Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. SN3E15 – ‘Spacetime’

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.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. SN3 EP13 – ‘Parting Shot’

This review contains spoilers.

Last weeks episode finished off with Hunter and Bobby in the belly of a plane that Malick is riding off in, after his success in turning Anton Petrov to his “cause” and convincing him that Phil Coulson is the head of Hydra.

The episode opens on Bobby and Hunter being interrogated by Russian authorities. After a small sequence, we cut to Bobby and Hunter elsewhere – and a caption reads ’34 hours before’ – instantly, I’m excited. I’m a huge sucker for narratives where you’re presented with a current situation, and then the rest of the time is spent showing you how the characters got there.

Kickass, really great things about the episode:

This was a really Hunter and Bobby centric episode, and seeing them work together was actually really great. We haven’t had a hugely intense look at them working together in SHIELD so a whole episode dedicated to them? Awesome.

It was also cool to see them discuss their relationship in terms of SHIELD, and them bringing up the sacrifices they’ve not only made as a couple (never getting to go away together, no honeymoon), but as people – namely, the fact SHIELD constantly makes alliances with people they shouldn’t, Ward being a prime example. They constantly talk about the ‘Greater Good’ but then they end up getting damaged later.

The fight scenes this episode were incredible – they were really wonderfully choreographed, as per usual with this series, and there were some really stand-out moments – slow-mo Daisy kicking ass, Daisy and Bobby fighting together, and Bobby and Hunter fighting off security guards. It’s just awesome.

The episode twist, of going from Espionage to Assassination real damn quick. I loved that the initial plan was infiltration and intel gathering, because SHIELD is in a terrible position, and if Russia thought America was coming in hostile on them, it would cause a lot more problems for just SHIELD. I also liked this weeks Inhuman – a man who could manifest his shadow as a sentient being. He was also a political Inhuman, and the first of his kind.

Enjoyable family moments I loved:

So first things first, MACK IS BACK. After his mysterious just not, being around at all for the last episode, I was glad to have him and his sarcastic quips back. I also have a note about this particular exchange;

“You’re going to need some transport, is that going to be a problem?”
–Insert Hunter punching a Russian man in the face-
“No, I think we’re good.”

What we also learn from this episode are that Hunter and Bobby are the King and Queen of bullshitting. The detective interrogating them says something along the lines to Hunter of “It’s impressive. How you can talk about absolutely nothing and make it sound like information” – that sounds an awful lot like most adults.

FitzSimmons are BACK! Finishing each others sentences and working together again – it’s really fantastic to see and it made me really excited. This was especially heightened by the fact that Hunter apparently shares nature documentaries about the planet dying with the two and gets them to watch them so they can all sit and discuss it together – absolutely adorable.

I think we all also know the ultimate team moment of this episode: the ending. But I’ll come to that later.

The “meh”/”why.” stuff;

 This episode didn’t have many moments I didn’t like – but one moment I did sigh at was May’s speech to Hunter about how she’s still angry about him shooting Ward even when it could cost Andrew (SN3 EP4 – Devil’s You Know) – but then she talks about how SHIELD is for the great good? Don’t get me wrong – anyone and their dog knows Hunter’s choice was driven mostly by vengeance for Bobby, but considering Ward was the head of Hydra, and he had a metric tonne of weapons at his and Hydra’s disposal, I would honestly say he made a better call than risking Ward getting away. So I feel like that moment was a contradiction – but, it did lea to Hunter and May being friends again, and Hunter making quips later to her that she smiles at.

Overall, I really liked this episode – I feel like it’s my favorite so far of 3B. The narrative was great, the cinematography and fight choreography was really something else, and it was one of those great episodes where the team act like a family. I also felt like this episode, while seemingly filler, moved character issues forward a bit more. We had a major change in the teams layout, and it also gave a close look at just how precarious a position that SHIELD is in right now. This precarious position is only more heightened by the fact Malick has political influence all around the world – making him all the more formidable, because he is untouchable.

The final scene of this episode with The Spy’s Goodbye broke my heart. It was such a bittersweet ending, and by the time the second shot had been purchased for Hunter and Bobby’s table, I was an absolute mess.

It was such a beautiful way to say goodby to two really significant characters from the SHIELD roster, two agents that have come so far and become such an integral part of the team. It really solidified that these people aren’t just spies who work together – they’re a unit, they’e friends and they love each other. This final scene was so perfect, and a fitting farewell to two great Agents – for now, at least.

Seeing as their was no hide nor hair of HiveWard this episode (which surprised me considering his huge dramatic ending in The Inside Man), I imagine next episode will bring him forward. Given the ending of the episode featuring Malick’s daughter who wants to meet “someone” – and I can only assume that someone is Hive.

