(Spoilers
for seasons 1 and 2 of Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D.)
I don’t
feel I got as much of a chance to know Trip as I would’ve liked to, and I’m not
quite sure why. In general, I think it’s
tough to be the first new member
brought into the team of an already-established ensemble, so I may have been
less inclined to get to know him than later newcomers like Bobbi, Mack, and
Hunter. Is that the whole reason, or is
he also somewhat less-defined than many of the other characters on the
show? Unfortunately, although I do enjoy
him, I lean toward the latter answer.
Trip is
brought in during the second half of season 1, just before the post-Winter Soldier blowup with the team
learning of the big Hydra reveal and, more important to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the show revealing Ward’s double-agent
status. Trip serves a few useful plot
purposes here. First, Simmons’s obvious
appreciation for him highlights Fitz’s growing attraction to his best friend
and colleague, using Fitz’s jealousy of Trip to prime the engine for his
end-of-season declaration of love. When
the Hydra hits the fan, Trip – the recent sort-of addition to the team who’s
been working alongside our trusted ensemble – seems set up to be the perfect
candidate for a secret Hydra member. We
the audience haven’t known him long enough to get attached to him, but Ward
knows him from past assignments and Simmons has taken a liking to him, so it’s
reasonable enough to think the team would be shaken by the revelation that he’s
Hydra. When the real bombshell drops,
though, and it comes out that it’s Ward
who’s Hydra, then it works out nicely that Trip has the same “specialist”
training as Ward and can fulfill much the same function when he steps forward
to fill the gap left in the team.
This is a
lot about what Trip is for rather
than who he is, and I think this is
kind of how Trip is regarded, at least from a writing standpoint, for much of
his time on the show. The reveal that
his grandfather was a Howling Commando (and that Trip kept it a secret so as not
to be treated like a “legacy”) is interesting, but we really don’t explore that
much. More than anything, it facilitates
a way for the team to have access to cool Marvel spy gadgets when they’re on
the run without resources late in season 1, since Trip is able to get a trunk
of his grandpa’s old S.S.R. toys. Even
his death in the Temple in mid-season 2 is less about him and more about a)
Skye blaming herself for it and b) Simmons having an inciting reason to be so
freaked out about alien biology and enhanced people, just in time for Skye’s Inhuman
transformation.
Obviously,
every character on a TV show is there for a reason, but with Trip, it can feel
like the show is more interested in the reason than the person, and as a
result, I have less of a feel for him than I do for, say, Fitz or May or
Bobbi. What I do know of him, though, I like.
During his time on the show, he often feels like the most low-drama
person on the team. With the exception
of his early episodes, with Fitz’s jealousy and people questioning his loyalty
in the wake of the Hydra discovery, he doesn’t really clash with anybody on the
team. He’s a dedicated agent who rarely
questions his orders, he generally meets intense situations with an easy
unflappability, he jokes and gets along with pretty much everyone, and despite
everything he’s seen working for S.H.I.E.L.D., he’s still a mild-to-moderate
skeptic when it comes to the really crazy stuff. In season 2, he and Skye seem on their way to
forming a good working relationship, but she’s probably the closest he has to a
significant connection with someone on the team (from a narrative standpoint,
anyway.) What’s there is all good, but
it feels a little flat, and that disappoints me, because I think there was a
lot of potential in this character that could have been better explored.
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