Bouncing Back
An Inhuman with super-speed is introduced.
"Bouncing Back" is the third season's eleventh episode of the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which draws from the Marvel Comics spy organization. The story follows Phil Coulson and his team looking into a new Inhuman, and it exists within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, referencing the films. Monica Owusu-Breen wrote the episode, and Ron Underwood directed it. ABC broadcast it on March 8, 2016, and Nielsen Media Research reported 3.52 million viewers tuned in.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Season
- 3
- Episode
- 11
- Director
- Ron Underwood
- Writer
- Monica Owusu-Breen
- Photographer
- Feliks Parnell
- Editor
- Kelly Stuyvesant
- Air date
- 8 March 2016
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The eleventh episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s third season, “Bouncing Back,” aired on ABC on March 8, 2016, drawing 3.52 million viewers. Written by Monica Owusu-Breen and directed by Ron Underwood, it follows Phil Coulson and his team as they look into a new Inhuman. The episode starts with a flash-forward three months ahead, where an unnamed S.H.I.E.L.D. agent dies in a space explosion. In Bogotá, Colombia, Elena Rodriguez, an Inhuman with super-speed limited by her heartbeat—she zips a certain distance then snaps back to her starting point—steals police weapons.
The next day, Daisy Johnson, Mack, Bobbi Morse, Lance Hunter, and Joey Gutierrez probe the thefts, but Mack gets kidnapped by Elena. They find and subdue her, but she explains the police are crooked, and she uses her powers, which she sees as a gift from God, to protect innocents. Hunter and Morse discover her cousin Francisco dumping the weapons in a river, but police arrive, including Lucio, an Inhuman who can paralyze with his gaze. Lucio freezes Francisco, who is killed, and captures Hunter and Morse.
Daisy, Mack, Elena, and Joey storm the station, rescuing the agents. Joey defeats Lucio by welding his sunglasses to his face, after which Hydra snatches him. Back in the U.S., Coulson, now S.H.I.E.L.D. director again, and Melinda May meet President Ellis at Rosalind Price’s old apartment. Since Price vouched for S.H.I.E.L.D. before dying, Ellis lets them operate as a black ops unit, with the new ATCU head answering to Coulson.
Elsewhere, Gideon Malick tends to the ancient Inhuman, who is weak after millennia but gaining strength, promising Malick his faith is justified. He demonstrates a power by dissolving Grant Ward’s body into particles and vows to convert Giyera. To locate Malick, Coulson uses John Garrett’s mind probe with Lincoln Campbell’s powers on a vegetative Werner von Strucker, who briefly wakes and gives a contact location. Coulson finds a phone there, calls Malick, and May traces the call to several global sites tied to Malick’s companies, which he quickly sells.
Elena agrees to be a reserve Secret Warrior but stays in Colombia, earning the nickname “Yo-Yo” from Mack. Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz talk about the distance between them after Fitz destroyed Will Daniels’s body on Maveth; she doesn’t blame him, since Will was already dead, and they decide to start fresh. May comforts Coulson about killing Ward, telling him he “joined the Cavalry.” In a post-credits scene, Ellis tells Coulson he’s made Glenn Talbot the new ATCU head.
Production
In February 2016, Marvel announced that the eleventh episode of the season would be titled "Bouncing Back", to be written by Monica Owusu-Breen, with Ron Underwood directing. The episode opens with "a mysterious flash-forward to three months in the future, showing an unidentified S.H.I.E.L.D. agent seemingly dead in space." Executive producer Maurissa Tancharoen called it "the promise of something fairly ominous to come", and stated, "We will be uncovering things from the midseason opener all the way to the finale.
We will slowly be discovering what that image is." Her fellow showrunner Jed Whedon explained that the decision to use the flash-forward device in the episode was made "to kick off [the second part of the season] with a mystery." In February 2016, Natalia Cordova-Buckley was revealed to be portraying Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez, based on the character from the Secret Warriors comic. Cordova-Buckley said she had auditioned for a character called "Adriana Molina", only learning she was actually playing Rodriguez shortly before filming the episode.
Learning this, she called it "a dream come true" to portray a Latina superhero. A week later, Marvel revealed that main cast members Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Nick Blood, Adrianne Palicki, Henry Simmons, and Luke Mitchell would star as Phil Coulson, Melinda May, Grant Ward, Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz, Jemma Simmons, Lance Hunter, Bobbi Morse, Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie, and Lincoln Campbell, respectively.
It was also revealed that Natalia Cordova-Buckley would guest star in "Bouncing Back", along with Juan Pablo Raba as Joey Gutierrez, Spencer Treat Clark as Werner von Strucker, Powers Boothe as Gideon Malick, William Sadler as President Matthew Ellis, Mark Dacascos as Giyera, Paul Lincoln Alayo as Francisco Rodriguez, Vance Valencia as Turkish old man, Yancey Arias as Colonel Victor Ramon, Gabriel Salvador as Lucio, Jamie Alvarez as lead officer, Ronnie Alvarez as uniformed officer and Eric Thomas Wilson as Hydra guard.
Alayo, Valencia, Jamie Alvarez, Ronnie Alvarez, and Wilson did not receive guest star credit in the episode. Raba, Clark, Boothe, Sadler, and Dacascos reprise their roles from earlier in the series.
More in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 3 Episodes
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced