Agents of SHIELD 1.21 "Ragtag" Review: That's Not a Weakness, Is It?

    Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., “Ragtag,” was written by Jeffrey Bell and directed by Roxann Dawson. Bell and Dawson last collaborated on episode four, “Eye Spy.” Brett Dalton continues to impress as more layers are peeled off of Ward, and we even get a very telling glimpse into his backstory with Garrett (Bill Paxton). The episode ends on a cliffhanger for our entire team, and as this is only the penultimate episode, I’m preparing for some major shouting at my television at the end of the first season finale.

    This episode continues to do what this series does best. It delivers a good solid story, some great character building, some hilarious lines, some great comic easter eggs, and some terrific action. I think it’s pretty obvious by now that I’m ecstatic that the show is getting a second season.

    The episode begins in the past with Ward under arrest as a juvenile and Garrett coming to offer him a way out. We learn that Ward had been a cadet but went awol in order to go home and set his family’s house on fire. Garrett asks him if he knew his brother was in the house. Ward says no, but I’d be willing to bet he’s lying and he was trying to protect the rest of his family from his older brother by killing him. We also learn that Garrett was a “pyro” when he was a kid. Garrett warns Ward to never trust anyone, especially him – clearly, that was good advice! Garrett also tells Ward that he’s part of a secret organization that’s looking to recruit young men. Finally, he tells Ward that going with him will be the hardest thing that Ward has ever done, but no one will screw with him ever again.

    In the next flashback, Garrett abandons Ward in the wilderness with nothing but a dog, Buddy, to help him. Garrett tells Ward that if Ward looks after Buddy maybe Buddy will look after him. Hilariously, Garrett tells Ward to “Speak up, son. I’m not a mind reader.” Funny, coming from the Clairvoyant! When Ward tells Garrett leaving him isn’t fair, Garret replies that Ward has to stop blaming him for Ward’s own failures. He tells Ward that he can go back to juvi and prove what his family and the world thinks of him, that he’s “weak and worthless.” Garrett tells him he’ll be gone a couple of months and either Ward will there or he won’t. Garrett tells Ward that he believes he can do it.

    Garrett actually leaves Ward for six months, but Ward has managed to thrive. He’s even about to start building a cabin. In the next flashback Ward tells Garrett that Buddy is better than a human because he is “smart, loyal, and trustworthy.” Garrett asks where that gets him – abandoned in the woods or dropped at the pound. Garrett identifies with Buddy because he blames S.H.I.E.L.D. for abandoning him when he was shot. When S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t rescue him, Garrett stopped being loyal to them and joined HYDRA – the secret organization within a secret organization. He tells Ward that HYDRA understands the importance of survival.

    In the final flashback, Garrett tells Ward that he’s been accepted into S.H.I.E.L.D. operations. When Ward tries to thank Garrett, he tells Ward not to do that, that he doesn’t owe anyone anything, he’s earned it. He also tells Ward that it will be very hard for him at S..H.I.E.L.D. because he can’t ever become attached to anything or anyone. He tells Ward, “you have to fight that weakness in you.” Then he tells Ward to take care of Buddy – he means, of course, to kill him. He asks, “That’s not a weakness is it?” We see Ward’s tortured face as he tries to kill Buddy, only to fire his gun in the air so that Buddy will run off – presumably to find whatever Ward has killed.

    The flashbacks have important links to the present. The theme of weakness is one that comes up again and again, but most importantly when Skye (Chloe Bennet) is berating herself for not letting Mike (J August Richards) kill Ward, she says “I’m stupid and weak.” Coulson (Clark Gregg) immediately stops her and says “You aren’t weak. You have compassion. That’s harder.” This also resonates with Garrett telling Ward that coming with him would be the hardest thing he did, but I think the hardest thing Ward has to do is yet to come – I think his compassion for the team is going to force him to kill Garrett – or at least betray him. We get reaction shots of May (Ming-Na Wen) and Triplett (BJ Britt) when Skye says she’s weak that show that they have compassion for what she’s going through too.

    We see throughout the flashbacks that Ward does have compassion. It’s compassion that makes him want to protect his family from his older brother. He looks after Buddy because he has compassion. Ward really does have that inherent “weakness.” The fact that Ward was on the verge of building his own home when Garrett comes back for him demonstrates that Ward is looking for that sense of belonging. Garrett sent him into Coulson’s team and left him there too long. I have to believe with Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) that Ward does care for them.

    And that brings me to the last really important parallel between past and present – Fitz and Buddy. De Caestecker is also wonderful in this episode. He remains staunchly in Ward’s corner despite everyone else having given up on him. When Skye assumes Fitz is worried about infiltrating Cybertek, he reveals that he’s not worried about himself, he’s been worrying about Ward. He’s convinced that something must have happened to Ward to make him do the things he’s doing. Fitz is wrong about Ward having an exploding eye, but he’s right that things did happen to him in the past – Garrett and Ward’s older brother both had a hand in shaping him. He wasn’t, as Skye and others keep speculating, born evil.

    Just like Buddy, Fitz is loyal, smart, and trustworthy. The dog could have been named anything, but he’s called Buddy which is another word for friend. Fitz takes his anger out on Garrett and uses the EMP buzzer on him. He does it for Ward and tells him that he doesn’t have to take orders from Garrett anymore. He tries to free his friend. Garrett, however, orders Ward to put down Fitz and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge). This scene is right after Garrett telling Ward to put down Buddy. Just as in the past, Garrett asks Ward, “That’s not a weakness is it?” Meaning his friendship with Fitz and the rest of the team. Ward chases both Fitz and Simmons into a container of some kind.

