Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_ rosalind_dead

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E09 “Closure” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E09 “Closure” REVIEW

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_ rosalind_dead

stars 4.5

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writer: Brent Fletcher
Director: Kate Woods

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Ward assassinates Rosalind Price while she and Coulson are having a romantic burger meal.
  • Ward mainly just wants Coulson to feel what it’s like to watch the one you love bleed tom death in front of you.
  • While taunting Coulson he lets slip that Hydra intends to open a portal.
  • Coulson flips and becomes HARD!
  • New HARD Coulson practically interrogates his own team for any memories of working with Wade that might give a clue of his whereabouts.
  • Price’s right-hand man, Banks, makes a link between the portal symbols Fitz has been researching and a facility that was funded by Gideon Malick.
  • Fitz, Simmons and Banks go the facility but it’s a set up – Ward mentioned the portal on purpose to lure SHIELD here. Mr Giyera is waiting; he kills Banks and kidnaps Fitzsimmons.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_banks

  • HARD Coulson steps down as SHIELD director because he’s HARD now and he knows he’s going to have to do HARD things that “cross the line”. He makes Mack the new director then enlists Hunter and Bobbi to help him track and finish off Ward.
  • Hunter kidnaps Ward’s brother, Thomas. They call Ward on Rosalind’s old phone (he had phoned Coulson on Rosalind’s phone when he killed her) and let him talk to Thomas long enough to trace his call to the castle where SHIELD rescued Simmons a few episodes back.
  • At the castle Ward has Mr Giyera torture Simmons until Fitz can bear it no more and agrees to help Hydra’s expedition through the portal.
  • Malick cons… sorry, convinces Ward to lead the expedition.
  • Mack gives the go ahead for inhumans Lincoln and Joey t0 go into action in the field. Finally Daisy’s team of Secret Warriors is coming together. They all head off to help Coulson.
  • Hydra opens the portal, and, as the expedition leaps through, Coulson dives from the SHIELD quinjet, through a handy opening in the roof of the castle and straight into the portal.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_new_director

Review:

Hang on – that wasn’t a season finale? There were times when it certainly felt like one. From its shocking opening moments to Coulson skydiving to another world at the end “Closure” crammed a season’s worth of emotional arc into under 45 minutes.  Coulson goes from his usual genial daytime quiz show host persona to Craig-era revengey Bond. Amazingly, despite a couple of creaky moments, it worked.

You couldn’t really market “Closure” with the tagline, “This time it’s personal” because SHIELD has pretty much been driven by “personal” ever since Ward turned traitor in season one. You could say quite reasonably, that this time it’s even more personal. Blimey, when Coulson starts shouting and forgets to quip for a two thirds of an episode you know it’s really personal. It’s actually quite scary too, seeing avuncular old Phil turn nasty. It’s like the benign personality is a mask and underneath all the time was a festering hotbed of hatred an loathing that was just looking for a outlet. The excellent montage where he near interrogates his own team members about Ward and doesn’t care how callous he’s being in his questioning has to be one of Clark Gregg acting highlights from all three seasons so far. Compelling stuff.

Opening with Rosalind’s assassination is ballsy and clever. The death of a such a major character – especially one being mooted as a potential love interest for the star – would usually come at the end of an episode, with the star, holding her tight, giving it the full-on, “Nooooooooooooo!” treatment. Here, though, it’s a kick-in-the-teeth trauma that fuels the entire episode. Events happen too fast for Coulson to give us a cheesy, “Nooooooooooooo!” thank god. There’s also something downright chilling about a villain who admits he did he killed just to hear the panic in his enemy’s voice.

Not that Wards gets total satisfaction. Let’s face it – there’s not much closure in “Closure”. Well, the portal closes at the end but in terms of the characters – nah. Malick disdainfully taunts Ward about needing closure before denying him it, while Thomas is packed off with only the promise of closure; a promise that he can have no certainty SHIELD will fulfil. Coulson’s looking for closure but is more likely to get himself killed in the process. Meanwhile, Mack and Daisy are experience the complete opposite of closure; new, uncertain futures opening up for them.

We also get our weekly dose of Fitz and Simmons breaking out hearts. It’s almost becoming too easy for these two to win, “most genuinely sweet moment of the episode” every week. Mack continues his massive improvement this season; there was a time when the idea of him becoming the new Nick Fury would have sounded as convincing as a filing cabinet getting the job, but his promotion here feels well deserved after a half season of solid work.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_fitz_anguish

This is a dark episode, and not just tonally. Much of it is literally shot in half darkness; the interrogation scene in near monochrome. In the past we’ve criticised the show for being visually drab (and its love of beige), but this is different. This isn’t gloom; this is impressionistic. The dark and the shadows and the close-ups reflect internal struggles and turmoil of the main characters. Later, in the episode, there’s a fantastic use of colour for similarly impressionist effect; when Fitz has to sit and listen to Simmons’s screams from afar, multiple banks of red light flicker in agitation behind him as if he is the one powering them. It’s a small detail but it’s the kind of visual flourish this show too often lacks.

The episode is far from perfect, but the niggles are mere niggles; they’re listed below and there’s not much point moaning about them more here because do little overall harm. Essentially this is an action adventure series delivering quality action and adventure along with a lot more besides.

 

The Good:

  • The genuine shock of Rosalind’s death; the cold, brutal way it happens; and the fact it’s at the start of the episode, not saved for some clichéd cliffhanger.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_ the_shot

  • The CG-aided tracking shot through the bullet hole, down the street and back to Ward.
  • Coulson making Mack the new director, then later pointedly calling “Director” during a phone call.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_secret_warriors_assemble

  • Mack making sensible decisions as the new director; finally we have an embryonic Secret Warriors – yay.
  • Excellent direction; edgy, tense and atmospheric with a couple of disorientating transition shots the help reinforce the idea that there’s a lot going on simultaneously.
  • The montage with Coulson questioning his team about Ward and not giving a toss how personal he’s being (“when you were sleeping together…?”) are brilliantly raw.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_coulson_hissyfit

  • Team SHIELD staring up at Coulson’s office as he has a “noises off” hissyfit.
  • Fitz saying piss off and making it sound like he’s saying something far less censor-friendly.
  • Fitz and Simmons giving the episode real heart again.
  • Thomas unexpectedly telling Coulson to do him a favour and kill his brother.
  • The “everything comes to a head” finale. Real edge-of-seat stuff.

