Posts tagged: Agents of SHIELD

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Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E21 “Absolution” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writers: Chris Dingess, Drew Z. Greenberg
Director: Billy Gierhart

Essential Plot Points:

• On Planet Craphole, the containment cell is sitting in the middle of a plain. Daisy is frantically hotwiring it as, nearby, a badly injured Phil talks to her. She explains that she’s intent on piloting the module back to Earth but he explains this is Earth and then…
• Daisy wakes up from her nightmare.
• Simmons comes to see Daisy. Daisy’s under lockdown and Simmons, while clearly concerned for her friend, is all business.
• Simmons explains that they’ve found a missile silo they’re confident fits Hive’s needs. Daisy warns her he’ll be there ahead of them and she explains that she knows and the staff went dark five hours ago.

• We see Hive take control of the silo as May, proving her astounding levels of badassery flies a Quinjet OUT OF THE OCEAN and deploys a strike team.
• Elsewhere, Talbot is pleading for the launch code to the silo as Fitz, just off shot, is quietly hacking the call. They get what they need and pass the details to…
• Phil! who tears over to the building the codes are held in as…
• In the silo May, Mack, Linc and YoYo tool up while…

• Back at SHIELD Fitz and Talbot are standing front of a green screen talking to the Under Secretary they need to obtain the override from. Fitz is in this frankly amazing motion cap outfit that turns him into the General they were just talking to. But he needs a box to stand on, because he’s adorable.
• At the silo, Hive prepares to launch his missile as Phil speeds up, flashes his ID and gets what he needs.

• Which is a massive code string with only 20 seconds to input it. Type, tiny Scottish man! TYPE LIKE THE WIND!
• Fitz speed types for his life as the countdown begins and… stops. They did it.
• In the silo, Hive and his team realise SHIELD have to be in the building. Hive orders Radcliffe to unlock the code and heads out to go to war with the strike team.
• Nearby Linc tries to reassure May that Andrew’s death meant something. She shuts him down. Nearby Mack and YoYo bicker, adorably, about how slow he works. He tries to give her back THE CRUCIFIX OF DEATH but she turns him down.

• Back at HQ Phil and Fitzsimmons are discussing how it’s going. Phil is worried that the team isn’t just facing Hive but everyone he’s absorbed.
• At the silo, Radcliffe and two of his primitives are reading the instruction booklets for how to turn the missile back on. It’s not going super well.

• At the control room, May makes her way inside while Hive confronts Lincoln. He goads the young inhuman into a fight, pressing the Daisy button over and over. It doesn’t work until Hive suggests Linc join him to find Daisy. Linc confronts him, then runs.
• At SHIELD, Phil goes to see Daisy to tell her how it’s going. They talk around the situation but when Phil tries to comfort Daisy she blows up. She tells him she’s a criminal, she deserves everything that’s coming to her and she should stay in the box forever.
• Phil pushes back, telling her vengeance isn’t the answer and that time and distance is what she needs. She retorts that she should be put in the memory machine and made to live in there as punishment. He replies that while they did bring it out of storage it’s not for her…

• Linc leads Hive to the boobytrap that Mack and YoYo were building. He uses his powers to trigger it (after YoYo – magnificently – finishes it in seconds having watched Captain Slow dawdle). The trap floods Hive with the memories of all his personalities, knocking him out. The SHIELD agents flee as the other Inhumans arrive to rescue Hive. But, as Hive constantly flashes back through old lives they realise it may be too late. He babbles but pulls it together just enough to tell the others to disconnect the warhead.

• Radcliffe and his two lackeys are making… well… some progress when May stops them. She’s jumped by the primitives and proceeds to beat seven shades of Terrigen out of them with typical, aggressive ease.

• Nearby, YoYo whose cranky speedster schtick is wonderful, rescues the silo staff.
• May is almost overrun when Radcliffe saves her. Yay – John Hannah face turn! But it’s too late…
• Hive steals the warhead.

• As they evacuate the silo, Hive confronts them. He’s mid-monolog when they drop a containment cell over his big stupid multi-life head and fill it with goo. Not so much as Han in carbonite as Hive in Gelatine.

• SHIELD just… won?
• Talbot congratulates Phil as he heads out. Phil points out the mission isn’t done until they’ve found the warhead. May arrives with Radcliffe to brief them. He tells them the process that created the primitives is irreversible and Talbot, proving he’s a career military man, essentially shouts him into working on a solution.
• Phil debriefs Linc and Mack and tells Linc he’d be a great agent. Linc reminds him Phil told him he had to want it and… he doesn’t. He doesn’t quite say that he’s going to settle down and open a pub once the war’s over but it’s pretty close.

