Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Know Your Onions Review

AOS "Know Your Onions"

Still in 1931, the Agents are afforded opportunities for more period dress (this time for Simmons and Yo-Yo), and Coulson the chance to cut a Dillinger-esque figure with a tommy gun. This is all before another time window shifts everyone forward in time - by the looks of it, the next episode takes place in the 1950s. By only sticking in the same year for two episodes, the structure of the season comes into clearer focus, and lends things a *gasp* episodic quality?

Two of the major engines of this episode are the ongoing moral dilemma of saving Hydra to preserve the future, and on the comic relief side, letting Patton Oswalt loose with the kind of vintage lingo that gives the episode its title. When Oswalt's Ernest Koenig says that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s world of super soldier serum and advanced robotics is like "something out of the funny papers", the writers run the danger of being too cute.

Energized from the twist at the end of the premiere, the team must protect Wilfred "Freddy" Malick, even though he and his son will grow up to be Neo-Nazi tyrants. At the eleventh hour, Daisy breaks ranks and manipulates an impressionable Deke to "take the shot" and kill young Freddy. Deke channels Draco Malfoy and shrinks from the task, and afterward this mutinous episode is forgotten, so it feels extremely shoe-horned in... but I sympathize with writer Craig Titley. There needed to be some direct reckoning with the cognitive dissonance of the team's distasteful duty to protect Hydra's origin story. So it's good drama artificially wedged in the episode, but artificially wedged in nonetheless. It would have been wise to pull back on the schematic plotting and make this moment of high drama the emotional centerpiece of the episode.

The action centerpiece of the episode, on the other hand, is Enoch's fight with a semi-recovered Melinda May. This unlikely pairing is enhanced by a quirk of May's recovery giving her the same clipped voice patterns of a Chronicom.

The major canon connection is the mention of the super soldier serum's development by Abraham Erskine, and administration to Hydra's Johann Schmidt. These respectively, of course, are Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving's characters from Captain America: The First Avenger.

"Know Your Onions" features a typical episode's balance of humor and action, so when it goes very dramatic, that feels out of place without further development. 6/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: The Perfect Mate

TNG "The Perfect Mate"

A centuries-long war between two planets, coming to an end through an alliance sealed by marriage. An ambassador ferrying the bride on the Enterprise, and said ambassador falls victim to a violent mishap and ends up in sickbay. A romantic connection between the bride and the captain of the Enterprise. If this all sounds familiar, it's because "The Perfect Mate" shares many basic similarities with another episode we've recently covered in this random rewatch: the original series' "Elaan of Troyius"!

The skeleton of each episode is similar, but thankfully that's where they end. In terms of subtlety, and quality of character work and writing, "The Perfect Mate" is a drastic improvement. Famke Janssen guest stars as Kamala, a "metamorph" whose sole purpose is to tailer herself to the pleasure of their future betrothed. (In a subversive detail, it's mentioned that most metamorphs are male.) Naturally this doesn't sit terribly well with the Enterprise crew (particularly Beverly Crusher), but if Kamala truly derives pleasure from subsuming herself to someone else, the issue isn't as clear cut as one might think.

The episode teases out this dynamic well, articulating multiple sides, and taking unexpected turns in the plot. Alrik, the man Kamala will marry, is established to be rather dismissive of Kamala. In a haunting moment, Picard wonders to Beverly how Kamala will change to accommodate Alrik. The implication is clear: there's a danger that to please a man who doesn't respect her, she will void herself of the sharp intelligence that defines her now, and hollow herself out. There's a small victory in that Kamala makes clear that she will accommodate Alrik, but she won't change for him.

Kamala finds herself imprinting romantically on Patrick Stewart's Picard. This is quite something when you consider that in the X-Men movies, Janssen's Jean Grey is a professor who works for Stewart, who was recruited by Stewart when she was a little girl. Remarkably, Kamala even refers to herself as a mutant, just as Jean Grey and her fellow X-Men are mutants.

There's a notably dirty joke in the episode. After Kamala comes on to a flustered Riker, he calls in and says, "I'll be in Holodeck 4." What he'll be doing in Holodeck 4 is left to the imagination, but this is a true Jayne from Firefly, "I'll be in my bunk" moment.

"The Perfect Mate" is a tender and well-told tale of space romance, and one-ups "Elaan of Troyius" in every way except camp value. 7/10.

Canon connections:
- One of the Ferengi is played by Max Grodenchik, who will in future play the Ferengi Rom in Deep Space Nine.
- Geordi asks the Ferengi if they want to see the dolphins on board. I believe this was a cute detail in the Next Generation Technical Manual, which identified an area for dolphins on the Enterprise-D.
- Kamala's ceremonial line, "I am for you, Alrik of Valt", calls back to Losira's siren words in the original series episode "That Which Survives". She too said ostentatiously "I am for you".