Agents of SHIELD Perform Asgardian Housekeeping

Season 1, Episode 8 - "The Well"

Following the events of "Thor: The Dark World", the Agents of SHIELD find themselves in Greenwich dealing with massive piles of rubble and Simmons is dodging phone calls from her parents, who naturally have some questions as to what caused such mayhem on their lovely British soil.

Two hoodlums in Norway go to the woods, take a chainsaw to a tree, and pull out an Asgardian Berseker staff. The woman places her bare hands on it, and becomes supercharged with rage-fuelled godlike strength. She shoves a park ranger, sending him flying several meters through the air. Later, the team scans the area, with Coulson questioning one of the rangers (who is absolutely portrayed by a true Scandinavian; seriously, the accent was too good to be faked), and other members of the team taking readings and finding that whatever was in the tree was definitely an Asgardian artefact. They see the superjuiced people on the news, making an anarchistic mess of things, and leaving a flaming message on the street: "WE ARE GODS". Personally, I know Scandinavians are quite talented at speaking English, and enjoy doing so, but wouldn't it have made more sense for these Norwegians to write a message in Norwegian?

The team pays a visit to Professor Randolph to consult him on his expertise in Norse mythology.  He teaches them about the Berserker, who were strong, powerful Asgardian Warriors. As is turns out, the staff from earlier is one of three pieces of the complete staff. The team heads to Canada in search for another piece and right as Ward is about to find it, he finds it in the possession of Professor Randolph. Ward places his hand on it, has a flashback to a boy in a well, and finds himself overcome with anger. Professor Randolph gets away, but bumps into the Berseker-juiced misfits from earlier, who have shared the juice with more angry young people. They confront him at his car and steal the second piece of the staff.

Ward is topless (thank Odin!) and Simmons is taking readings on him to analyse what is biochemically happening to him after touching the staff fragment. Meanwhile, Coulson is questioning Professor Randolph. Skye questions Ward on whether or not he was having a memory related to his brothers (eerily accurate guess, Skye), and even calls him "Grant." (No one else has addressed him using his first name before). Ward lashes out in anger at Skype, Simmons, and Fitz, like a snarling dog and it is clear that the one hit from the staff has juiced him up plenty. Luckily for him, they can all see his readings and are not going to hold a grudge against him for Berserker-induced-rudeness.

Coulson gets Ward to bait Professor Randolph into revealing himself to be Asgardian. The reason he knew where to find the staff fragment is because he was the one to hide it (thousands of years prior). He tells them where to find the last piece of the staff, and off they go. Not surprisingly, the angry Norwegians are already there and waiting. Ward juices up to fight them off, but when it turns out there's still more left, Melinda May shares in the burden by taking a hit off the Berseker staff, uniting the pieces, and delivering her cool brand of ass-kicking that has already gained her tremendous popularity among viewers. There's also a bit where Coulson shoves his hand inside Professor Randolph's chest after he's stabbed by a staff piece, in order to buy him time to do some Asgardian healing.

Arguably, the most important part of tonight's episode are the last 10 or so minutes. When seeing the full flashback, we see Ward watching his little brother in a well, distraught and begging for help. His older brother angrily insists that Ward wait longer before throwing him a rope, stating that if Ward offers the rope up now, he will also be thrown into the well. Given the fact that this episode's name is "The Well," we may infer that the purpose of the episode is to give the viewers more insight into Ward's history. Though the abusive older brother was already mentioned, this is the first glimpse we have had into the severity of him. Following the pain of having this memory brought to the surface of Ward's psyche, he has a touching moment with Skye at a bar, where she reminds him that he is always free to talk things through with her. When he is about to return to his hotel room, he exchanges glances with May, who is also returning to her room. He follows her into her room, after she leaves her door open, and we are left to draw our own conclusions about what shenanigans they may be up to behind that closed door. Frankly, I am less inclined to believe that they are getting frisky with another. If they were, I think the show would have no problem showing it to the audience. Finally, Coulson has a dream (or perhaps nightmare) of his mysterious time in Tahiti, and we are left wondering what truly happened to him after getting stabbed through the heart by Loki.

There's so many burning questions that the show is presenting to viewers. Since it has been picked for a full season, we have many more months to look forward to of finally getting more of them answered.

Agents of SHIELD airs on Tuesdays at 8/7 c on ABC.