Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 7: “The Writing on the Wall”
Written by Craig Titley
Directed by Vincent Misiano
Airs Tuesdays at 9pm ET on ABC
“The Writing on the Wall” is season 2’s first major call-back to the TAHITI Project and Coulson’s big mystery in season 1. As Skye says, the show is starting to collect all these stray pieces of the puzzle and fit them together into a larger picture. Ward, Skye’s father, TAHITI, and the pattern that Coulson keeps drawing are all connected, but the team needs more time to figure it out. Unfortunately, Coulson is running out of time, with his compulsions driving him to sleepless nights and madness. The clue that they need to solve his madness is found in the mystery of the week, which revolves around a former SHIELD agent who’s found murdered, with Coulson’s pattern carved into her flesh.
Unlike “A Fractured House”, “I Will Face My Enemy”, or even “A Hen in the Wolfhouse”, “The Writing on the Wall” is a mystery story that concentrates on putting together clues, instead of kicking and punching its way to a conclusion. There is a little bit of action in the final showdown with Coulson and two former SHIELD agents, but otherwise, May spends most of the episode in the pilot’s seat of the jet, searching for Ward. The lack of action, however, doesn’t slow down the episode, and Coulson’s flashbacks to the TAHITI Project inject some horror into the show. So much of the danger in Agents of SHIELD is physical peril, but the agents experimented on in the TAHITI Project also face the possibility of psychological peril. Seeing these agents go from healthy, rational adults to babbling, violent mental patients is frightening, and it shows what is at stake if Coulson’s team does not find an answer soon.
In the Ward subplot, Brett Dalton continues to get better as Evil Ward. The contrast of his cruelty and his traditional all-American good looks make him an interesting villain, and Dalton is clearly more comfortable with who Ward is in season 2 than who he was in the first half of season 1. His introduction to Bobbi is a great little scene, with him tearing apart her cover. Granted, she should have known that he would notice she was not really reading her book. Ward’s scraggly beard is also gone, so he is ready to get down to business and make some trouble for SHIELD. The show is positioning him as an on-going antagonist for the team, with him trying to take down Coulson the way that Spike is always trying to take down Buffy, or Wile E. Coyote is trying to take down Road Runner. Plus, he spent time working with SHIELD and trained inside SHIELD. He knows how they think and how they operate. Worse, he knows how to get into Skye’s head, and Coulson doesn’t like people who mess with Skye. Ward could be a real problem for them.
With Coulson’s unhealthy compulsions, Agents of SHIELD introduced a conflict early in season 2, and resolved it without it feeling rushed or dragged out. Perhaps all the callbacks to TAHITI remind one of how flawed season 1 is in that respect, but it is still worth acknowledging and commending the writers and show runners for improving. Beyond that, the tie-ins to season 1 actually works to make the audience glad that they watched those early episodes, as the writers are retroactively rewarding fans who stuck with the show despite its problems. There might not be enough viewers that stuck around for that payoff, but that is an issue that ABC and Marvel need to grapple with.
Modern Family is a strong lead-in for Agents of SHIELD, but with the cancellation of Selfie, the Tuesday line-up will be changing. Maybe another reveal for The Avengers: Age of Ultron will help, or some real bombshells leading up to the mid-season finale, which is not far away. Ward is promising to give Sunil Bakshi some face-time with Coulson, a threat that one expects he will make good on, and there is still the question of Skye’s father, and what he will do when reunited with his daughter. It is enough intrigue to keep current fans around, but it is still unclear whether the promise of more Kyle MacLachlan is enough to improve the show’s numbers.