I’m hoping that from this point on, with the new team and information, we’ll start to see major progress and we’ll build up to an incredible, action-filled finale that this show has now become famous for.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. SN3 EP12 – ‘The Inside Man’

This review contains spoilers.

Last episode, we left off on HiveWard playing the worst game of ‘pull my finger’ known to man, whilst Coulson and the team gear up to take on Malick, to take down the final head of Hydra once and for all. Alongside this, we find out the President has assigned our favourite General Talbot as the new head of the ATCU.

 This weeks episode is largely a good, old fashioned undercover episode. It’s good to see these kinds of episodes where the whole team work undercover with new stories and names, and show the spy work SHIELD also does outside of helping the Avengers.

The episode starts with a flashback to the mid-season finale scene where Coulson kills Ward by crushing his heart inside his chest – because what better was to violently and personally kill the man who shot the person you love?

The flashback then proceeds to show the gross and violent possession of Ward’s corpse, and a series of flashbacks of Ward’s life before and after Shield before it cuts to his possessed face opening it’s eyes and saying “Grant Ward. I wish we could have met under different circumstances.” It makes Hive all the more terrifying that to accompany his ever decomposing Ward-Suit, that he constantly refers to himself as “we.” – and the other part of the “we” there probably isn’t Ward.

Then, they proceed to drag in Lucio, the Inhuman cop from Bouncing Back who can paralyze people simply by looking into their eyes – at first he’s bandaged, but then Hive demands to see his eyes. Creepily (but kind of predictably enough.), Hive isn’t hurt by this Inhumans particular power, which naturally causes Lucio to be just a little bit on the afraid side. Then Hive proceeds to step backwards out of an outline of his body, and when Lucio asks “what are you?”, Hive responds with “What are we?” before sending the outline of himself forward. Yikes.

Then, we open up the episode post the Agent’s of S.H.I.E.L.D logo and we’re in an airport with General Talbot and his very angry wife, Carla. He’s asking her not to leave like this, to which she angrily responds telling him he’s always put his work above his family, and now they’re paying for it. Talbot calls after her, looking rather defeated, that he will fix it – and Carla storms away with one last disappointed look. I can’t help but feel a bit sad about it – it was fairly obvious from their last interactions that they have a deeply loving relationship. (Taco Tuesday’s was so adorable.) Then Phil meets up with him, and they proceed to talk/argue about their roles and relationship now, and about the undercover operation they’re involved in – and then we find out shortly later, much to the others agents horror, that Talbot has Creel on his side.

The next 40 minutes of the episode, we’re treated to Talbot and his overwhelming inability to do espionage. The man was in the army for God’s sake, and yet, the man can barely hold it together. He makes casual racist ignorant (“I don’t just wear a dress for anyone!” – regarding the ceremonial robe he’s been asked to wear to honour the country he’s in, and “It’s good to finally put faces to all of your unpronounceable names” – oh, oh dude. Why have you been made head of the ATCU when it requires being a people person.) There’s also some really cool spy moments in there, including Coulson using his high-tech prosthetic to create film gloves for his team-mates to break into their targets rooms and try and find out which one of them is working for Malick.

Then, during the meeting in which three very important politicians want to make a sanctuary state for Inhumans, the absolute unthinkable happens – Talbot blows Coulson’s cover wide open. He exposes the team, Phil’s arm, everything – and then just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, Malick strolls on in and tells the room that Phil Coulson is the director of Hydra.

At the point, I briefly started to worry about the direction this show is going in – because it makes literally no sense for Talbot to be Hydra, and it wouldn’t have held the same shock value as say, when Ward turned out to be Hydra. However, it turns out that Malick has Talbot’s son (which explains Carla’s fury in the beginning of the episode.) – and Talbot is bound to helping him to save his son.

There’s also some side action going on with Lincoln and Daisy but it’s not an awful lot – it’s mostly them fighting and being cute. And oddly enough, pushed to the side is this little tidbit – Creel’s blood contains the secret to stopping people with Inhuman blood from transforming. Why this is only a side story and not a massive focus, I’m not entirely sure, but it does crop up an argument between Daisy and Lincoln, with Lincoln on team “not everyone should change” and Daisy on team “It’s a birthright and if this gets into the wrong hands they will wipe us out”. Both have really valid points – it’d be nice to have control over the people who could turn and use whatever powers they’re given to murder or hurt people, but who gets to decide that path for another person? I wish this had been given more focus than just fleeting scenes between the spy-story side of things.

Overall, this is a fun episode. It doesn’t hold anything too consequential in the main characters story lines, because by the end of it, Talbot’s son is safe again and Phil and Talbot go back to their “hate-buddy” routine. I think if they’d kept the child with Hydra longer, kept using Talbot as a pawn, it might have held some more weight, but this was just more of a filler episode. That’s not a bad thing – it was still a lot of fun, and I always really enjoy the undercover SHIELD stuff a lot. The gadgets, the cover stories, it’s just good old-fashioned spy stuff that makes the show enjoyable.  It’s a bit of a fluffy episode with some action, a few character pointers and very little development, but that’s honestly fine, as long as this is just a bit of ground work for the adrenaline pumping stuff we’ve become used to on this show.