• Mack, because he’s grumpily sweet, is disgusted that they haven’t told Daisy they’ve arrested Hive. He walks straight into the cell, tells her and has a long overdue heart to heart with Tremors. She reminds him what happened the last time they were in the same room and Mack does that thing he does where he’s huge and immovable and sweet. Daisy pushes him and pushes him and then just collapses, sobbing as the horror of the last few weeks slowly begins to come out.
• In the lab, Fitz discovers something dispiriting: Radcliffe, an engineer, was using biotech he could barely understand. It’ll take a decade to find a cure. Which, given his full-bore Scottish grimness, means sometime around season six.
• Simmons is a terrible liar so she reveals that she’s planning a romantic getaway. They, again, manage to be adorable while doing relationship stuff other shows would be awful at. On the way out to check Hive’s gel cell, Fitz picks up the CRUCIFIX OF DEATH which has fallen from Mack’s jacket pocket. Noooooooo!
• Back in the cell, Daisy and Mack talk about whether Hive is the devil. Mack, a man of faith, isn’t too sure. Daisy is. She advocates for him to be destroyed and Mack reassures her he isn’t getting out.
• So that’ll be about five minutes then.

• In the hangar, Fitz is checking over the gel cell. All seems well. Until Fitz notices something amiss and… a Terrigen bomb detonates! A SHIELD tech instantly turns into a primitive and, with the room locked down, Fitz and another are trapped.
• In a really very clever touch, the only thing that saves Fitz’s life is that the hangar is too damn big for the gas to fill. The primitives drag agents into the cloud as Fitz comes up with a workaround that can’t possibly work. Gemma remembers a workaround Fitz developed and gets the door open in time to save him and one other agent. When Phil demands to know what the hell she just did her answer is basically “SCIENCE”.
• In the hangar, the Protos tear the gel cell apart to get Hive out.
• In the containment cell, Daisy watches in horror. She realises that they’ve just handed Hive his delivery system for the warhead: the Zephyr, which is parked in the hangar. Daisy hacks the containment cell and deploys it into the Zephyr as Hive tries to remember how to fly it. She confronts him in the cargo bay and slowly kneels, begging him to take her back.

Review:

One episode to go and SHIELD has put a brick on the accelerator. From the breathless, Mission: Impossible-esque opening to the tiny, personal horror of the final scene this is an episode crammed full of the precision writing and direction that’s become the show’s trademark this season especially.

So much of that, yet again, rests on Chloe Bennet’s shoulders and, yet again, she carries it effortlessly. This is Daisy as we’ve never seen her before and it’s not at all what you’d expect. There’s real awkwardness and discomfort in her scenes with Simmons that perfectly communicates just how alien the situation is. Even Phil, the coolest TV dad who isn’t Joe West, can’t get through to her. Daisy’s put up a blockade, not just between the friends she hurt and herself but between her emotions and her needs. She’s an addict in withdrawal, a victim of something as unprecedented as it horrific and she will, genuinely, never be the same. Her arc this season is becoming one of the most careful, sensitive explorations of long term trauma genre TV has tried in a long time. There’s nothing easy or simple here; just a clever, brave, good-hearted young woman who has had nothing but trauma for years and can’t shake it off anymore. She genuinely believes she needs to be held in custody and there’s a tiny little beat in her scene with Mack that tells just how deeply she feels that. He says something kind and Daisy’s face just collapses, the tears starting even as she flat out refuses to accept the emotion behind them is there. It’s an uncomfortably honest and painfully accurate watch. Outstanding work from all involved.

The rest of the episode impresses too, with Fitz, Simmons, Talbot and Linc all getting surprising moments. It’s interesting how Talbot, though no an ally now, is still pretty much a bigot. Pleasant surprise of the episode, though, is Linc deciding not to go full time with SHIELD. We’re pretty sure he’s doomed as a result but it was a welcome moment of personal control for a character who hasn’t been that well served this season.

The entire episode impressed in fact, especially Gierhart’s breathless direction of the opening sequence. There’s a smart note in Greenberg and Dingess’s script too that sees the team more in lockstep than they’ve been for a long time. The scale of what Hive is attempting, as well as the countless losses and injuries they’ve suffered have tempered this version of SHIELD into the sort of unit Phil has always wanted: people who are fiercely protective of one another and embody the dutiful compassion of the director himself. That’s why so many people are pulling for Fitz in the hangar attack, why it’s newest team member YoYo who takes Hive down at the silo. Most of all, it’s why so many people come to see Daisy. Because they’re a family as well as a team and family don’t leave people behind.

Unless of course, those people leave them behind…

One week to go. LOTS of SHIELD jackets and the CRUCIFIX OF DEATH still in play. Who will fall? Who will live? And will Fitz and Simmons get to go on holiday? Not long to wait now.