 

The Bad:

  • There’s not really anything bad, but there are a lot of “huh?’ moments that would be more heinous in an inferior episode, but you’re willing to let slide here, such as…

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_the_leap

  • …The handy fact that there’s a bloody big hole in the castle roof just above the portal. (A shot earlier in the episode to establish this might have helped!)
  • …The idea that Coulson doesn’t seem worried he might emerge from the portal at the same velocity and immediately splat on the ground.
  • …Ward phoning Coulson on Rosalind’s phone and not blocking his caller identity. (Okay, SHIELD would probably have the technology to overcome this, but he could have simply dumped the phone to stop them tracking him.)
  • …Coulson nearly strangling Hunter then going all “I’m the one to blame” seconds later. Sure, dramatic contraction is a useful weapon in any scriptwriter’s arsenal but this was just too clunky.
  • Ward acquiesces to Malick’s wish for him to lead the portal expedition just a tad too easily. Malick’s claim, “I’m not asking you to follow, I’m asking you to lead,” is political sophistry of the highest order.
  • To the last, Coulson and Rosalind’s ping-pong quipping was the most bizarre form of mating ritual. All it needed was a David Attenborough voiceover: “The male makes a weak joke. The female responds with a cryptic comment. The male responds with self-effacing repartee. The female becomes passive aggressive. Then they seal the union with a comedy meal and mate while reciting Monty Python sketches and finally achieving mirthgasm.”

 

And The Random:

  • This is Kate Woods’ first episode of Agents Of SHIELD as director. We hope it’s not her last.
  • Ward says that Simmons has a “Furiosa” vibe going on so he’s clearly seen Mad Max Fury Road. Somehow the comment doesn’t ring true, though. Maybe telling her she’s got a “Peggy Carter” vibe would have been more fitting.
  • Speaking of Simmons, there’s one really cute moment this episode when Elizabeth Henstridge’s native Sheffield accent very, very briefly surfaces. Just before she and Fitz are kidnapped and she says “oop” for “up”.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_ half_moon1

  • Coulson and Rosalind apparently had their first drink together at the Half Moon Pub, which for some reason has the logo containing a crescent moon, not a half moon.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_not_south_west

  • Someone on the graphics department doesn’t know where the South West of England is. It’s not like you need to know the geography of the UK to know where the South West is on a map! That’s more like Milton Keynes.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_stones

  • Okay, so this explains those odd, geometric indentations in the monolith.

Agents_of_SHIELD_3.09_closure_ white_teeth

  • This might be the most frivolous thing we’ve ever pointed out, but one of the guys who attacks Coulson after Ward kills Rosalind has clearly just had his teeth done. In a scene set in near darkness his gnashers are almost luminous…

Review by Dave Golder

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Hunter and Bobbi

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E08 “Many Heads, One Tale” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E08 “Many Heads, One Tale” REVIEW

Hunter and Bobbi

stars 4

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writers: Jed Whedon, DJ Doyle
Director: Garry A Brown

 

Essential Plot Points

• ward is not an octopus fan

  • Ward and Malick meet. Ward wants access to the Vault he knows Malick is keeping Hydra’s biggest power in. Malick isn’t inclined to acquiesce to this request. He leaves, sends guards in to kill Ward and, of course, Ward dismantles them, then tortures and interrogates the survivors. He finally gets some information from one and – it’s heavily implied – kills all three.

• May

  • Andrew is being transported to the ATCU facility. Coulson and Ros are not happy about this. Mack’s not happy about them not checking in on May. May’s not happy about everything.

• Simmons

  • At HQ, May stalks in and past various conversations. One of them is Fitz yelling at a tech for dropping priceless books everywhere. He and Simmons discuss the Ram’s Head symbol and try and work out how it connects to Will’s mission and the portal.

• linc daisy, mack and may

  • Lincoln’s on base too, and May gives him a special death stare as she stalks past. He is surprisingly whiny about it. He and Daisy flirt briefly and she reminds him that if he lives there he needs to pull his weight.

• Mack

  • Mack confronts Coulson about Ros and if she can be trusted. Coulson gently, then less gently, verbally takes the big engineer apart. He’s bringing in Ros precisely to see if she can be trusted or not.
  • He’s also launching Operation Spotlight, an infiltration mission to confirm the ATCU are doing what they claim they are. Bobbi and Hunter are deployed as on the ground infiltration, Mack and Daisy are to run back up from Zephyr 1 and Lincoln and May are working the extraction. Lincoln, again, whines.

• Welcome to SHIELD

  • Ros is brought on base and her phone scanned to make sure it’s not got spyware. Endearingly, SHIELD use this, and a homing beacon on Andrew’s containment cell, as back doors into the ATCU system.
  • Bobbi and Hunter go in as members of FBI Cybercrimes with Daisy feeding Hunter the necessary jargon.
  • At SHIELD HQ, ATCU IT department calls Ros. She asks if Phil and co happen to be trying to break into her systems. He admits the containment module was designed to do just that and they flirt good-naturedly. This stuff is actually very sweet.

 

• Kiss

  • Fitz confronts Simmons and they have it out. Simmons can’t take how well Fitz is dealing with everything. Fitz can’t take the fact he thinks they’re cursed. They lash out at each other, kiss, twice (!) and break apart. Fitz explains he can’t hate Will because Will did everything right, he was a good guy, a hero so of course Jemma fell for him. Then, Simmons notices something about the ram’s head…

• MY EMOTIONS!

  • Ward is on a plane. He flirts with the hostess and she goes numb with terror as he tells what he’s about to do. The plane was the first he could find that would take him over the site of the Hydra vault.
  • He’s not waiting for it to land.
  • Ward warns the passengers, straps in and blows the door, parachuting into the Vault.

• WINK

  • At HQ, Fitz and Simmons continue their research and realise something awful: Will was sacrificed. The blood sacrifice the logo they found refers to echoes up and down through history and DISTANT STAR PATHFINDER was just the most recent example. Fitz tries to help but Simmons blows up, yells at him for doing the right thing and storms off.

