This post contains spoilers.
This weeks episode leads off from “Watchdogs”, where we got an inside look on how Maleck is turning Trolls to Terrorists and investing in weapons on a mass scale, while simultaneously we get introduced to Mack’s Inhuman fearing brother, Ruben.
“Spacetime” begins with a homeless man carving a small bird outside the back of a restaurant, and he’s then asked to please leave by the owner because him sleeping out there has put off customers coming in. The owner, realising what’s asking is harsh and unfair, reaches out to give the man some money for a hot meal. The homeless man freaks out and tries to move away – understandably, because when he touches the own, he writhes in pain, staring at the sky and choking, seeming to have some kind of seizure.
After the title card, we are then led to a 911 call recording, in which the attacked owner asks for Daisy Johnson. Understandly, the team are more than confused, especially as this person has zero involvement with SHIELD or any other government body. They get to the scene, to find this owner narrating a sequence of events; then, we watch as the next five minutes play out a horrific massacre – a massacre the owner saw coming. And as Daisy races to catch the homeless man they’ve established as an Inhuman, her fingers brush his – and a horrifying series of events that SHIELD must prevent are shown to her.
This episode was off the chain amazing. For the past few episodes, the audience has been waiting for something to happen – and episode fifteen took us there.
The kickass stuff;
Man, where to begin.
I’ll kick off with this weeks Inhuman – I really enjoyed it. I know the “tortured powered person who can’t touch others” thing has been done a lot, but this was portrayed really well. His power wasn’t just hurting people – it was revealing terrible futures to them. Not only that, but the whole process was excruciatingly painful.
Then, as his past comes out, we find out he was a happy man named Charles, with a wife and a little daughter. After he went through the transition, he left, because not only could he never touch his child again, but if he did ever touch her it gave her nothing but absolute pain, and visions of death. The writing of this episode, combined with the acting of both Bjorn Johnson and Lola Glaudini (Charles’s wife) really portrayed this as absolutely agonising and a heart-wrenching decision he had to make.
Once again, fight scene choreography. I mention this every single review, but hey, when this show stops giving good fight scene, I’ll stop mentioning them. But, seeing as the fight scenes were all wonderfully executed, with gorgeous cinematography and fluid, violent motions, I’m going to keep mentioning that they were great.
Speaking of awesome scenes, I really loved the whole, rushing to change the future stuff – I know, again, it’s done a lot in sci-fi TV shows, where somehow the future is shown to them and the future is awful, so they rush to change it – and they either change it, or the exact same outcome comes about but just in a different way they expect. Watching them rush to change fate, and then how everything falls into place and comes around exactly as Daisy saw, is absolutely amazing. I love putting the pieces together, such as when Daisy thinks Phil is shooting at her and it turns out she’s looking at him in a one-way mirror. This show executed this racing against the future plotline really well, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it all unfold.
HiveWard is back and goddamn, Brett Dalton, can I get a round of applause for you? His acting this episode (as it has been the entire time he’s been in this show) was out of this world. No pun intended, I guess. Seriously, though, he’s kicked it up into damn good villain notch – again. He looks fearsome, he’s quiet and incredibly formidable. He’s so calm and absolute, and is so all knowing whilst being so new to the Earth. His intelligence and calmness is so measured and easy, that it’s terrifying to watch him, never knowing what he’s going to do next.
What makes HiveWard so much worse is the calmness in which he executes everything. At least with Malick, you can read his emotions – he’s happy, or lying, or angered. For a villain, he was fairly easy to read for an audience; he was generic bad guy 101, here to take over the world.
Hive is an entirely different ball park because he gives away absolutely nothing. He tells people what to do, with no rhyme or reason, he just asks that they do it. He’s calculated and completely devoid of emotion; that is a million times worse than any crazed man looking to take over the world, because this is someone who can, and will, calmly strip human beings down to bits of flesh on a skeleton, and then carry on a conversation as if all he did was bump their arm a bit. That is the sign of something ultimately horrifying.
