Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 2, Episode 11: Raina Becomes a Creepy Hedgehog (Recap)

I wrote this post at the beginning of March, but never got around to finishing and/or posting it.  In the grand tradition of my family, I'm late.

I have a confession: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D is now the television show that I most look forward to seeing.

Whenever I reflect on this, I see a vision of my mother giving me The Look, which is something like this:

Wait...no it's not. Actually, that's really more like look I would get from my youngest sister if I ever made her watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D with me.  In fact, she probably will make a face like that if she reads this blog post in its entirety.  

The Look my mother would give me is more like this:

Now, THAT is A Look I know well.

But I digress.

If you haven't been watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., some background information is necessary.  This is going to sound like a particularly convoluted episode of Ancient Aliens, but bear with me.

In prehistoric times, an alien race of brutal eugenicists landed on earth. Their goal was to destroy the majority of humanity, while sparing those found "worthy" to inherit the planet. To this end, they created a set of obelisks, also known as diviners. If a worthy person brings an obelisk to the alien temple, they will undergo a mysterious transformation known as "The Change." This transformation comes with the promise of (suspiciously unspecified) "gifts." In contrast, unworthy people who touch an obelisk die--in a suitably horrific and dramatic fashion, of course.

(Side note: the ancient alien temple is located in the ancient alien city, which is deep underground, decorated with a multitude of eerie, enigmatic, ancient alien runes, and has no lighting whatsoever because the ancient aliens were so busy creating obelisks to carry out their evil ancient alien eugenics plot that they didn't have time to install electricity.)

The mid season finale ended with one "unworthy" and two "worthy" people in the temple with an obelisk, undergoing "The Change".  

The "unworthy" person was Agent Tripp.  Being unworthy, he dies, of course.  (What can I say?  The ancient aliens were total jerks.)

One of the "worthy" people was Skye (the main character), who had no interest in undergoing a transformation, but rushed in as part of a spectacularly harebrained plan to warn everyone that the ancient alien city was dangerous for the unworthy. No s---, Sherlock.

The other "worthy" person was Raina. As a child, her grandmother told her that when she underwent the transformation, she would become something beautiful, like an angel. She made undergoing "The Change" her life's goal; it was even the reason she became a scientist. Her question to Garrett in season one--"What will I become?"--has been echoed throughout the series, and was crucial in building suspense for this episode.

And so, it is was finally revealed that Raina has become....

...a hedgehog.  

Except creepy.  Really creepy.  And with super long claws that are perfect for slashing people's throats. 

Heightening the suspense, Raina's transformation isn't fully revealed until halfway through the episode, when she turns to Skye's father for help.  She tells him that she "can't live like this." He responds, "well, then don't."  (My theory is that they included this conversation to remind us that Skye's father is The Bad Guy, just in case his search for his daughter and his big, sad puppy dog eyes had garnered too much sympathy from viewers.)

Raina attempts to commit suicide by walking out into traffic, but is suddenly surrounded by a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sent to take her into custody. She has just decided that suicide via police fire is a perfectly acceptable option when Mr. Wonky Eyes appears out of nowhere in a burst of blue electricity to save her.

This is Mr. Wonky Eyes. He's not exactly beautiful, but he knows how to make a timely arrival.

But Raina isn't exactly the main character of the show.  So what else happened in this episode?

Early on, we see the masterminds in charge of Hydra for the very first time.  By the end of the episode...they are all dead! Coulson tricks them into killing each other off. (Of course, one lower-ranking, but still powerful, Hydra officer is left alive to create mayhem in future episodes).  Normally, one would expect that the revelation of exactly who the antagonists ARE would be a big deal to the plot--these people have been pushing the action of the show, for pete's sake, even if they have been doing it off-screen.  But Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. kills them off like a bunch Red Shirts a la Star Trek.

Still, that plot might have been interesting IF the episode had focused on it.  But alas, it was not to be. The agents were still reeling from the shock of Tripp's death, and their emotional reactions interrupted the flow of the (more literal) action.  Mac decides to throw a temper tantrum, accusing Coulson of making bad decisions and blaming him for Tripp's death.  All of the agents engage in a pointless shouting match.  Yawn.

Meanwhile, Skye spends the entire episode sitting around, locked in a glass room while Fitz and Simmons run tests to see if she was transformed in the dark, scary, alien temple. No one seems to notice the minor earthquakes that take place whenever she gets upset.  This is a lucky break for Skye because Simmons has apparently decided to deal with Tripp's death by becoming a psychopath, making barely-veiled suggestions that it would be safest just to kill people like Raina off before they have time to do any damage.

Fitz finally notices that Skye is generating mini-earthquakes when she explodes a glass bulb right in front of him, but instead of telling the rest of the team, he covers for her, claiming to have broken it himself.  He even fakes her results so that they'll let her out of the cage, explaining that what with the way Simmons is acting, maybe it would be best to keep everything on the down low for the time being. Finally, someone acting with some sense!  Can I get an Amen?!

In hindsight, Raina's story was the most interesting part of the episode.  This was shocking, because Raina is extremely annoying--she attempts to shroud herself in an air of mystery, but only succeeds in being stagy and over dramatic. Plus, she oozes with sexuality to the point that it's no longer sexy. I mean, seriously, who uses their sexy bedroom voice as they conduct unethical science experiments on unwilling test subjects?  That's sexiness-overkill right there, people.

But in this episode, Raina's dramatic slut-bagginess was replaced by a misery that was almost genuinely moving.  Plus, we learned just enough about her transformation--not so much that future episodes would be bereft of suspense in that quarter, but enough to prevent the feeling of anticlimax that surrounded the majority of Skye's story line.