• we really have to figure out other ways to flirt

  • Ros and Coulson continue the tour, and Ros compliments Coulson on his fondness for the analogue. They dork out together in an adorable manner as Phil gets the word that Bobbi and Hunter are in. May and Lincoln, STILL whining, deploy to prepare to extract them.
  • Lincoln, finding a spine and maybe realising how whiny he’s been, confronts May. To his amazement, she admits she was trying to work out how to apologise for what Andrew did to Lincoln’s people. Lincoln apologises and sympathises with her for the awful things that happened and they each find some peace.

• May apologises

  • Andrew is visited by Gideon Malick. Malick explains that SHIELD has good intentions but bad practices and offers Andrew a Faustian deal to help solve his problem…
  • At the ATCU, Bobbi breaks into the lab and finds… nothing. No cure. No Andrew. Then she finds a vault at the back of the lab filled with sealed boxes. Inside each is a failed Inhuman.
  • The ATCU hasn’t been trying to cure Inhumans.
  • They’ve been trying to make them.
  • Daisy and Mack discover they’ve been feeding employees the Terrigen-infused fish oil. And not all of the Inhumans they’ve created are under containment…
  • Upstairs at the ATCU, Hunter spots Banks, Rosalind’s right-hand man. Downstairs, Bobbi’s confronted by some guards and asks Hunter to bring her briefcase. Hunter exfiltrates in exactly the adorably crap way you’d expect as Bobbi beats the snot out of the guards.
  • Hunter arrives late. There are height jokes. They’re magnificent. Marvel’s Most Wanted cannot show up fast enough for me.

• Yay Mark Dacascos!

  • The second wave of guards arrives, led by Giyera, the Inhuman Daisy and Mack found on active duty at the ATCU. He has very cool powers, using a form of telekinesis to fire the downed guards’ weapons at Bobbi and Hunter. Hunter whines.

• action bobbi

  • Bobbi deploys her BOOMERANG BAD GUY-SEEKING BATONS and proceeds to kick all degrees of ass.
  • Back at SHIELD HQ, Coulson drops the hammer. He accuses Rosalind of being Hydra, citing her reference to Tahiti a while back as evidence. She accuses him of being a paranoid asshole and they go toe-to-toe until Coulson tells her about the lab Bobbi found.
  • The lab that Malick told Rosalind was working on a cure.
  • The penny drops. Hydra were more highly placed than anyone could have imagined. Gideon Malick, who gave Rosalind the Tahiti intel, is Hydra.
  • She begs Coulson to trust her and he does. At the ATCU building, Banks gets Bobbi and Hunter out alive.

• Indiana Ward

  • Ward breaks into the vault and finds Malick waiting for him. He shows Ward a fragment of the Monolith that took Gemma and explains Hydra’s true history; that thousands of years ago an Inhuman was born who was destined to rule the Earth. It was banished to another world and Hydra have tried, for as long as humans have been on the planet, to get it back. As he talks we see the outside of Andrew’s containment cell.
  • It now has a PROJECT DISTANT STAR RETURN mission patch.
  • Hydra have failed to bring their leader back. But now they’re going to send him an army of Inhumans. And in return for Ward telling Malick how SHIELD brought someone back through the portal, he’ll let Ward have revenge….

• evolution of the ramshead

  • At SHIELD, Rosalind briefs them on Malick. She explains, and Simmons guesses, that she was recruited by him when he consulted for NASA. Fitz and Simmons show them the evolution of the Ram’s Head logo. They turn the last one upside down. It’s the Hydra octopus.

• aaaand Hydra

  • Ward visits Andrew and explains that he needs to see the monster. He fills the cell with mustard gas and waits to see if Andrew will die or Lash will save him…

• Ward and ANdrew

Review:

As the opening chords of “Payoff City” begin for this half season of Agents Of SHIELD it’s interesting to see how the show revolves around couples. The locked in, almost painful focus of last week is lessened a bit here but it’s still a plot driven by pairs.

The first is Coulson and Rosalind who set the plot up and bring it into land this week. Not before time too, as the relationship takes a turn for the worse but also the more honest. SHIELD has always flown a bit close to the wind with repeated motifs and the ATCU plot was just starting to be stretched too thin. It’s nice to see that the characters, and maybe the writers too, here acknowledging that no this won’t be “SHIELD VS SHIELD VS OUTSIDE AGENCY OF THE WEEK” again.

But the heart of the episode sits with Fitz and Simmons, and it’s perfect. Shippers the world over will fist bump, high five and grab gifs of the two (TWO!) kisses, we have no doubt, and not without reason. Better still, that moment – which has been building for two-and-a-half years – is not a conclusion. They’re still trying to figure out their relationship, what they are to each other and what they can be. It’s complex and untidy, sweet and awful and horribly familiar to a lot of people I suspect. This is one of the best written not-quite romances on TV right now and absolute top marks to everyone involved.

Ward and Powers Boothe

Those two couples drive the episode along but there’s a constellation of lesser ones that help keep it moving. Malick and Ward, a partnership in the business sense, have some good work here and it’s great to see Powers Boothe use the smoothest voice in showbusiness to deliver that Earth-shattering final monologue. This is a vital episode not just for the season, but the show. It recontextualises Hydra, ties them and the Inhumans together and makes it a three-season-and-counting arc rather than standalones. It’s really smart writing and plotting and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with it. Especially as, sooner or later, someone is going to try and rescue both Will and the thing he’s sharing that world with…

Elsewhere Daisy and Lincoln get a little progression and Lincoln and May find themselves the avatars of human/Inhuman cooperation. That’s especially nice given how much of a brat Lincoln is throughout the rest of the episode. Bobbi and Hunter also get some great stuff this episode, but their plot is so standalone it’s almost transparently a test run action sequence for Marvel’s Most Wanted. Not that we’re complaining. Especially if Bobbi gets to keep those awesome batons.

“Many Heads, One Tale” loses a little pace and focus from last week but makes up for that with the escalation of the ATCU plot and the massive plot bomb it detonates under the season arc. All in all another very strong episode in a very strong season.

The Good:

  • Excellent direction this week. I like that SHIELD has started to use “We follow someone into the base to tie various plots together” as a narrative tool. Also, lovely shots of Zephyr 1 and the Quinjets and some nicely burly fight choreography.
  • GREAT payoff to the arc plot this season. The Ram’s Head/Hydra symbol imagery and the patch on Andrew’s cell are both chillingly well done.
  • Some fun Ward stuff this episode too. The show been sort of meandering about not knowing what to do with him recently but it’s nice to see Brett Dalton getting to cut loose and the torture scene in particular here is very well done.