The Good:

• “He is very lucky he is handsome.” YoYo is great fun all episode but her needling Mack for being slow is especially cute.
• “Memory is the scribe of the soul.” Alphonzo Mackenzie! Scholar! Man of letters! Mechanic! Giant!
• “I can tell by your moustache that you’re a man of importance and not to be trifled with.” God, we hope Radcliffe sticks around. He’s great.
• Yet again, it’s kudos time for Chloe Bennet. She’s been the anchor of this show all damn season and finds yet more extra gears this episode with a hollowed-out, bitter, horrified Daisy we’ve never seen before. The scenes between her and Phil are especially powerful but it’s the final scene, and her confrontation with Mack, that kill you. The moment he says something even a little kind and you see her defences crumble is some of the finest acting this show has ever seen. Likewise the awful moment where what you think is her redemptive fight with Hive becomes her begging for another fix. (OR DOES IT? See Random.)
• Also top marks to Brett Dalton for nailing every version of Ward as well as Hive all in the same episode.
• Also also top marks to Henry Simmons. Mack’s had a glacially slow character arc at times but the fact his first instinct is to go help his people out and damn the torpedoes is lovely. Also, notice he and Daisy are both still carrying scars. This season has been ROUGH.
• The CRUCIFIX OF DEATH hot potato game played all episode is great fun. Who will live? Who will die? Has there ever been an episode where more people have been wearing SHIELD jackets simultaneously?
• GREAT fight choreography this week. Especially May palm striking/straight up slapping a primitive off a gantry.
• Great direction from Billy Gierhart, especially in the opening multi-location sequence.
• MAY FLIES A QUINJET UNDERWATER BECAUSE IT’S TOO SCARED OF HER TO TELL HER IT CAN’T REALLY DO THAT!

The Bad:

• Remember when Giyera did something other than carry things relevant to the plot?
• Remember when James’s arc across an episode wasn’t endless variations of the plot being explained to him?

And The Random:

• So Daisy’s begging Hive to take her back. OR IS SHE? Did Lash make her immune? Is she doing this to prove to Hive that he isn’t all powerful? Either option works, either option is powerful and character driven. Can’t wait to see which it is.
• Shot of the week is Daisy and Hive facing off. Perhaps for the last time?

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other Agents Of SHIELD reviews

Daisy finds a new family while Fitz and Simmons become even more loveable than ever >>>

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E07 “Chaos Theory” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writer: Lauren LeFranc
Director: David Solomon

Essential Plot Points:

• We open on Hawaiian music. Juuuust about when you worry we’re about to be told Tahiti is a magical place, we get some context. A flashback to Andrew and May on the beach. It’s the last day of their holiday and they talk about the future. May suggests not going back to SHIELD and she and Andrew settle into the idea of a life together, at least in the short term.
• Back home Andrew is chatting to Phil on the phone when he opens one of Jiaying’s books. Terrigen mist sprays out and a panicking Andrew tries to run before being consumed…

• Back in the present day, Phil and Daisy are arguing over the ATCU’s containment facility. Andrew, following behind them, is taking in everything. He’s cagey, uneasy and to Daisy’s surprise he argues for the prison.

• Phil explains that he and Rosalind are off to brief the president at a secret summit and he wants Daisy to tag along and change Rosalind’s mind about Inhumans. Daisy suggests Andrew reassess Joey so they have a success story to talk about and he agrees.
• On the way through the facility, he passes Mack who’s on the phone and Gemma, heading to the lab. Andrew visibly relaxes talking to a definite human patient and complements her on heading back to work. They chat and she goes to see Fitz, handing him the phone she kept with her and asking if he can retrieve the data.

• Bobbi and May chat and Bobbi mentions they’ve been able to track Lash. May, realising she can use this data to confirm if Andrew is Lash, leaves. She brushes off Daisy on the way and discovers Andrew is offsite with Joey.

• Unaware he’s sharing the room with a serial killer, Joey’s doing great. His powers are under control and he’s eager to be back in the field. Andrew hallucinates Lash murdering Joey but, just, keeps himself in check.

• Back at HQ, Bobbi and Hunter talk. This largely involves Bobbi being sensible and Hunter apologising a lot. It’s also one of the first grown-up conversations they’ve had and the pair are now both on the same page and somehow even cuter. Bless.

• On Zephyr 1, Rosalind arrives and Daisy gives her the tour. They argue over the relative threat Inhumans face and Rosalind makes some worryingly good points.
• Back in the lab, Fitz pulls the data from Gemma’s phone. He finds her message to him, the photo of her with Will and, very politely and quietly, loses it a bit. Then he’s brought up short as he hears the audio recordings she left him. She walks right up to tell him she loves him but doesn’t quite. Because at this point she doesn’t have to.

• At Andrew’s imminent crime scene, May bursts in at just the right time. She sends Joey away and confronts Andrew. He tries to talk her down but finally admits it, and ICEs her.

