Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1, Episode 9: Repairs

This week we get a little more back story on Melinda May (but not too much!) and another shout out to Thor: The Dark World, now playing at theaters everywhere. 

Thoughts (SPOILERS!)
• HAW! I knew May and Ward were hooking up! Last week they kind of left it up in the air as to did they or didn't they, and many around the interwebs said the two were just talking and working out their psychological problems. 

I knew that was hogwash and it looks like I was right. They're totally hooking up. I did figure it was just a one time thing though, but this episode suggests it's an ongoing relationship, so I didn't see that coming.

• This week the team investigates a woman who appears to have telekinetic powers, but Coulson and Fitzsimmons all poo poo that notion, saying that telekinesis doesn't exist and is downright impossible.

This isn't the first time the show's told us in no uncertain terms that it doesn't exist. Never mind that they've encountered space gods and people with super strength and subjects who can control magnetism or generate flame from their bodies-- mental powers are out of the question!

I don't understand the series' attitude toward telekinesis. Do they just not want to deal with it, or is this some kind of set up? Are they making the characters adamantly disbelieve in it, so they can all be shocked when someone comes along who really has it? Who knows.

• So Hannah Hutchins thinks she's possessed by a demon. In reality a lovesick co-worker named Tobias Ford sabotaged a particle accelerator so she'd have to inspect it, but it accidentally exploded and sent him bouncing between dimensions, like a ghost.

So this guy was sweet on Hutchins, and instead of maybe just telling her he liked her, or at the very least leaving her a secret admirer note, he risks an entire factor by throwing a wrench into a dangerous particle accelerator. Brilliant! 

• Speaking of Ford-- what was this other dimension he was bouncing to? He thinks it's Hell, and the glimpse Simmons gets of it certainly qualifies. Is it really Hell? The biblical fire and brimstone place? It also looks like it could be one of the Nine Realms we saw in Thor: The Dark World, which would be kind of cool and tie things together nicely. We'll probably never know.

At the end of the episode May talks Ford into "letting go," and he dematerializes. So where is he? Did he just turn into dust in the wind and float harmlessly away, or is he stuck in the Hell dimension forever, with only his giant monkey wrench for company? 

• This week we find out-- sort of-- why May's nickname is "The Cavalry" and why she acts all Spock-ish. Well, we sort of find out. As often happens on this show, we get a couple little details but not the entire story. Gotta drag the secrets out for as long as possible, because apparently the writers can't think of anything else to do with the characters once their secrets are all out.

• As the plane goes down, Coulson radios his call sign, which is "SHIELD 616." As all good comic readers know, in the Marvel Multiverse, Earth #616 is the one containing the main Marvel Universe. 

• A couple weeks ago in the F.Z.Z.T. episode, I marveled (ha!) at the fact that the Bus was sitting in the middle of the desert, with no runway in sight and nothing but sand for miles in every direction. There was no way in hell that giant plane could ever get up to take off speed in sand, and I wondered if it had some kind of VTOL function.

It looks like indeed it does! At the end of this episode we see the plane taking off vertically, without the need of a runway. Well done, guys! You read my blog, saw the error I pointed out, and rushed to correct it.

• At the end of the episode everyone but May is playing some Scrabble-like game, and as Simmons plays the word "aglet" they all call bullsh*t on her and say it's not a word.

Who the hell doesn't know what an aglet is? Do they still teach vocabulary words in school these days, or is that too passe?