• boomerang batons

  • BOBBI HAS BOOMERANG BATONS NOW!
  • EPIC Bobbi and Hunter banter.
  • Every single moment Fitz and Simmons are onscreen. Who knew, when the show started, that the slightly forced comic relief pair would eventually be the beating, bruised heart of this show?
  • “I feel like you’re going to tell me I didn’t make little league all-stars.” This season has excelled at the hard-edged/goofy elements of Coulson and this line is a stand out.
  • “Again, not your business. But you really think I’m THAT guy?” Also this one. I love that Coulson is insulted Mack would think that of him.
  • “Because the only spies without trust issues are either young or dead.” And this is brilliant. Coulson’s struggled at times with that nice guy/hard-edged combo. That line shows both sides of him, the regret and the brutal pragmatism that are both needed in his job.
  • “Be proud. You stayed quiet.” Some good Ward stuff this week. Especially this horrifying compliment.

containment room

  • “We really have to figure out other ways to flirt.” Rosalind’s characters has been variable but all the Coulson/Rosalind scenes this episode were great. Nice to see them finally laying to rest the threat of yet another SHIELD 2.0/Hydra takeover plot too.
  • “Are you alphabetising those?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous – I’m organising them by subject and date.” YOU TWO ARE PRECIOUS!
  • “Now all Hunter has to do is run his mouth and waste time.”
    “Well he excels at that.” Hey! No, actually… that’s completely fair.
  • “We’re CURSED! The bloody cosmos wants us apart!”
    “The cosmos doesn’t want anything.”
    “I BEG TO DIFFER.” The Fitz and Simmons plot is so good right now because it’s complex and messy and they can’t not be together. It’s one of the most realistic not-quite relationships we’ve seen on a mainstream TV show and every moment they have on screen here works. Also – yay kissing!
  • “He did everything right.”
    “AND YOU DOVE THROUGH A HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE FOR ME!” This stuff is just heart-breaking. Maximum kudos to Ian de Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge for turning in yet more sterling work.
  • “Listen, Steve. You seem like a really good guy and you were spot on about not being able to trust me. Just wrong about why, see? I’m not very good at computers.” Hunter is purely and completely loveable.
  • “Once again, too little too late.”
    “I’d remind you that we’re the same height I just don’t wear bloody heels.” Apparently he may have a point. Records show there’s only an inch between them. Bet that doesn’t stop her patting him on the head lots.
  • “Well, that’ll buy us very little time.” Or coming out with stuff like this.

 

The Bad:

  • Operation Spotlight. Really, Phil. Really? Is the next mission going to be Operation Bad Guy Stopper? Or perhaps Operation Secret? Maybe Operation SSSSSSHHHH?
  • Lincoln is very very whiny this episode. It does not endear him to anyone. The payoff’s good but after two months of Lincoln being defensive and reactionary we’d really like to see him act like an adult soon.
  • The ATCU plot pays off and it’s about time. It’s ended up going some fun places but we’re very ready for season four to not have the, “can we trust this mysterious government agency?” plot front and centre thanks. Judging by some of the comments this episode, we suspect the writers are about done with it too.
  • Daniel Bernhardt, legendary martial artist and B-movie actor extraordinaire, is in this episode for maybe two minutes. He shares an episode but no screen time with another all time great, Mark Dacascos. We’re not sure what’s more upsetting; that they don’t get to fight or that Bernhardt doesn’t get a real chance to show off. See John Wick (but maybe skip the first couple of chapters if you’re a dog lover) to see one of the best movie fight scenes of all time between him and Keanu Reeves.

 

And The Random:

• Scott Pilgrim guy!

  • IT Steve is played by Nelson Franklin who had a memorable cameo(ish) in the wonderful Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.
  • Giyera is played by Mark Dacascos. One of the finest martial artists of his generation, Dacascos is also a prolific actor who, like Daniel Bernhardt, doesn’t get enough credit for his work. He’s best known for his turn on Hawaii Five-O as Wo Fat but also appeared in the astoundingly weird and brilliant Brotherhood Of The Wolf as well as shows like Stargate: Atlantis and The Flash. The original one, from 1991.
  • Shot of the week is this. Poor Andrew, completely unaware of what others have planned for him.

• Project DIstant Star Return

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other Agents Of SHIELD reviews

 

 

agents of shield chaos theory

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E07 "Chaos Theory" REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

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

agents of shield chaos theory

stars 4.5

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

 

Essential Plot Points:

• ANDREW

  • 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…

• book

  • 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.

• debate

  • 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.

• Gemma

  • 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.

• Joey murders a filing cabinet

  • 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.

• DAWWWWW

  • 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.

• Thunderbirds are SHIELD!

  • 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.

 

• May's not okay with it face

  • 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.

• Lincoln

  • 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…

• World's messiest breakup in 3 2 1

  • 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.

• Phil and Rosalind

  • 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.

• Andrew changes

  • 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 hadouken

  • 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.

• Lash in containment

  • 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.

• FitzSimmons

  • 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

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.

May confronts Lash

  • 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.

• May alone

  • 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

 

agents of shield chaos theory

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

by with No Comment Reviews

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

agents of shield chaos theory

stars 4.5

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

 

Essential Plot Points:

• ANDREW

  • 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…

• book

  • 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.

• debate

  • 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.

• Gemma

  • 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.

• Joey murders a filing cabinet

  • 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.

• DAWWWWW

  • 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.

• Thunderbirds are SHIELD!

  • 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.

 

• May's not okay with it face

  • 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.

• Lincoln

  • 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…

• World's messiest breakup in 3 2 1

  • 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.

• Phil and Rosalind

  • 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.

• Andrew changes

  • 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 hadouken

  • 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.

• Lash in containment

  • 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.

• FitzSimmons

  • 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

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.

May confronts Lash

  • 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.

