EXCHANGE INTERFACE

This is pretty much a "Phil&Melinda and team" episode, and I liked it.

I enjoyed all the character interactions, the ways in which the team are coming together.

I do love that Trip is keeping an eye on Skye - concerned, but without a romantic angle. He's doesn't seem to be angling to be a lover, just his sister's keeper. The downside of this is that we're getting less of a sense of him than we are of, say Lance, who's your typical charmer who manages to stop just shy of being a general asshole. Is he a personal asshole about the ex? Yes. Yes, he is.

However, I do like that Lance is trying to charm Skye and she's having none of it.

It's interesting watching Skye with the new guys: Trip is the anchor, Lance is the shitstorm, and Mack is the facilitator - the guy who helps get things moving, who interacts and soothes and calms. And there's Fitz, trying to fit in with the new guys, but they're really different from him and there's more of them - not just sooper-serius Agent Grant Ward, I-can-kill-a-man-with-my-bare-hands. I love that Fitz has all this knowledge in his head, but he can't express it, can't communicate things, has to rely on others.

That's an intersting point, actually - he had Simmons to understand him, before. Without her, he has to make his own understanding, and rely on the assistance of others to solve the problems he could once do alone.

And then there's the whole Melinda-and-Phil show.

I love the way May switches between the charming facade and the cool, droll agent by turns. I'm guessing this season we're going to get to see more of the woman she used to be, before Bahrain? Because one imagines the woman who charmed and laughed at the party used to be a more integrated part of the agent; and now it's just a facet that she brings out as a disguise.

Excellent job by Adrian Pasdar, playing someone else being Talbot. He did a better job of it than Ming Na did of playing someone else being Melinda - just a little OOC.

Phil pushing Melinda for a contingency plan and Melinda refusing to entertain the notion. This part says a lot about the people they are and the way they see each other. A LOT.

Phil is nostalgic about old times, old missions, but he also essentially needs to know that he's leaving people in good care - which, to him, means someone he knows he can trust to finish the job (ie. him) and look after the people left behind. That's his focus: who does he trust?

Melinda isn't nostalgic about old times, but she will look after Phil above everything else - even her allegiance to SHIELD. Her focus isn't trust - she doesn't have to think about trusting Phil to do the right thing - her focus is loyalty: her friendship/love for Phil.

I'm using the word 'love' in a non-romantic sense, which is going to confuse the matter for some people; but I believe you can love platonically, without necessarily being romantic. And Phil and Melinda love each other - not necessarily sexually or romantically, but in a way that indicates they're utterly committed to each other and who the other person is.

I'm not sure I could write them as a couple (yet), but their dynamic? Yes. Oh, yes.

Some small things:

Melinda May in the fight scene: that woman is the Determinator trope given life.

LOL Phil in the Australian Outback. (Sorry, I just wrote a fic where Steve turns up in a cottage in the Australian outback...a cottage that's built over a secret SHIELD base...)

And Reina! Looking forward to Reina in the next episode!

Still good writing, good character interactions. They're squeezing a lot more in, but they're doing pretty well at it so far.

It still hasn't hooked me. I'm watching because I need to have a grip on the characters for fic purposes, but I'm not so invested in the characters or the storyline. Not yet, anyway.