    The final shot of Buddy is him in the rifle sites. Is this Garrett shooting Buddy anyway? He stayed back at camp after all, or is it Ward only able to make the kill from a distance when he doesn’t have personal contact? There’s a great shot of Dalton’s face as he agonizes over Buddy’s face looking at him with trust and this is juxtaposed with almost the same look in the present as Fitz pleads with him not kill them. I was struck by how much De Caestecker looked like Buddy as he plead with Ward through the window.

     Simmons tells Fitz just to accept the truth, but Fitz insists that he and Ward are friends. Fitz insists that Ward is a good person. However, when Ward insists he open the door, Fitz finally says no. Ward turns his back to them to work the controls and Fitz once again pleads with him to look at them, that he knows Ward cares about them. Ward acknowledges that he does and that it’s a weakness. We cut to Buddy in the gun sites and return to Ward dropping Fitz and Simmons into the ocean. Either Ward was trying to get them away from Garrett who would undoubtedly kill them or he was distancing himself from the kill. I think it was the former.

    There were lots of great scenes in this episode. I loved Coulson and May going undercover at Cybertek, posing essentially as Fitz and Simmons. It was uncanny to see May smiling that much! But the best part was Gregg and Wen actually picking up De Caestecker and Henstridge’s accents! I also love May asking Coulson if his sweater itched. I had to echo Coulson’s remark that he was glad to have May back after she cartwheeled herself down the hallway, took out the Cybertek security and caught and hung up the phone. I also love their large file transfer for Skye.

    It was great seeing Triplett’s grandfather being a Howling Commando come in handy. Coulson completely geeking out about the antique spyware was fantastic. Skye’s remark that it looked like it came out of the back of a comic was nicely ironic! Of course the hypno-beam looks exactly like a hairdryer, so there’s a certain amount of justification for that remark... Fitz defends them by saying they were meant to look ordinary so that if a spy was caught they would go undetected.

     There’s a great reaction shot of May, smiling fondly at Coulson. And of course, it was really the three guys who were most interested in the new “toys.” I loved that they made so much use of them throughout the episode. I have to wonder if we will see any of these in Agent Carter next fall...

    I loved Fitz setting the curtains on fire with the cigarette and then May telling Coulson not to do that when they break into the Cybertek vault. I also loved that Fitz didn’t know how to fist bump with Triplett, but that Triplett was looking out for Fitz by giving him one of the quarter beacons and taking one himself.

    May sees that Sky is struggling to deal with her feelings of betrayal about Ward. Bennet and Wen are terrific in this scene as well. Skye admits she hasn’t given May enough credit for being a “Zen warrior” and admires her use of her “hate-fu.” May confides that she is furious with Ward for betraying both herself and the team. She tells Skye, “I’m not going to waste is on a tantrum. I’m going to mine it, save it, and when we find Ward, I’m going to use every bit of it to take him down.”

    While Fitz and Simmons end up taken by Ward after they find the bus in Cuba, Triplett, Skye, May, and Coulson infiltrate the barbershop to plant Skye’s Trojan horse on a HYDRA computer. I loved Coulson’s telling Triplett that secret doors were kind of his “thing.” Of course, just as they find the computer a group of super soldiers finds them. One of them has the berserker staff that we’ve seen before – I can’t wait to see May get a hold of that again!

    Meanwhile, in the enemy camp, we learn a number of important things. Mike is mad at Raina (Ruth Negga) for not protecting his son. Raina’s motivation is to help special people, and she’s particularly interested in transformation and Skye. Learning that Garrett was the original Deathlok, makes him much more interesting to her. Raina also plays Ward when she tells him about Skye’s background. She tells him that Skye's parents were monsters - yet Mike or Deathlok is also described as a monster in this episode. It makes me think that the definition of monster may be suspect.There’s another nice reaction shot of Negga smiling slightly as she manipulates Ward’s feeling for Skye.

    We see the reason for Deathlok taking out a druglord – an assignment that Mike can like because it’s the sort of thing he’d hoped to do when he became a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the first place – is part of a larger plan. Quin (David Conrad), who’s reputation has been restored by the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. is out to sell super soldiers to the highest bidder. There’s a nice Six Million Dollar Man reference as Quin describes them as “Better, stronger, faster.”

    And we learn that Garrett was the original Deathlok, but his system is failing. His interest in the GH325 has been personal all along – he’s dying. We also learn that he’s been injecting himself with the centipede serum to stay alive but he’s close enough to death that it doesn’t give him super strength. After being zapped by Fitz’s EMP, Garrett has Raina inject him with the last of the GH325. It’s interesting that he sent Ward away and got her to do it after he told Ward he didn’t really trust her. When he doesn’t die from the injection – though it’s a great special effect as he seizes – and really reminded me of John Hurt in Alien – Ward asks him what he’s feeling and he replies “The universe!”

    Ward is actually pretty angry with Garrett for having let Mike almost kill him. Even after all this time, Ward is really no more than Buddy to Garrett. Ward is convinced that Garrett would have let him die if that’s what it took to get the hard drive. Ward’s right – Garrett will do anything to save himself. At one point Ward says to Garret, “I’ve done everything you’ve asked since the day we met.” Garrett replies “Not everything” before relying on the way he’s manipulated Ward for all these years, telling him to stop playing the victim. But Ward is the victim. However, the really significant remark is the “not everything” – what is it that Ward didn’t do? I’m sure it was not killing Buddy.

    What did you think of the episode? Do you have any sympathy now for Ward or even Garrett now that we understand their motives a bit better? How do you think the team is going to escape from the super soldiers in Cuba? Do you think that the tracking coin will save Fitz and Simmons? Do you think the serum will really have cured Garrett or will it drive him mad? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!