• May alone

  • 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 S.H.I.E.L.D. - "Among Us Hide..." - The stakes get even higher as Hunter and May continue to go after Ward and Hydra, and Daisy and Coulson begin to suspect that the ATCU may be keeping a big secret from S.H.I.E.L.D., on "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. (ABC/Eddy Chen) ADRIANNE PALICKI, MING-NA WEN

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E06 “Among Us Hide…” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

 

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E06 “Among Us Hide” REVIEW

MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. - "Among Us Hide..." - The stakes get even higher as Hunter and May continue to go after Ward and Hydra, and Daisy and Coulson begin to suspect that the ATCU may be keeping a big secret from S.H.I.E.L.D., on "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. (ABC/Eddy Chen) ADRIANNE PALICKI, MING-NA WEN

stars 4.5

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writer: Drew Z Greenberg
Director: Dwight Little

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Andrew has (unfeasibly) survived the explosion in the drug store caused by Van Strucker Jr & co two episodes back. He’s taken to SHIELD HQ where they tend to his suspiciously non-life-threatening injuries.
  • Coulson pulls Hunter off Ward-hunting duties because revenge is causing him to act rashly.
  • May rejoins SHIELD – for now – so she can take over the Kill Ward mission because there are clearly no revenge issue there… er…
  • May immediately recruits Bobbi into the Kill Ward mission because there are clearly no revenge issue there… um…
  • Coulson and Price continue to get flirtier. She shows him her home then takes him to the ATCU unit to show him what they’re doing to Inhumans. She knows how to impress a man.
  • Daisy thinks that Lash, in his human guise, must be working for the ACTU because of all the inside knowledge he appears to have. Price’s right-hand man, Banks appears to be the obvious candidate. She and Mack decide to follow him.
  • Having been benched, Hunter is bored, so he practically forces himself into “Mission: Timidly Track Banks” and turns it into “Mission: Taser Banks In Broad Daylight”. A blood test reveals no Inhuman DNA but going through his pockets they find a link to a facility that’s clearly a front for the ATCU.
  • They all go this facility and send in a stealth drone to snoop round. They see Coulson and Price having what looks like a friendly chat (they’re probably quipping – it’s the only way they know how to communicate).
  • They watch as an unconscious Inhuman in a tank of goo is  brought into the building and carted off by a big mechanical arm.
  • Daisy is horrified. Mack thinks Coulson must have his reasons.
  • In the facility, Price explains that the ACTU is putting Inhumans into coma until a cure can be found for their condition. She makes it sound all very humane and sympathetic but you really want Coulson to say, “And how many of them had a choice in the matter?” Oddly he doesn’t. He just quips a bit more.
  • Van Strucker Jr, scared that Ward is going to kill him for not finishing off Andrew, turns to old school Hydra big wig Gideon Malick. Malick says he’ll deal with things, then behind Jr’s back he rings up Ward to tell him exactly where Ward’s men will be able to find Jr. He clearly wants to do business with Ward at some future point.
  • May and Bobbi track Van Strucker Jr to Portugal (long story involving Caymen Islands bank accounts) where they find him being tortured by Ward’s men. They defeat Ward’s men in some style then May asks Jr about Ward’s whereabouts…
  • Instead he babbles on about how he saw ANDREW CHANGE INTO LASH at the drug store.

Marvels_agents_of_SHIELD_3.06_Among_Us_hide_lash

 

Review:

After last week’s phenomenal format breaking episode, normal service has not been resumed. Well, it has in terms of getting back to the Inhumans/ACTU/Ward plotlines, sure, but not in terms of quality. Compared to first four episode of the season – decent enough but a bit listless and unfocussed – this is a cracking little instalment: tight, action-packed and funny with livelier characters and a a new villain. Plus it ends up with the major revelation that Andrew is Lash which leave your jaw in a floorwards trajectory.

Even if the episode hadn’t finished with that gamechanging exposé, it still would have been the show’s best “normal” episode so far this season by a long shot, and no, not just because there were seriously fewer scenes set in dull, brown hotel rooms/apartments (just the one!). The May/Bobbi partnership worked brilliantly. The pissed-off-Hunter-does-things-his-way plot was full of top comedy moments. Powers Boothe’s new Hydra boss was immediately chilling. The action was taut and the fights well choreographed. The cinematography was less muddy and more glossy than usual. Everything felt like it had taken up a small but significant step upwards. The irritating thing being this is how sharp and sassy you want the show to be all the time. This shouldn’t be the exception, this should be the norm.

A smart, well-structured script that serves all the characters well really helps. There’s less of a reliance on one-liners and quips (well, when Coulson’s not on screen, anyway), the humour instead coming from the way the characters interact. The subtitled sequences are a blast as much for May and Bobbi’s expressions as they are for the mistranslations while Daisy’s exasperation at Hunter going all Riggs-from-Lethal-Weapon is as amusing as the cocky Brit making a prat of himself.

Then there are a couple of really sweet little scene with Fitz, first with Hunter, then with Simmons, with the quivery-chinned scientist straying true to his promise and try to help reunite Simmons with Daniels again (much to Hunter’s bemusement). It’s good to see that he’s researching Daniels behind Simmons’s back, though, as that shows he’s still a human being and hurting; he might know that helping Simmons is the right thing, but he’d love to find some dirt on Daniels. Or at least suss out the competition.

Only the Price/Coulson scenes fail to convince. It’s difficult to know where their respective game-playing ends and the real emotions begin. Price’s story of losing a husband to cancer is so trite and convenient you half hope she is just playing Coulson; y0u also hope he suspects that too and is only playing along for his own reason. If it’s all supposed to real it comes across as a really hokey cliché. Whatever the case, it’s really hard to care about them when they continually communicate in such a weird, stilted manner.

Other than that, it’s a terrific piece of TV action drama. Let’s hope the quality is maintained for the rest of the season.

 

The Good:

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  • Stroppy, bored Hunter is hilarious throughout. His go-it-alone solution to the Banks problem (and Daisy and Mack’s reaction to it) was the comedy highlight of the episode but we also loved his unique was of acquiring a blood sample (punch the guy in the head) and his relationship advice to Fitz (“He’s the competition… If your girlfriend’s ex wants to visit from Phoenix, you do not buy him a plane ticket”).

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  • May’s idea of a job interview.

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  • In fact all three fight scenes involving May and Bobbi are great, especially the final one and the way Bobbi finishes off the guy in the swimming pool.

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  • The revelation that Andrew is Lash is a gobsmacker and the transformation sequence is bloody impressive too.

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  • “You can tell a lot about a woman from her books… Okay, I didn’t know actually know that there were this many biographies of Margaret Thatcher.” Coulson’s best line in ages!