• Elsewhere, we find out who Mack was on the phone with; Lincoln! The fugitive Inhuman tells Mack he’s worked out Lash is in SHIELD but he needs Mack’s help to prove it…

• May wakes up handcuffed to an abandoned admin facility at Culver University. She and Andrew talk and he explains about the booby-trapped book. He also explains that when he woke up he felt drawn to Inhumans, and couldn’t stop killing them. It made him feel normal and, as the conversation continues, May clearly realises just how far from normal he is now.

• Aboard Zephyr 1, Phil and Rosalind are talking. It’s clear that Operation Persuade Rosalind She’s Wrong was not SHIELD’s most successful op this week. In a very cute moment, Phil is putting his tie back on for the first time in a while to see the President. He struggles because of the prosthetic hand, he and Rosalind share a moment and…Daisy interrupts it to tell them there’s another Quinjet inbound.
• Mack and Lincoln come aboard. Lincoln explains about Jiaying’s ledger and how Lash has been using it to kill Inhumans. Mack figures out that Andrew is the only one who had it, Phil reveals that Andrew and May are off grid and the alarms start going off. Phil steps out of the summit and Lincoln gives them the really bad news; Andrew is still in transition. When his transformation is complete, only Lash will remain.

• Back at the world’s most awkward break-up, Andrew argues that he’s still doing good work. Then he invokes Bahrain and the Inhuman child May had to kill there. She sees just how little of him is left and Phil shows up. He, the team and the ATCU have the building surrounded and want to take Lash into custody.

• Lincoln on the other hand wants to kill him. He panics, attacks Andrew and a chase ensues. As the chaos escalates the ATCU team are all killed, Phil saves Mack, Rosalind is thrown from a high floor and only saved by Daisy. Finally Lincoln gets back on message. After finding the innocent men Andrew killed, May realises enough is enough and talks him down. She tells him why she could break up with him, what a good man he is and Andrew changes back. May smiles…
• …And shoots him multiple times, knocking him into the containment cell. She locks it and the second she does, he’s Lash again.

• Back on Zephyr 1, Rosalind argues for Andrew to be put into containment. If he’s put under in human form, his transformation will be slowed. May, to everyone’s amazement, asks Daisy for her call. Daisy thinks about it and agrees Rosalind is right. May tells them to put her husband under and stalks off. The grim atmosphere is offset by Rosalind asking Phil if he wants to go for a drink. He agrees.
• Back at the lab, Fitz listens to all of Gemma’s recordings and all but breaks down as he realises what she went through. He also figures out that Will’s mission patch looks a lot like one of the symbols they’ve been studying. He speculates that Will may not have been sent by NASA. Or not just NASA…
• Fitz finds Gemma watching the sun come up. They talk about what she said, what she meant and what it might mean for them. For now, they decide to just watch the sun come up. Not together, but certainly not apart anymore.

• May silently weeps on the flight home, remembering how happy she’d been with Andrew.
• Ward meets with Gideon Malick who counsels him against what he’s planning. Ward vows to cut the head off SHIELD and Malick takes a phone call.
• FROM ROSALIND! TWIST!
• She apologises for not getting Coulson to the summit and hangs up. AS PHIL COMES ROUND THE CORNER GETTING DRESSED
• DOUBLE TWIST!

Review:

This is one of the tightest-structured episodes of Agents of SHIELD to date. The serial format they’ve adopted this year is really working and this episode in particular does a great job of funnelling a lot of subplots down to one question;
hero or villain?

For Morse and Hunter, that question is answered two different ways. Bobbi’s acutely aware of what she’s lost to get where she is and more so of what she’s almost lost. Hunter, because he’s adorable, is quite happy to continue doing stupid, questionable things to protect her. She isn’t and the conversation they have here puts them back in step and, maybe, on their way out of the show.

Lincoln answers the hero/villain question about himself and SHIELD this week. He comes in from the cold and immediately makes a very bad, and understandable, call. He’s in an interesting place, the last survivor of Jiaying’s approach to Inhumanity and his discomfort makes for some interesting scenes. Either way, Lincoln knows which one he is now and is starting to figure out which one SHIELD is.

Fitz and Simmons know the answer going in: hero. But what then? Fitz’s response to Will, and Gemma’s feelings for him has been subtle, honest work from the start but here it not only escalates but gets even more complex. The love these two have for one another is obvious. If they can get to it is not. This plot could have fallen so flat but instead it’s a weekly highlight of the show. The final scene they have here, not to mention Ian De Caestecker’s heartrending work as he listens to Gemma’s recordings, is an all-time standout for both of them.

