– Spoiler Review –
“Who You Really Are” initially comes off as a comical one-off episode, but quickly turns into something much much more, filling in some info regarding the Deviners, the Kree’s involvement with the Inhuman program, and revealing Skye’s secret to the team. Plus, Eddie McClintock of Warehouse 13 fame quests stars and Jaimie Alexander returns as Lady Sif, so it’s kind of a given this episode should’ve been enjoyable.
Lady Sif returns (last scene in S1 episode, “Yes Men”) to Earth, but when the team meets up with her, she’s got a bad case of amnesia. Thankfully that aspect wasn’t the focus of the entire episode, but it really lent to a lot of humor, especially Sif’s elation regarding her warrior status, confusion over why the name Thor makes her smile, and a lack of manners, like when she yelled at the old man to answer Coulson’s questions. The fact Skye found a video of Sif and a mysterious man fighting on Twitter was both funny and a little cheesy, but it’s kind of typical in this day and age anyways so it works. It’s not too long for the team and Sif to unlock the scattered clues and track down what they discover isn’t a man, but a Kree in disguise.
While that’s all going on, Bobbi and Mac can’t help but have even more frustratingly vague conversation about their real purpose and agenda. They specifically come out and say they aren’t Hydra, which I had figured by now, but it’s still really hard to gauge just what they are up to and who they are working for. My best guess now would be the Inhuman faction Raina got saved by in the previous episode, but then I realized Mac and Bobbi wouldn’t want to lock up Skye/be afraid of her. And just when I was beginning to like Bobbi and Hunter’s relationship, Mac talks her out of included Hunter and shutting him out, but at least his reasoning is pretty solid. Of course Hunter wasn’t so easily fooled by his discussion with Bobbi last week, then add her shutting him out and Bobbi and Mac mentioning getting more backup, and he’s too suspicious to let their possible secret go. But Mac knocking out Hunter was something I didn’t see coming and I doubt after that we’ll have to wait much longer to learn their secret.
The biggest thing in this episode was the info dump by Vin-Tak the Kree. He explains that he was sent to Earth to investigate the ancient signal set off by the Diviner being activated, to kill the ‘abominations’ created by it, and make sure the rest of his race didn’t find out about it. While the Kree were in a war, they started looking for ways to get more soldiers, so they started a program to mess with other species’ DNA to turn them into weapons. Turns out the only successful species was too successful and that was us humans, so they shut it down and abandoned Earth and the program to history. If you read the comics, I’m assuming some of this information wasn’t anything Earth-shattering or new, but for those of us who really haven’t, it’s quite the treasure-trove of background.
Of course when he’s explaining this, Skye is in the room getting nervous, tensions are already high, and Lady Sif ends up taking his side as she knows the power of the Inhumans. If there really was any doubt the team wouldn’t accept and try to help Skye through her changes, and that keeping everything a secret was unnecessary, they all quickly band together to keep her safe. In the end she’s forced to tranquilize herself, unable to calm down and control her quakes. After she walks in on everyone but Fitz feeling threatened by her, she decides to separate herself from the group and live inside the Bus’ interrogation room. It’s good to see she isn’t running to Cal just yet, like he predicted, and she’s willing to stay and get help from Coulson, May, and Fitz even when the others don’t really want her around.
I didn’t necessarily buy the whole scene where Mac, Bobbi, Simmons, and Hunter were all turning on Fitz for keeping Skye’s changes a secret. With Mac and Bobbi, they’re mad he kept a secret and they certainly shouldn’t be the ones talking, considering theirs is big enough for Mac to choke out Hunter in the end. And with Simmons, Fitz understandably kept it from her due to all her talk of eradicating special people if they could, and while it makes sense she’d never hurt her friend, she didn’t make that clear at all. Hopefully they’ll be off his back soon.
Here are a few other things:
- Don’t get me wrong, I love Eddie McClintock and he’s one of the core reasons I grew to love Warehouse 13 for all those years (besides Joanne Kelly and Allison Scagliotti and Saul Rubinek and etc.), but he has such a goofy presence I was never sold on him being evil or a villain here. I didn’t mind that he turned out to be a most harmless Kree, as it played to his strong suits, but it never let him feel like a palpable threat. Maybe for other people, especially those who never watched WH13, it was different, but he’s always Pete Lattimer in my mind…for now.
- Loved that (possibly unintentional) Jurassic Park reference where they show water in a cup rippling just as Skye begins to Quake-out.
- Where are all the Diviners from the box? Or have they all been used already?
The information was strong with “Who You Really Are,” cleverly hidden amongst an entertaining hour with some memorable quest appearances.
+ Guest Appearances
+ Holy-info dump
+ Bobbi and Mac’s secret heating up
– Came off a little too goofy
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
MARVEL’S AGENTS OF SHIELD REVIEWS:
Season Two: 2.1 Shadows | 2.2 Heavy is the Head | 2.3 Making Friends and Influencing People | 2.4 Face My Enemy | 2.5 A Hen in the Wolf House | 2.6 A Fractured House | 2.7 The Writing on the Wall | 2.8 The Things We Bury | 2.9 …Ye Who Enter Here | 2.10 What They Become | 2.11 Aftershocks | 2.13 One of Us | 2.14 Love in the Time of Hydra | 2.15 One Door Closes | 2.16 Afterlife | 2.17 Melinda | 2.18 The Frenemy of My Enemy | 2.19 The Dirty Half Dozen | 2.20 Scars | 2.21,22: S.O.S.
MARVEL’S AGENT CARTER REVIEWS:
Season One: 1.1 This is Not the End/1.2 Bridge and Tunnel | 1.3 Time and Tide | 1.4 The Blitzkrieg Button | 1.5 The Iron Ceiling | 1.6 A Sin to Err | 1.7 SNAFU | 1.8 Valediction