry.
@others: Yeah, Donnie’s not gone for good. They even work in an explicit invocation of the “Never Found the Body” TVTrope. Though in terms of the effect it has on Skye here and now, it doesn’t make much difference.
I agree it looks like they’re setting up for Skye to have Ward take her to his leader somewhere down the line. Maybe it’ll be the mid-season cliffhanger before the flashback to Agent Carter begins.
I wonder if the Carter stuff will be set after the SHIELD season premiere prologue where they capture all that materiel, or if it will be what leads up to that prologue? Given the use of Whitehall as a connecting element that we’ve already seen, it seems likelier we’ll get to find out how they worked up to capturing him, because you’d think Whitehall’s story from those days ended with his capture. I guess we’ll see.
No, Fury isn’t cooking dinner, but the whole, “Keeping important actionable intelligence from those pulling the trigger” is right up his alley.
And the whole “isolating himself from others” (mostly Skye, but others too) thing.
I agree it looks like they’re setting up for Skye to have Ward take her to his leader somewhere down the line.
Skye’s departure was pretty much set when she said in Ep 2 that she was never leaving.
Good episode, as this season continues to build upon last season’s strong ending. Loved the perky “That Girl” kind of vibe of the beginning. And they made the jeopardy for Simmons feel very real by the end of the episode.
Even though it is totally unrealistic and over the top, it was kind of fun to see Hunter get shot.
De Caestecker deserves big kudos for his portrayal of ‘damaged’ Fitz.
And next week looks good as well–this show is on a roll lately!
@16, Agent Carter the TV show, is set POST the Agent Carter One Shot. The Agent Carter flashback we saw was at the end of WWII, when the Howling Commandoes were still a part of the SSR. PreSHIELD’s inception.
But, if they do it well, they can integrate Whitehall into that story too. Which I hope, because I LOVE Reed Diamond.
Is the bad guy dead? “…the cold never bothered him much anyway.”
(sorry, had to be done.)
They specifically mentioned in the episode that no body was found. We all know what no body means. He’s not dead. The Ice Man Livith.
Do we have the viewing numbers in on this yet?
But is “Blizzard” really dead? Or did he freeze himself, and go into “Captain America hibernation”? Slowly swept away by the current, safe until someone thawed him out and cures his bullet wound? That would be a very typical comic book switch.
Of course Blizzard isn’t necessarily dead. This is the world of comic books after all. Even people who we see die on screen come back from time to time. There are only two reasons Blizzard would really be dead:
1) The writers don’t find any more use for the character in the future.
2) The actor demands more money to return than ABC is willing to pay him.
@19: Actually the Agent Carter series (at least the initial 8-episode season) is set before the one-shot. Co-showrunner Michelle Fazekas has said: “The short really is the basis for the series. [Carter]’s working at SSR, post-war… If you think of the short as sort of the end of the series, the series would be leading up to that moment where she gets assigned to S.H.I.E.L.D.”
@25: Actually, going by the context of that quote, it sounds more like they’re going to replace the one-shot, showing the same type of events playing out–Agent Carter getting fed up with make-work, striking out on her own, and ending up founding S.H.I.E.L.D. with Howard–in a different way. The one-shot will likely end up not being strictly canonical.
The odd thing is, rewatching the one-shot just now, I was struck by the McGuffin that Carter found in that freezer case: a vial of blue fluid with an odd symbol on it. A sample of the Kree blood later used to revive Coulson and Skye? Were they already planning this that far back?
It will be interesting to see if that element reappears in the extended version of the series.
@26: I dunno… so far the MCU has done a pretty good job of keeping everything consistent and meshed together, even if certain things are recontextualized by later productions (like how “The Consultant” reconciled the tag scene of The Incredible Hulk with the events of Iron Man 2). The MCU has been pretty good at following the storytelling style of Marvel Comics, and that often includes retconning or reinterpeting past stories in ways that don’t actually remove them from continuity.