For Phil, Daisy and Rosalind the question is far more complex. One of the best scenes this episode is the Rosalind/Daisy confrontation. There’s no front, no politics just two women being completely honest and one of them getting the upper hand. Rosalind, and the ATCU, remain a weak-ish link on the show but this episode goes a long way towards fixing that. We see Rosalind’s point of view, see it challenged and see her organisation and Phil’s take major steps together. Steps that involve breakfast and, thankfully, not yet another SHIELD vs itself season arc…

But the meat of the episode is with May and Andrew. Ming Na and Blair Underwood are two of the strongest parts of this cast and the episode cleverly locks them in a series of rooms together. What follows is the best kind of tragedy, as May realises just how little of Andrew is left and Andrew is blind to how much of him is now Lash. It’s a perfect microcosm of the complex Inhuman problem, as well as its very human cost. It’s also a subtle, complicated issue that powers one of the best hours of season three so far. A highlight in what’s been the show’s strongest season to date so far.

The Good:

• “Daisy says I could be a real asset to SHEILD, but she says my fate is in your hands.” “Yes, Joey. It is.” Oh Joey. How little you know…
• “Whatever it is just lay it on me.” “I think you’ve been reckless and stupid.” “Can I take back what I just said?” Bobbi and Hunter are adorable. Even more so here when they’re on the same page.
• “Just admit you’re afraid of people like me. Afraid of our power.” “Absolutely.” Rosalind is still a slightly weak link for me but her directness here really helps communicate her viewpoint. Her (possibly) evil viewpoint judging by the end of the episode but still…
• “New look?” “Old look, actually. Been a while.” It’s a sweet little character moment but it also shows just how far Phil, and SHIELD, have come. Very nicely done.
• “I’m simply trying to sort the good from the bad.” “That’s a pretty poor interpretation of a therapist.” Underwood does such a great job with this version of Andrew and this whole scene in particular really drives home the horror and tragedy that define his connection with Lash.
• “Really gotta commit to that shotgun axe idea.” YES YOU DO, MACK.
• “What do you think we should do about it?” “For now… let’s just watch the sun rise.” Fitz and Simmons have been on a bottle rocket of brilliant writing for two seasons now. This whole plot, and the careful way they’re dealing with Gemma’s immense trauma, is arguably the best thing the show’s doing this season.

• The performances. Specifically, Ming Na and Blair Underwood absolutely crush it this week. This is almost more range than we’ve ever seen from May before as she runs the gauntlet from horrified to grief-stricken to resolved and desolate. That last scene, the flashback, is one of the best moments we’ve had from this character so far and sets up so much of her next arc. Not to mention a thousand fan videos set to “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”.
  Underwood’s also given a ton to work with here. It’s still Andrew, just, but as the episode goes on we see just how close to the surface Lash is all the time. The moment where May shoots him into the containment cell as Andrew and he appears as Lash a second later is truly chilling but its Underwood’s performance that lands it. When he invokes the inhuman child May had to kill in Bahrain, we feel the same thing she does; horror and the growing realisation that the man speaking almost isn’t there anymore. He’s tragic and monstrous and utterly impossible to look away from.
• The balance. SHIELD has a colossal cast at this point and this is one of those episodes where they all get something to do. As well as the Melinda and Andrew show we get some nice stuff with Mack, Lincoln coming in from the cold, some amazing Fitz and Simmons stuff, a small but perfectly formed bit of Bobbi and Hunter and Phil and Rosalind galore. LeFranc excels at this cast-juggling so let’s hope we see lots more from her. She understands, and explores, each one of these characters with a lightness of touch that gives everyone a moment to shine.
• The structure. Again, SHIELD balances a huge number of plotlines and this episode moves them all along. The ATCU are actually both interesting and kind of useful now, the relationships all take a huge leap forward and there’s an intriguing development about Planet Craphole where Gemma was stranded. The show’s come a long way from season one and this heavily serialised really agrees with it.
• The parade of great female characters. One of the best scenes this episode sees Daisy and Rosalind going toe-to-toe over how the ATCU treats Inhumans and they’re BOTH right. There’s immense variation in outlook, mind set and approach in the show’s female characters and it, along with how diverse the cast are, gives it an energy nothing else on TV has.
• Fitz and Simmons. Remember the first half of season one where, on occasion, they were kind of annoying? Not any more. The quiet resolve that Simmons returned with and Fitz’s unfussy but somewhat brutal honesty make for riveting viewing. Their final scene here is a series highlight for them and marks them out as the most interesting, and mature, (sort of) relationship on the show.