 Well, all was fun until the end of the episode.

About halfway through the episode, Hive asks for five regular, healthy humans to be delivered to him. Under the assumption he’s going to choose one as a host body because Ward’s is literally rotting around him, he’s left alone with them – and outside, you hear a lot of horrifying screaming that seems to even make the bad guys deeply uncomfortable.

And then the end of the episode reveals why they were screaming. Because standing in the middle of five skeletons, red bloody and still with a bit of flesh on them skeletons, covered in human slime and blood, kneels Hive. And slowly, oh so slowly, he rises up and stands, dripping so much of this sickly ooze, rising until he looks dead into the camera through the muck, staring right into you for a really uncomfortably long measure of time, before the episode ends.

It’s very rare of Marvel, particularly Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to go all out on the gore like this. While it has had it’s gross connotations and it’s violence, I can’t pinpoint much of a moment when it’s been that grim and visually shocking. It had a tonne of weight behind it, and it’s made me scared and excited to see what Brett Dalton’s character is going to do next.

I’m hoping next episode, more actual plot will start to weave it’s way into the main team, and that we get those full rich episodes that make this show fantastic.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. SN3 EP11 – ‘Bouncing Back’

Last night saw the return of Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D”, the television series based on Phil Coulson and his team as they deal with their own sets of problems in the MCU, fighting to keep SHIELD up and running whilst coping with the fallout from the main movie stories.

Obvious spoilers if you’re haven’t caught up/ watched the show yet.

Season 3 thus far has seen Coulson dealing with his loss of limb, and the whole team dealing with the aftermath of the Terrigan contamination in the ocean, helping find newly turned Inhumans and trying to help them and the public become safe. It then also saw the turning of Andrew, May’s ex-husband whom she was reconciling with, into an Inhuman with a desire to take out other Inhumans. It also saw the controversial argument of how to handle Inhumans and of how the public should see them.

The mid-season finale, “Maveth”, ended on a massive massive high – which saw us finding out that the man Jemma fell in love with on the alien planet was dead, and possessed by the creature – a creature of immense power. It then also saw beloved traitor/anti-hero/villain/murderer of women Grant Ward killed rather violently by Phil Coulson himself. It was a huge, action packed finale with so many questions to answer and so many places for it to go.

So how did “Bouncing Back” hold up?

Considering the show is coming back off of one of it’s massive and now infamous hiatus’s, it held its own very well. I’m glad we didn’t have an instant throw down of “AAH PLOTS AND THINGS” because realistically, it needed to reintroduce itself to it’s audience after a long time away. And it did exactly that.

The episode introduced us to a new Inhuman, affectionally named “Yo-Yo” for her ability – she has superspeed, but she has to go back to a fixed starting point – much like, a yo-yo. In the comics, she’s actually known as “Slingshot”, but considering her powers come about for completely different reasons than “I had fish for dinner that day”, I think it’s a nice nod to the comic book alias.

The episode also featured, and handled well, the subject of police brutality in other countries and the severe in-balance of justice in certain areas of the world. I also absolutely adored the ending – where she chose to stay in her home country instead of going with them to join SHIELD. It shows a chance for SHIELD to grow and develop, to become a world-wide force once again, and this time, with the right people at the controls.

There was also the whole issue of FitzSimmons and their ever perilous relationship – considering Fitz had to destroy her ex-boyfriends possessed corpse, and that they shared a rather intense kiss, viewers weren’t sure where and how this was going to go. This episode seemed to point in the direction of them trying to rebuild and “start again” – it’s going to be interesting to see how they do this, considering everything they’ve been through and how different they are as characters, but it seemed like the adult thing to do, and it’s a really refreshing development to see after the past season and a half of them being in pieces.

And then, there was the whole thing about Ward’s cold pale corpse being used as an alien vessel. Brett Dalton’s acting is absolutely wonderful. He’s done an insanely good job as Grant Ward, the mentally twisted and very complex ex-SHIELD/Hydra agent. He plays the perfect all-mighty alien power that’s come back to earth. He’s mostly silent, but his cold, purple and grey exterior paired with the small tilts and facial movements makes for a genuinely subtle and scary villain for us to look forward to.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable episode. No, it wasn’t this super duper action filled incredible episode, but that’s not really what’s needed after a long time away. What we need is a re-introduction to the plot points, to the things left hanging after the events of “Maveth” and this is exactly what this episode was. And now, it’s pointed to where the show is going from here and what foes the team are up against this time.