TV REVIEW: SHIELD’s “Nothing Personal” is Anything But

By Felicia Kudronowicz

This week’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. found the team separated, confused and desperately trying to figure out what the heck was going on. The episode was titled “Nothing Personal” but what went down was anything but.

As promised, Agent Hill (Cobie Smulders) was back in action as May tracks her down to find out more about Fury and Tahiti. Disappointingly, Hill didn’t seem to have a super important purpose this episode, except to drop some Avengers references and show her beautiful face. I approve.

Coulson, Fitz, Simmons and Triplett are back at the super secret Fury lair trying to figure out where the rest of their group has gone. All they know is that May left alone, and soon afterwards, Ward and Skye also both left, holding hands. Simmons randomly decides she’s going to make pancakes, which is actually a lame excuse to go into the storage room where Eric’s corpse is still located. Fitz also finds a message Skye left that says, “Ward is Hydra.” Even though it was a lame reveal, the team is now up to speed about what’s going on. Just as they locate Ward and Skye, the bunker is infiltrated by armed forces led by Agent Hill. They have come to claim the bunkers as US military property now that SHIELD is no longer in existence.

Skye and Ward are now at a random diner in LA trying to decrypt the drive with all the SHIELD information on it. Skye however has led them to the wrong location so it won’t work. Since armed forces are with the team, they tell them about Ward which immediately sends out a fugitive status on him causing the police show up at the diner. Somehow Ward beats up every last one of them and manages to get away. Skye steals a police car to escape, but Mike Peterson (Deathlok) flies in and stops her. Apparently he was shadowing Ward to make sure he got the job done since Skye is his weak spot.

With Deathlok, Skye and Ward now safely (or not so safely in Skye’s situation) on SHIELD’s former jet, Ward handcuffs Skye to a staircase and demands that she tell him the real location needed to decrypt the drive. Ward tells Skye that his actions are “nothing personal” and despite being Hydra his feelings for Skye are real. She responds with, “I think I’m going to throw up.” Girl, I hear ya. Ward gave me the creeps this whole episode. It’s amazing how good writing can completely flip your opinion of a character. Since Ward isn’t having any luck, Deathlok steps in. He gives Ward a heart attack (quite literally!) and tells Skye she can stop it by revealing the location. Skye gives in.

Agent Hill catches up with them for a lame face off before they are able to take off. She demands they surrender and they don’t. But it turns out the whole purpose was for Coulson to sneak onto their plane to rescue Skye. He does just that by getting away in Lola, the flying car.

The episode ends with the whole team together again (besides Ward) at a motel, essentially homeless. In the closing scene, May reveals to Coulson that she found the file on Tahiti and who is behind it. It turns out it was Coulson who researched it. She found a video of him telling Fury to never under any circumstance to use project Tahiti. Uh oh.

With the first season of SHIELD moving towards a finale, the series delivered another strong episode with fantastic scenes between all our agents. Skye and Ward’s confrontation, and the actions she took to save him, along with Fitz and Simmon’s heart to heart were stand out character moments this week. And as traumatic as it was for those involved, it was actually interesting to see the team separated for the majority of the episode. I’m excited for next week’s episode where we’re set to  learn more about Ward’s history and hopefully what made him the way he is.