Agents of SHIELD - Making Friends and Influencing People

Yay!

In the third episode of its second season, Agents of SHIELD brings back absentee former regular Jessica Simmons, Agent of SHIELD turned lab intern of HYDRA. Working undercover for the evil mega-conspiracy, Simmons is called on to prove her loyalty by helping to retrieve super-powered asset Donnie Gill.

'Making Friends and Influencing People' is Elizabeth Henstridge's show. After two weeks as Fitz's drippy dream Simmons, she gets to be the real deal again, and a real deal who is out on her own and coping with deadly danger over her morning coffee at the office. She hasn't been revised into a nails hard field agent (as they seem to be doing with Skye); she's just the same old Simmons getting to actually do something for once. It's kind of awesome.

Skye is still annoying me with pretty much every breath, and trying to make her into mini-May isn't helping me to like her. Fitz's confrontation with Ward was, however, a thing of awesome.

Season 2 is really coming together for me, despite a few lingering niggles. The choice of a female agent for the brainwashing scenes was one of those, although having seen episode 4, I realise that this was in part because the brainwashed agent would have to impersonate May.