Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1, Episode 6: F.Z.Z.T.

We got another pretty good episode this week! I'm glad to see this series is slowly but steadily improving. Hopefully they'll keep up the good work.

Now if they could just throw us a bone and feature an actual super villain now and then, instead of an alien virus like we got this week, then we might have something. I was lead to believe there'd be superpowers on their superpowers show.

Thoughts (SPOILERS!)
• If nothing else, this episode finally taught me which one is Fitz and which is Simmons.

• So at the beginning of the episode Fitz is clearly hitting on Skye, but then he's pining away for Simmons when he thinks she's gonna die. I was under the impression he and Simmons were a couple all along. I guess not.

• Simmons' first name is Gemma. Is this the first time that's been mentioned? 

• Last episode Coulson fitted Skye's hacker boyfriend with a S.H.I.E.L.D. security bracelet and said, "I wouldn't get around any electronic equipment for a while." He then fastened one to Skye as well, as penance for lying.

I took Coulson's comment to mean that the bracelets would disrupt computers and phones, preventing the two from further hacking. Looks like I was wrong. Instead it appears the bracelet monitors and records all of Skye's actions online.

I suppose it's possible her bracelet is different from the one Coulson gave her boyfriend, and his really does prevent him from using a computer. And no, I don't understand why I'm obsessing with this unimportant detail either. 

• Man, Marvel's really getting their money's worth out of the Battle Of New York in The Avengers. The entire plot of this week's episode is a direct offshoot from that set piece. It was also the cause of Tony Stark's mental problems in Iron Man 3, and it's mentioned in the upcoming Thor 2.

On the one hand that's good-- so often in films there'll be an earth-shattering event like that and then everything's seemingly fine the next day. It's good to see such an attack have real and lasting repercussions for once.

On the other hand, no one seemed all that upset about the attack during The Avengers last year. All the trauma seems to be popping up wayyyy after the fact. Post-traumatic stress I suppose.

• Nice fake out with the infected firefighter. When he first popped up and was giving the S.H.I.E.L.D. team sinister looks I was sure he was the super villain of the week (except that this show rarely has super villains of the week). Instead he turned out to be just an innocent alien-souvenir grabbing victim.

• Since the show began fans have been debating over how Coulson's seemingly returned from the dead. Looks like we can rule out cloning. He's got a big ugly scar in the middle of his gut where Loki stabbed him in The Avengers. Unless things work differently in the Marvel Universe, clones can't have scars.

Many fans seem to think he's a Life Model Decoy, a type of robot featured prominently in the various S.H.I.E.L.D. related comics over the years. I doubt he's a robot either, because again, scar. Unless S.H.I.E.L.D. techs added a scar to his robotic belly to throw him (and everyone else) off that particular trail.  

• At the end of the episode the team delivers the Chitauri helmet to the Sandbox. Their plane appeared to be sitting in the middle of the desert, surrounded by miles and miles of nothing but sand. Can giant planes land and take off in sand? Don't they need some kind of runway? Unless this thing has some kind of VTOL capability they're gonna be stuck there a long time.