 

The Bad:

  • Although their dialogue was slightly less one-liner-ping-pong this week, Price and Coulson still don’t feel like they’re naturally ever going to be attracted to each other. Unless they aren’t and the embarrassing flirting from both sides is one big charade.
  • After the big reveal about Andrew, the final stinger scene felt a little bit of a soft end to the episode. Nothing wrong with it, but it kinda blunted one hell of a cliffhanger.
  • Having just failed to have Ward bumped off by sending one agent with a grudge after him, Coulson immediately picks another to finish the job.

 

And The Random:

  • Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_45The episode title is a reference to 1965’s Fantastic Four #45, which featured a story called “Among Us Hide… The Inhumans” that introduced many of Marvel’s most famous Inhuman characters such as Black Bolt, Crystal, Lock Jaw (the giant teleporting dog), Karnak and Triton.
  • Coulson says that the ACTU facility reminds him of a horror film. We guess he’s referring to the Michael Crichton written-and-directed Coma (1978) but it’s possible he could be referring to the underrated Daybreakers (2009)
  • Powers Boothe, who plays Gideon Malick in this episode, previously played  a member of the World Security Council in Avengers Assemble (2012). It’s not clear yet if he’s supposed to be the same character here, but it’s not impossible he could have been a Hydra mole in the Avengers film. You might also recognise him from such films as The Emerald Forest (1985), Tombstone (1993) and Sin City (2005) as well as TV shows like Deadwood (in which he played Cy Tolliver) and 24 (vice president Noah Daniels).
  • This was the 50th episode of Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD not that they do anything in particular to celebrate the fact.
  • FILE UNDER “STRETCHING THINGS A BIT”: When Bobbi says that the guy at the Caymen Islands Bank used to work for the First Fiduciary National Bank, we couldn’t help but think of the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank in Mary Poppins. We blame it on the fact that Daisy and co were chasing Mr Banks; it must have Derren Browned us into a Disney frame of mind.
  • We also liked the way that the banking guy’s tie become an integral part of his fight with May after Bobbi had earlier (deliberately) mistranslated one of May’s Mandarin lines, telling the guy, “Ms Wong likes your tie.”

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Review by Dave Golder

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Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E05 “4,722 Hours” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E05 “4,722 Hours” REVIEW

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stars 4.5

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writer: Craig Titley
Director: Jesse Bochco

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Boy loses girl.
  • Girl finds herself on deserted alien planet.
  • Girl meets tentacle monster.
  • Girl eats tentacle monster.
  • Girl meets boy.
  • Girl loses boy when girl is recused and he isn’t.
  • First boy understands…

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Review:

We’ve been complaining for weeks (somewhat tongue in cheek) about how brown Agents Of SHIELD can be. It seems to like brown grading on brown lighting on brown sets. Seems like it was saving all the blue filters for this episode.

The sudden love of another hue wasn’t the main thing that made this episode refreshingly different from the norm. Usually Agents Of SHIELD is an unashamedly plot-led action show. An action show with a lot of talking, admittedly, but that talking is usually in service to the plot; exposition, revelation, motivation. There are character moments, sure, and often they’re very effective, but they tend to isolated little oases within episodes.

“4,722 Hours” though, is a magnificent character study. And a brave one for a show like Agents Of SHIELD. The “stranded” episode is a staple of US drama (especially sci-fi drama) partly because it can be a cheap bottle episode to save on budget. Writers and producers will try to convince you that the episode a character study but to be honest, they’re usually kinda dull survivalist guff unless some other element is introduced (Trek used to love taking the Enemy Mine route, with a regular character stranded with an initially hostile and/or incomprehensible alien whom they eventually learn to hug).

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There’s nothing dull about “4,722 Hours”. It’s gripping. It’s compelling. It’s perfectly judged. Jemma is exactly the right character to put in the situation not because she’s a natural survivalist but because she’s a natural optimist and practical thinker (there are very few stupid things she does, under the circumstances). It’s fascinating watching her go through her own “seven stages of grief”: shock or disbelief tinged with hope, denial tinged with hope, bargaining tinged with hope, guilt tinged with hope, anger tinged with hope, depression tinged with hope and acceptance tinged with… well you get the idea.

Of course, the stages are messed up a by the arrival of Will Daniels, who’s gone through it all himself. But the fact that he’s still here 15 years one, complete with gun with one bullet – in case life on the planet ever gets too much – speaks volumes about him. The situation never has become “too much”; the final bullet is still there. Despite his gruff exterior, which Simmons peels away like an onion, he must be an optimist too.

The relationship between them is perfectly pitched. Simmons doesn’t want to betray Fitz any more than the audience wants her too. But she doesn’t just fall for Will because he’s the only man there. She falls for him because she grows to love him. And the fact that she still feels guilty about it makes us love her even more.

Then she’s rescued and Will is left behind. The final two scenes are gutwrenching. Look at these faces…

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That’s joy and sorrow mixed as Fitz proves to be the most magnanimous man in human history. Simmons is convinced he’ll fly of the handle. Instead, this is a man so much in love with her, he’ll help her find the man he’s been jilted for.

That man, meanwhile, has had hoped cruelly snatched away from him, and he doesn’t even have a bullet left to put through his head.

This planet still has secrets to tell, we’re sure, so you can bet Fitz will find a way to get back there. Let’s hope whatever we find out doesn’t colour our opinion of this excellent episode because Agents Of SHIELD looks good in blue.

 

 

The Good:

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  • Elizabeth Henstridge is outstanding. Throughout the entire ordeal Simmon remains Simmons but we’re given the opportunity to see new dimensions and new depths to the character.
  • Dillon Casey is excellent too, mainly because he doesn’t try to hog the limelight. It’s a sensitively underplayed and noble performance.
  • The story has the guts to stay true its central premise and doesn’t have flashbacks cutaways in case the viewer’s getting bored.
  • The growing affair between Will and Simmons is so perfectly judged you’d have to be the worse kind of Fitz/Simmons shipper to be horrified by it.
  • It’s an episode with true heart.

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  • And this image is just brilliant.

 

The Bad:

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  • The tentacle monster is a tad ’50s B-movie.
  • The big storm/rescue sequence at the end is messily directed. It’s like watching blue white noise…

 

And The Random:

  • The astronauts who accompanied Will Daniels though the portal all had names of famous fictional astronauts: Austin (as in Steve Austin from The Six Million Dollar Man), Brubaker (as in Charles Brubaker from Capricorn One) and Taylor (as in George Taylor from Planet of the Apes).
  • Will Daniels also says that he came through the portal in 2oo1 and that “NASA was always interested in the monolith”. We’ll let you put those together and come up with a space odyssey.
  • In case you can’t be bothered with the maths yourself, 4,722 hours in 196.75 days or a about six-and-a-half months.