The Bad:

• Not so much bad – more a bit of a niggle. Lincoln comes to Mack for help, agrees to help in the mission to bring in Lash and then completely screws it up before putting it back on track. Emotionally it makes perfect sense; he’s facing down the killer of very nearly all his friends. But narratively it makes him look like a bit of a ditherer.
• The series finally commits to the Phil/Rosalind relationship this episode. Which is good as the relationship feels if not forced then a little strained. That’s to be expected when you’re dealing with two professional spies of course. Plus we see just why it’s strained this episode (OR DO WE?). Still, nice to see progress here.
• Baby Strucker is sufficiently annoying that even seeing him in the recap is almost too much.

The Random:

• Phil still having his model of the old Bus in his office is adorable.
• Hunter’s undercover hair is still magnificently, relentlessly awful.
• Adrianne Palicki leaning back slightly so she and Nick Blood are kind of sort of the same height when they hug is adorable. We like to think that Bobbi realises Hunter’s a touch sensitive about his height so works around that.
• And only pats him on the head a couple of times a week.
• Lincoln pretty much throws a Hadouken, Ryu’s signature movie in the Street Fighter series, when he attacks lash. Nicely done.

• Shot of the week, and performance of the week for that matter is this. Melinda May, the living embodiment of badassery is put through absolute hell this episode. She holds it together until she’s alone and then, quietly, precisely, comes apart. Ming Na’s so damn good, but this is some of her best ever work.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other Agents Of SHIELD reviews

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E07 “Chaos Theory” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writer: Lauren LeFranc
Director: David Solomon

Essential Plot Points:

• We open on Hawaiian music. Juuuust about when you worry we’re about to be told Tahiti is a magical place, we get some context. A flashback to Andrew and May on the beach. It’s the last day of their holiday and they talk about the future. May suggests not going back to SHIELD and she and Andrew settle into the idea of a life together, at least in the short term.
• Back home Andrew is chatting to Phil on the phone when he opens one of Jiaying’s books. Terrigen mist sprays out and a panicking Andrew tries to run before being consumed…

• Back in the present day, Phil and Daisy are arguing over the ATCU’s containment facility. Andrew, following behind them, is taking in everything. He’s cagey, uneasy and to Daisy’s surprise he argues for the prison.

• Phil explains that he and Rosalind are off to brief the president at a secret summit and he wants Daisy to tag along and change Rosalind’s mind about Inhumans. Daisy suggests Andrew reassess Joey so they have a success story to talk about and he agrees.
• On the way through the facility, he passes Mack who’s on the phone and Gemma, heading to the lab. Andrew visibly relaxes talking to a definite human patient and complements her on heading back to work. They chat and she goes to see Fitz, handing him the phone she kept with her and asking if he can retrieve the data.

• Bobbi and May chat and Bobbi mentions they’ve been able to track Lash. May, realising she can use this data to confirm if Andrew is Lash, leaves. She brushes off Daisy on the way and discovers Andrew is offsite with Joey.

• Unaware he’s sharing the room with a serial killer, Joey’s doing great. His powers are under control and he’s eager to be back in the field. Andrew hallucinates Lash murdering Joey but, just, keeps himself in check.

• Back at HQ, Bobbi and Hunter talk. This largely involves Bobbi being sensible and Hunter apologising a lot. It’s also one of the first grown-up conversations they’ve had and the pair are now both on the same page and somehow even cuter. Bless.

• On Zephyr 1, Rosalind arrives and Daisy gives her the tour. They argue over the relative threat Inhumans face and Rosalind makes some worryingly good points.
• Back in the lab, Fitz pulls the data from Gemma’s phone. He finds her message to him, the photo of her with Will and, very politely and quietly, loses it a bit. Then he’s brought up short as he hears the audio recordings she left him. She walks right up to tell him she loves him but doesn’t quite. Because at this point she doesn’t have to.

• At Andrew’s imminent crime scene, May bursts in at just the right time. She sends Joey away and confronts Andrew. He tries to talk her down but finally admits it, and ICEs her.

• Elsewhere, we find out who Mack was on the phone with; Lincoln! The fugitive Inhuman tells Mack he’s worked out Lash is in SHIELD but he needs Mack’s help to prove it…

• May wakes up handcuffed to an abandoned admin facility at Culver University. She and Andrew talk and he explains about the booby-trapped book. He also explains that when he woke up he felt drawn to Inhumans, and couldn’t stop killing them. It made him feel normal and, as the conversation continues, May clearly realises just how far from normal he is now.

• Aboard Zephyr 1, Phil and Rosalind are talking. It’s clear that Operation Persuade Rosalind She’s Wrong was not SHIELD’s most successful op this week. In a very cute moment, Phil is putting his tie back on for the first time in a while to see the President. He struggles because of the prosthetic hand, he and Rosalind share a moment and…Daisy interrupts it to tell them there’s another Quinjet inbound.
• Mack and Lincoln come aboard. Lincoln explains about Jiaying’s ledger and how Lash has been using it to kill Inhumans. Mack figures out that Andrew is the only one who had it, Phil reveals that Andrew and May are off grid and the alarms start going off. Phil steps out of the summit and Lincoln gives them the really bad news; Andrew is still in transition. When his transformation is complete, only Lash will remain.