Finally, I just want to throw out here how goddamn violent this episode was. Like, there was a moment in this episode that made me scream “HE MOUNTAINED HIM!” – Game of Thrones fans, you know what I mean.
Yeah. I’ve mentioned before that Agents of SHIELD, whilst having some gross moments, was never overly violent. It rarely crosses particular lines, especially not the lines its more violent friend Daredevil tends to take – so when it does cross over into violent, bloody territory, it’s always all the more shocking and engaging. The whole episode was full of a lot of blood, death and really graphic imagery that most Agents of SHIELD fans won’t be used to. I mean, not only did that poor schmuck have his entire head crushed, there were other moments, including the pure beating Daisy took. It was so drawn out and aggressive, and it genuinely made you feel like there was a rock in your stomach, watching her suffer that way.
The “Family SHIELD Team Moments;
This episode was not only ripe with kickass stuff – this was such a great episode for character bonding time.
Phil Coulson, back with the quips as always;
“I haven’t seen the original Terminator.”
“…You are off the team.”
And also – “Yeah. Day got weirder.”
I am also completely and utterly here for the “Papa Phil” thing – I don’t care, Phil looking out for Daisy, struggling to cope with her name change and slipping up, and oh the look on his face as he tells her to, “Just come back safe” – it melted me. It’s been a while since we saw Phil care for Daisy the way he seemed to fret about her 24/7, and I’ve missed that dynamic. Now, if we can bring back “A.C.”, please.
I really loved the scenes where they try and re-create the vision Daisy had so they can stop it happening – by sending May instead, and walking her through every single moment. Obviously, this was an important sequence, but it was really good to see them all working so hard together, to watch them try so hard to pull this all together. They looked adorably goofy doing it too.
Final family moment, and this one really broke me, starting with a line from Phil Coulson – “If you don’t go and be with him right now, you’re gonna regret that for the rest of your life.” Andrew, seconds before they get May ready to leave to face Malick and HYDRA, is brought into their base after surrendering himself. He’s about to change for the last time, and he wants to say goodbye.
This whole sequence was pretty awful – May was throwing her all into finding Lash so she could put him down, and then Andrew came to her, calm and knowing, and needing to say goodbye to her. It was a really awful scene, after everything they’d been through and their incredibly rocky relationship, to watch as May witnessed the destruction of the man she loved. It was brutal.
The “meh” stuff;
Honestly, I loved this entire episode. I had but one fault – why did Charles die? Like, I mean, I know he got grabbed by the throat and all by RoboMalick but…nothing, seemed to happen except he got gripped a bit hard? And given the tonne of bloodshed and the crushing of a mans skull that took place not even fifteen minutes prior, you’d think they wouldn’t have an issue being a bit more graphic and clear on why Charles just decided to die then and there. But as I said, this is my one gripe.
Overall, this was such a solid episode. Finally, it’s moved things forward, and not only has it moved them forward, it’s moved in significant and engaging steps. This episode was action-packed, with emotional moments, wonderful characters and fantastic writing. Top it off with the fact Hive has very clearly become the head villain to deal with as the season finale creeps upon us, I’m really excited to see what this show is going to throw at us next. I’m also very interested to see what Malick’s death vision was, and what it is that’s got him so shaken up.
My prediction so far, is that Malick has waded into something way bigger than himself that he cannot hope to control – but I think we all saw that coming after two seconds of HiveWard. I also have a very big feeling that Lash is going to become part of the plan of dealing with Hive – he’s an Inhuman who has a primal urge to murder other Inhumans. And Andrew did say he felt like he had a purpose – so I think this will be it.
I’m also really interested to see what this recurring vision of the view from space, with the cross necklace and the SHIELD logo burning up horrendously – because this isn’t the first we’ve seen of that, and I doubt it will be the last. I’m hoping it’s not a horrific sad sacrifice but when has this show ever been afraid of killing someone?
Also, I’m anticipating perhaps Hive gathering them all in one room under Guest Right then stabbing them in front of their parents. No, just me?
Next episode will be Paradise Lost, airing on Tuesday 12th April.