Marvels_agents_of_SHIELD_3.05_4722 Hours_titles

  • There’s a different title card from usual, which much better suits the tone of the episode.

Review by Dave Golder

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Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E04 “Devils You Know" REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E04 “Devils You Know” REVIEW

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stars 4
Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writer: Paul Zbyszewski
Director: Ron Underwood

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • SHIELD tries to recruit some original Inhumans (the ones from Afterlife not the newly converted ones) who are now living in secret but Lash gets to them first and kills them all
  • Rosalind is ticked off that SHIELD didn’t tell the ATCU about these Inhumans. Coulson agrees they should co-operate. Daisy and Mack think he’s losing his marbles/being led by his libido.
  • SHIELD works out there’s a connection between Lash and a computer virus sent to all his victims.
  • They trace the guy who created the virus, an Inhuman called Dwight Frye who was clearly at the back of the queue when they handed out powers: he’s super-allergic to other Inhumans.
  • Under interrogation he reveals little more than that Lash thinks what he’s doing is “necessary”.
  • Coulson agrees that the ITCU can incarcerate Frye but while he’s in transit to their base, Lash turns up and kills him.
  • Daisy sees Lash change into a normal man but it’s too dark an shadowy to see what he looks like.
  • Hunter is recruited into Hydra but when he’s finally face-to-face with Ward he’s unarmed.
  • Hunter makes a lunge for a gun and suddenly it’s all Blam! Blam! Blam!
  • May joins the fight and this pleases Ward because he can put an evil plan into action.
  • Ward tells Hunter and May to let him escape or he’ll have May’s hubbie Andrew killed. Hunter thinks he’s bluffing and carries on trying the kill Ward.
  • A few States away, Von Strucker jnr (remember – he enrolled in Andrew’s class a couple of episodes ago) blows up the shop where Andrew’s been getting his groceries.
  • May gives Hunter a look that could kill.
  • Back at base, after lots of pussyfooting around, Simmons tells Fitz that she want to return to the alien planet and says she’ll tell him why.

 

Review:

While not the most action-packed episode, “Devils You Know” is a gripping instalment of Agents Of SHIELD made even better by delivering a good few shocks. The episode also benefits from some powerful dialogues – between May and Andrew, Fitz and Simmons, May and Hunter, Daisy and Coulson – that for once genuinely feel like characters in dramatic conflict and not just delivering plot exposition to each other.

The two big gut-punch events are both beautifully executed: the revelation that Lash could be someone we know, because he’s actually human in his down time; and Andrew’s murder by Von Stucker Jnr, under the command of Ward. The build-up to the latter especially is about as tense as this show has ever been. We know Ward isn’t joking but Hunter’s desire for revenge blinds him to the possibility that Ward may not be bluffing. The whole sequence – switching between the action on the Hydra base and Andrew in the grocery store slowly realising he’s in deep shit – is superbly directed and edited for maximum edginess. In fact, like last week, the Hunter/May storyline eclipses the A-plot in terms of quality.

Although this week it had a tougher battle. Kicking off with Lash ruthlessly murdering the League Of Nervous Superfriends, the main Inhumans strand this week is a pacier affair that seems to be moving forward at a crack at last. Admittedly there’s a downside: Coulson appears to be losing his senses and moral compass. He’s capitulating to the ITCU a little too quickly, leaving viewers as bemused as Daisy and Mack about his motives. Is he playing games? Does he really fancy Price? For once, Clark Gregg’s deadpan delivery works to the show’s advantage as it’s impossible to judge where this is going. On the downside we do have to put up with Coulson and Price’s slightly embarrassing flirting in the meantime.

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Lash, though, is shaping up to be a hell of a villain, seemingly compelled to kill other Inhumans out of necessity. Sure, there’s going to be some spurious justification to all this, no doubt, but already, in a few brief appearances, he’s proving to be far more formidable and interesting than any of the human big bads we’ve had on the show so far. And kudos to the show for giving him such a monstrous appearance and not wimping out with a more “realistic” look (yeah, we’re still feeling short changed by Cal’s disappointing “Hyde” persona last season… brilliantly acted, but he looked like Odd Bod from Carry On Screaming).

It was also amusing to see Bobbi getting more and more pissed off at not being deemed fit enough to kick ass. She looked like she was going to strangle Coulson early in the episode for making her deal with busybody residents rather than hunt for Lash. Then, when Hunter finds himself in deep doo-doo Coulson doesn’t even bother letting her know. That guy needs a refresher course in people management.

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Once again it falls to Fitz and Simmons to provide the sweetly sentimental elements of the episode. When Simmons finally comes clean to Fitz about wanting to return to the alien planet, you want to hug them both; Simmons because she’s clearly hurting to much to have to admit that after Fitz went to so much trouble to recuse her; Fitz because he doesn’t go into a strop but actually seems ready to hear her out.

Although a little slow in places, hampered by Price and Coulson’s peculiarly stiff relationship and afflicted with some of the murkiest, muddiest lighting in any scene inside an apartment block (does the lighting guy on Agents Of SHIELD suffer from chromophobia?) “Devils You Know” is one of the better episodes so far this year.

So next week: Simmons’s adventures in outer space. It could be one of the most extraordinary episodes the show has ever produced.

The Good:

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  • Hunter’s revenge-lust driving him to make a very stupid decision.

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  • May’s face after Hunter’s made that decision.
  • Seriously, though, the whole Ward/May/Hunter subplot was a compelling piece of telly…
  • …Including, of course, the shock of Andrew’s death.
  • Once again, Fitz and Simmons make a lot of impact in a very few scenes; whatever’s going on here it’s heartbreaking to watch them unable to communicate (and poor old Bobbi stuck in the middle with the look of a woman who’s just caught the bride shagging the best man in the toilets).
  • Lash just became about ten times more interesting.
  • “So what’s the job?’
    “Dunno.”
    “When’s it going down?”
    “Dunno.”
    “Any idea where?”
    “Not yet.”
    “You do realise the point of intelligence gathering is to gather intelligence?”