• Back at the world’s most awkward break-up, Andrew argues that he’s still doing good work. Then he invokes Bahrain and the Inhuman child May had to kill there. She sees just how little of him is left and Phil shows up. He, the team and the ATCU have the building surrounded and want to take Lash into custody.

• Lincoln on the other hand wants to kill him. He panics, attacks Andrew and a chase ensues. As the chaos escalates the ATCU team are all killed, Phil saves Mack, Rosalind is thrown from a high floor and only saved by Daisy. Finally Lincoln gets back on message. After finding the innocent men Andrew killed, May realises enough is enough and talks him down. She tells him why she could break up with him, what a good man he is and Andrew changes back. May smiles…
• …And shoots him multiple times, knocking him into the containment cell. She locks it and the second she does, he’s Lash again.

• Back on Zephyr 1, Rosalind argues for Andrew to be put into containment. If he’s put under in human form, his transformation will be slowed. May, to everyone’s amazement, asks Daisy for her call. Daisy thinks about it and agrees Rosalind is right. May tells them to put her husband under and stalks off. The grim atmosphere is offset by Rosalind asking Phil if he wants to go for a drink. He agrees.
• Back at the lab, Fitz listens to all of Gemma’s recordings and all but breaks down as he realises what she went through. He also figures out that Will’s mission patch looks a lot like one of the symbols they’ve been studying. He speculates that Will may not have been sent by NASA. Or not just NASA…
• Fitz finds Gemma watching the sun come up. They talk about what she said, what she meant and what it might mean for them. For now, they decide to just watch the sun come up. Not together, but certainly not apart anymore.

• May silently weeps on the flight home, remembering how happy she’d been with Andrew.
• Ward meets with Gideon Malick who counsels him against what he’s planning. Ward vows to cut the head off SHIELD and Malick takes a phone call.
• FROM ROSALIND! TWIST!
• She apologises for not getting Coulson to the summit and hangs up. AS PHIL COMES ROUND THE CORNER GETTING DRESSED
• DOUBLE TWIST!

Review:

This is one of the tightest-structured episodes of Agents of SHIELD to date. The serial format they’ve adopted this year is really working and this episode in particular does a great job of funnelling a lot of subplots down to one question;
hero or villain?

For Morse and Hunter, that question is answered two different ways. Bobbi’s acutely aware of what she’s lost to get where she is and more so of what she’s almost lost. Hunter, because he’s adorable, is quite happy to continue doing stupid, questionable things to protect her. She isn’t and the conversation they have here puts them back in step and, maybe, on their way out of the show.

Lincoln answers the hero/villain question about himself and SHIELD this week. He comes in from the cold and immediately makes a very bad, and understandable, call. He’s in an interesting place, the last survivor of Jiaying’s approach to Inhumanity and his discomfort makes for some interesting scenes. Either way, Lincoln knows which one he is now and is starting to figure out which one SHIELD is.

Fitz and Simmons know the answer going in: hero. But what then? Fitz’s response to Will, and Gemma’s feelings for him has been subtle, honest work from the start but here it not only escalates but gets even more complex. The love these two have for one another is obvious. If they can get to it is not. This plot could have fallen so flat but instead it’s a weekly highlight of the show. The final scene they have here, not to mention Ian De Caestecker’s heartrending work as he listens to Gemma’s recordings, is an all-time standout for both of them.

For Phil, Daisy and Rosalind the question is far more complex. One of the best scenes this episode is the Rosalind/Daisy confrontation. There’s no front, no politics just two women being completely honest and one of them getting the upper hand. Rosalind, and the ATCU, remain a weak-ish link on the show but this episode goes a long way towards fixing that. We see Rosalind’s point of view, see it challenged and see her organisation and Phil’s take major steps together. Steps that involve breakfast and, thankfully, not yet another SHIELD vs itself season arc…

But the meat of the episode is with May and Andrew. Ming Na and Blair Underwood are two of the strongest parts of this cast and the episode cleverly locks them in a series of rooms together. What follows is the best kind of tragedy, as May realises just how little of Andrew is left and Andrew is blind to how much of him is now Lash. It’s a perfect microcosm of the complex Inhuman problem, as well as its very human cost. It’s also a subtle, complicated issue that powers one of the best hours of season three so far. A highlight in what’s been the show’s strongest season to date so far.

