4 – Are Rosalind Price and the ATCU friends or foes of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
It would be easy to just assume that the ATCU, a new paramilitary organization opposed to S.H.I.E.L.D., are probably long-term friends, not enemies. After all, we’ve seen this pattern before: remember how the U.S. military considered S.H.I.E.L.D. to be outlaws, even though they were all working on the same team? And all the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.” stuff from last year? We’ve seen time and time again in this series a S.H.I.E.L.D. confronting another organization that, on the surface, seems to be an enemy but is really not in the end.
ATCU could very well turn out to be the same situation. They seem to have their hearts in the right place – they want to safeguard society from what they see as a threat in the Inhumans. They don’t get – yet – that Quake and her sisters and brothers are their friends, but they probably will by the end of the season. Right?
However, there are a few things about Rosalind Price, the ATCU leader, that raise some questions. First of all, she seems to have way too much power – heck, even the President seems to get his talking points sent to him straight from her iPhone keyboard. Plus, there is an air of “evil genius” about her that we haven’t seen before from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s “frenemies.” Just think back to Gonzalez, for example – the leader of the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.” faction. He might have opposed Coulson, but we always got the sense that he was honest, and had good intentions. With Price, however, there is a calculated intelligence that we haven’t seen before – she seems to have an agenda that involves more than just “protecting the public.” As the season unfolds, we’ll see just how much more.
5 – Where is Agent May?
May, a central figure in Seasons 1 and 2, left her status with S.H.I.E.L.D. unclear at the end of last season’s finale. Having been reunited with her lifelong-love, the Psychiatrist Andrew Garner, May presumably has decided to take some time off from S.H.I.E.L.D. – as suggested by the fact that we don’t see her in Season 3’s opener. And who could blame her? May has, arguably, been through the most crap of any S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on the show. She had to betray Coulson by spying on him for Fury. She was completely used and back-stabbed by Ward, whom I think she was starting to develop some feelings for – no easy feat for her. Then she had to – once again – betray Coulson by agreeing to work with the “Real S.H.I.E.L.D.” temporarily. Hell, she even had an exact double running around in Palamas/Agent 33 pretending to be her for a while – thank God Palamas had a burn on her face so people knew it wasn’t May.
Will we see May come back this season? My bet is yes. She is just too important a figure in the S.H.I.E.L.D. team not to be a part of it somehow. And could you ever imagine a character like her being a housewife, doing laundry and watching Maury in suburbia? Not a chance, amigo. I am guessing that Coulson will make a visit to her at some point and beg her to return. She will say no at first, but her loyalty to Coulson and to the agency will overcome her reservations. Trust me – May is not done with S.H.I.E.L.D.
6 – What’s going on with Simmons?
The very last shot of Season 2’s finale showed Simmons touch the alien monolith weapon and disappear inside it. Nothing was explained as to what happened to her, or even if she lived. In Season 3’s opener, we were offered a tiny – but tantalizing – glimpse of where she ended up. And the news was not good – she was running for her life on a desolate, alien planet, being presumably chased by something bad. Something very, very bad.
If the show’s past episodes can tell us anything, it is that “aliens” usually means Kree. Simmons is possibly on the Kree home planet, or some planet associated with them. We know that the Kree experimented on humans in the past, and not with good intentions. Maybe the creatures Simmons is running from are other species created out of Kree experiments. So far, only Fitz seems to have any notion that Simmons is still alive, and even he is starting to give up. But surely, she will somehow be rescued at some point – I am hoping it’s by Fitz, as the two characters had just sort-of gotten together at the end of last season, and I can’t see the show’s writers abandoning that.