TV Korner: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1.05 “Girl in the Flower Dress”

The Extremis project comes back to challenge the Coulson’s team once again on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

This week’s mission takes the team to the Far East and down South, with Coulson questioning his instincts. S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps track of people with powers, born or acquired, and this week one of those people goes missing. Chan Ho Yin is a street performer in who has the ability to control fire. He does not usually use it but a woman in a flower dress catches his eye, and he decides to show off. His showmanship puts in right in the crosshairs of Centipede, the group who have been experimenting on people using the Extremis formula in the pilot.

Chan is taken and told he could increase his powers and use them, something S.H.I.E.L.D. would never let him do. The scientists hide the true nature of their motives, they need his cells which can withstand intense heat to stable the Extremis formula. They supercharge Chan’s powers and almost drain him of all his blood. His is the key to using Extremis, stopping the little combusting problem they have been having with the test subjects.

While looking for Chan Coulson and team learn a little about what is driving Sky to be part of the team. They find out a hacker in Texas has lead Centipede to Chan. The team looses him but when he gets home Sky is waiting for him. It turns out the two have a past in the Rising Tide. They have a reunion and while their guard is down Coulson and team track them down. They are both taken to the Bus in cuffs, and learn where Chan is being held.They are able to use the hacker to and track Chan to a holding facility in Hong Kong.

Getting there too late the team and hackers are able to get into the building, but not before Chan, now calling himself Scorch has lost his mind. They are too late to save him and he burns himself up trying to take out the team. It all ends with Sky getting a second chance from Coulson, but the rest of the team is not willing to trust her just yet. Sky relieves to Coulson that the reason she joined the Rising Tide and the his team is she is looking in to her parents. The only evidence she has about them is a redacted S.H.I.E.L.D. file. The show closes with the woman in the flower dress talking to a man in prison, but there is not much about who he is or their true plan.

This week feels like just another mission without a lot of depth we have come to appreciate from the Marvel movies. Rumor is the show is going off course and some comic creators and Whedon are stepping back in to right the course of the show after the November shows.