Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Recap: The Asset

I may have spoken too soon about there being anything redeeming in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. This week's episode was a complete and total snoozefest, predictable from start to finish. The team has to find a way to rescue Fitz and Simmons' old mentor scientist from an evil genius' lair on Malta, which apparently doesn't allow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on its soil. The team decides to go in anyway, sending Skye as a one woman advance team posing as a loyal Rising Tider. Who is she double crossing, we wonder? You'll be shocked to hear that she ends up remaining loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., I guess because Grant told her a very dumb story about his brother and some cake earlier and now she knows that all of the Agents have feelings. Anyway when Coulson arrives to rescue the scientist it turns out he doesn't want rescuing; he wants to use a particle that controls gravity to destroy the island and everyone on it, because it's the only way to stop the evil genius who is “an addict… addicted to destruction.” Yeah. Coulson throws the scientist into the gravitron particle whatever whatever, which for some reason stabilizes it. I would try to make sense of the episode but clearly no one in the writers' room did, so I don't feel too obligated. The episode ends with the team reunited, Skye learning to box, and a hand reaching out of the gravitron's silver mass, because that scientist is coming for us, he's coming for us all!

This episode felt completely workmanlike in its plotting and execution, which sadly reveals how thin the characters are: I still don't like Skye's fast-talking can't stay out of trouble little girl shtick (and having her in her pink princess dress throwing herself against Agent Grant's manly side was pretty hard to take), Grant remains impenetrably dull, Melinda May doesn't have anything to do and Coulson is Coulson but he's only one man. We're only four episodes in and S.H.I.E.L.D. is somehow hitting a midseason slump.