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Published on October 5th, 2013 | by Sharp-O

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S.H.I.E.L.D. Exposed – “0-8-4″

Oh boy, this is going to be a rough one.

I’ll be straight with you guys, this was a very lacklustre episode for me. It was a very “Oh, we’re a ragtag bunch of misfits but we need to work as a team” kind of episode and it’s very surprising to see something this… basic from a Whedon. Not Joss, but his brother Jed. Then again, with three writers per the episode we may see a distillation like this sometimes, though I really hope not too often.

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So what happened in this episode? The team is off to retrieve the titular 0-8-4, an object of unknown origin, from Peru and run into one of Coulson’s old flames and what appears to be some old Hydra-built Tesseract Tech. Air Force One shenanigans ensue and the team bond as a result.

The plot is weaksauce but we get some team development out of the way so maybe we can focus on more awesome stuff next week.

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The good points of this episode though are Melinda May, who’s obvious PTSD is a recurring theme as she’s forced into combat situations that she’d rather not deal with. She’s one of the more interesting characters at the minute but she runs the risk of becoming Black Widow-lite. Regardless, Ming-Na Wen is a good actress and I hope her character gives her something juicy to chew on.

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Skye being revealed as a double agent to the audience seems a little trope-y but it’s obviously the way to for the revelation of the antagonist group this season. It’s got to be Rising Tide, right?

On a trivia note, can we please take a closer look at Coulson’s trophy case? I bet there’s all sorts of fun nods to a larger Marvel Universe in there. Also, did anyone else notice that the pulse weapon that Ward used outside the temple is pretty much the same exact weapon from Serenity when Simon goes to free River? I can’t be the only one to notice that.

And now we come to the highlight of this episode: the stinger. You hear him before he’s even on screen but we get about 3 minutes straight of Samuel L. Jackson!

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*squee* This did so much to redeem the episode in my mind. It was a joy to see and I really hope he shows up again. Hell, we just need more cameos in this damn show. Doesn’t have to be full episodes, just little bits like this and I’ll be a happy chappy.

Overall, a lacklustre episode but with some interesting subplot details and a visit from Nick Fury bitching about fish tanks.

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