The Good:

• “Daisy says I could be a real asset to SHEILD, but she says my fate is in your hands.” “Yes, Joey. It is.” Oh Joey. How little you know…
• “Whatever it is just lay it on me.” “I think you’ve been reckless and stupid.” “Can I take back what I just said?” Bobbi and Hunter are adorable. Even more so here when they’re on the same page.
• “Just admit you’re afraid of people like me. Afraid of our power.” “Absolutely.” Rosalind is still a slightly weak link for me but her directness here really helps communicate her viewpoint. Her (possibly) evil viewpoint judging by the end of the episode but still…
• “New look?” “Old look, actually. Been a while.” It’s a sweet little character moment but it also shows just how far Phil, and SHIELD, have come. Very nicely done.
• “I’m simply trying to sort the good from the bad.” “That’s a pretty poor interpretation of a therapist.” Underwood does such a great job with this version of Andrew and this whole scene in particular really drives home the horror and tragedy that define his connection with Lash.
• “Really gotta commit to that shotgun axe idea.” YES YOU DO, MACK.
• “What do you think we should do about it?” “For now… let’s just watch the sun rise.” Fitz and Simmons have been on a bottle rocket of brilliant writing for two seasons now. This whole plot, and the careful way they’re dealing with Gemma’s immense trauma, is arguably the best thing the show’s doing this season.

• The performances. Specifically, Ming Na and Blair Underwood absolutely crush it this week. This is almost more range than we’ve ever seen from May before as she runs the gauntlet from horrified to grief-stricken to resolved and desolate. That last scene, the flashback, is one of the best moments we’ve had from this character so far and sets up so much of her next arc. Not to mention a thousand fan videos set to “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”.
  Underwood’s also given a ton to work with here. It’s still Andrew, just, but as the episode goes on we see just how close to the surface Lash is all the time. The moment where May shoots him into the containment cell as Andrew and he appears as Lash a second later is truly chilling but its Underwood’s performance that lands it. When he invokes the inhuman child May had to kill in Bahrain, we feel the same thing she does; horror and the growing realisation that the man speaking almost isn’t there anymore. He’s tragic and monstrous and utterly impossible to look away from.
• The balance. SHIELD has a colossal cast at this point and this is one of those episodes where they all get something to do. As well as the Melinda and Andrew show we get some nice stuff with Mack, Lincoln coming in from the cold, some amazing Fitz and Simmons stuff, a small but perfectly formed bit of Bobbi and Hunter and Phil and Rosalind galore. LeFranc excels at this cast-juggling so let’s hope we see lots more from her. She understands, and explores, each one of these characters with a lightness of touch that gives everyone a moment to shine.
• The structure. Again, SHIELD balances a huge number of plotlines and this episode moves them all along. The ATCU are actually both interesting and kind of useful now, the relationships all take a huge leap forward and there’s an intriguing development about Planet Craphole where Gemma was stranded. The show’s come a long way from season one and this heavily serialised really agrees with it.
• The parade of great female characters. One of the best scenes this episode sees Daisy and Rosalind going toe-to-toe over how the ATCU treats Inhumans and they’re BOTH right. There’s immense variation in outlook, mind set and approach in the show’s female characters and it, along with how diverse the cast are, gives it an energy nothing else on TV has.
• Fitz and Simmons. Remember the first half of season one where, on occasion, they were kind of annoying? Not any more. The quiet resolve that Simmons returned with and Fitz’s unfussy but somewhat brutal honesty make for riveting viewing. Their final scene here is a series highlight for them and marks them out as the most interesting, and mature, (sort of) relationship on the show.

The Bad:

• Not so much bad – more a bit of a niggle. Lincoln comes to Mack for help, agrees to help in the mission to bring in Lash and then completely screws it up before putting it back on track. Emotionally it makes perfect sense; he’s facing down the killer of very nearly all his friends. But narratively it makes him look like a bit of a ditherer.
• The series finally commits to the Phil/Rosalind relationship this episode. Which is good as the relationship feels if not forced then a little strained. That’s to be expected when you’re dealing with two professional spies of course. Plus we see just why it’s strained this episode (OR DO WE?). Still, nice to see progress here.
• Baby Strucker is sufficiently annoying that even seeing him in the recap is almost too much.

The Random:

• Phil still having his model of the old Bus in his office is adorable.
• Hunter’s undercover hair is still magnificently, relentlessly awful.
• Adrianne Palicki leaning back slightly so she and Nick Blood are kind of sort of the same height when they hug is adorable. We like to think that Bobbi realises Hunter’s a touch sensitive about his height so works around that.
• And only pats him on the head a couple of times a week.
• Lincoln pretty much throws a Hadouken, Ryu’s signature movie in the Street Fighter series, when he attacks lash. Nicely done.

• Shot of the week, and performance of the week for that matter is this. Melinda May, the living embodiment of badassery is put through absolute hell this episode. She holds it together until she’s alone and then, quietly, precisely, comes apart. Ming Na’s so damn good, but this is some of her best ever work.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

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