 

The Bad:

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  • The flirty banter between Coulson and Price is so clunky – especially all the not-so-subtle innuendo in the all that laser finger guff (we half expected Rosalind to ask if it had a vibrate setting).
  • Too much gloomy, flat lighting, as usual.
  • Although it’s great to have some meaty, lengthy character scenes as opposed to the usual preponderance of exposition tennis, a lot of them are clumped together in the middle third of the episodes which does make the pace sag a wee bit.
  • Does all that business with Lash getting Frye to send Inhuman targets a computer virus make any kind of sense of all? It comes across as a mere plot device so that SHIELD can track down a Lash associate and interrogate him.

 

And The Random:

agents_of_shield_304_devils_you_know_dwight

  • Bazooka1Dwight Frye was the name of the actor who played the insect-eating Renfrew in the 1931 Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. Dwight Frye was also the real name of a short-lived Marvel superhero called Bazooka, who was part of a team called Black Powers that appeared in the mid-’80s Marvel series DP7. He appears to have zero connection with the Dwight Frye in this episode, though.
  • Wards cracks a (poor) joke about Hydra’s next job being “Level Seven” – Ward had Level Seven clearance when he was with SHIELD.
  • This is the first episode to actually name Lash.
  • This is the first episode to refer to Daisy as Agent Johnson.
  • Kebo tells Hunter two names that were being considered for their base: Nemesis and Omega Point. Both of these were names of Hydra bases in the Marvel Comics Universe.
  • Anybody else missing Cal?

agents_of_shield_304_devils_you_know_alisha

  • So Alisha’s back, which is good because she has a visually interesting  uperpower. But she’s working for SHIELD now? It’s not an inconceivable development but it does come out of the blue, somewhat. We’d be happy to see her as part of the Secret Warriors, though.

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  • There’s this absolutely brilliant, “Has my life come to this?” expression from Bobbi as she implores Coulson with her eyes to rescue her from “fibbing to old ladies” duties.

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  • Crap effect of the week: no, not the explosion but the false shop sign that looks like it’s being held up by Blu-tack.

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  • It’s probably just us, but the shot of Lash’s shadow changing into human form was really similar to the shot of Calibos turning from man into monster in Clash Of The Titans (1981 – below).

Calibos

Review by Dave Golder

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Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E03 “A Wanted (Inhu)Man” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E03 “A Wanted (Inhu)Man” REVIEW

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stars 3.5

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writer: Monica Owusu-Breen
Director: Garry A Brown

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • The ATCU is after Lincoln. He narrowly escapes capture.
  • As a result, the ATCU calls in help from other relevant government departments (FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, the Energy Information Administration probably… well, he does vandalise a pylon at one point) and even alert the media that there’s a dangerous alien at large. Suddenly Lincoln’s face is everywhere. He’s a wanted man.
  • Daisy convinces Coulson they must rescue Lincoln. Lincoln proves difficult the rescue, though, as he doesn’t trust SHIELD either.
  • Coulson meets with Rosalind Price to barter a compromise. His plans are scuppered when she reveals that the ATCU knows about Daisy’s powers.
  • Lincoln seeks help from an old friend, who is initially happy to help until he sees Lincoln on the news and believes he’s harbouring a dangerous illegal alien. He secretly calls the ATCU.
  • When Lincoln finds out he tries to leave but his mate threatens him with a baseball bat forcing Lincoln to reveal his powers. The other guy dies of a heart attack.
  • Scared, Lincoln finally calls Daisy to ask for help.
  • But when she goes to rescue him, the ATCU boot boys arrive and take him away instead. Coulson has sold Lincoln out to save Daisy.
  • Simmons is still fragile after her alien planet experience but won’t open up about it despite Fitz’s attempts to comfort her.
  • She tells Bobbi that she has to return to the planet.
  • Hunter uses a bare knuckle fight as a back door to get accepted into Hydra.

marvels_agents_of_SHIELD_303_a_wanted_(inhu)man_bloody_bromance

Review:

Lincoln becomes he centre of a manhunt when the ATCU suddenly makes him enemy number one. Then it becomes a race to see who can reach him first – Team Coulson or Team Price? All of which sounds for more exciting than what we actually get: some running about, a few fireworks, a couple of angry phone calls and some bloke we’ve never met before betraying Lincoln and having a heart attack.. Never ever trust a character who’s clearly only been introduced as a plot device; of he ain’t go no background, he ain’t got no scruples

Luckily there are a few luckilies in this episode. However those “luckilies” are also an “ironically”. Because the biggest problem with the main plot is that it really needed more time to make an impact. But the best parts of the episode mostly come in the other plotlines. So, for the Lincoln plot to work better, we’d have had to sacrifice who knows how many amusing Hunter/May moments (May’s expressions of mild disgust throughout are wonderful) or some of the lovely, tenders character material happening with Fitz and Simmons (those two have come so far since they were mere irritating distractions in season one).

Maybe the sacrifice should have been made, though, because the manhunt is largely a dispiritingly humdrum affair. Possibly the director realised this and that’s why he inserted the “gratuitous shirtless shot” (see below) in the hope that a naked male chest might make up for the lack of spectacle elsewhere. Okay there’s the bit on the bus where some army guy recognises Lincolnbut it’s hardly a Hitchcockian paranoia thriller. We keep getting told how terrible things are for Lincoln but it rarely feels that way. There’s threat, sure, but little tension or sense or peril. Once again, SHIELD has a plot that it needs to get from A to B and it does so with efficiency and economy but very little flare.

Except… well, just when it feel like SHIELD-by-numbers it goes and pulls the rug from under your feet a delivers a blinder. Coulson sides with Price and hands Lincoln over to her boys. He claims it was to save Daisy. It seems just as likely he was trying to get into Rosalind’s pants… sorry, car. Whatever. There’s definitely some frisson going on there. They even seem to admire their mutual bad jokes.

This unexpected betrayal gives the episode the kick it needs and also sends the season’s arc plot off in an interesting new direction. As does Simmons’s sudden announcement that she has to return to the alien planet. What the hell happened to the girl out there?

Meanwhile, the May and Hunter double act is such fun to watch it makes you wonder if ABC’s bosses have made a mistake greenlighting a Hunter and Bobbi spin-off – Most Wanted. We’d rather see a whole series of Marvel’s Most Mismatched. May’s exasperation that her cockney drinking mates are unintelligible enough already without the addition of beer is one the season’s highlights so far.

So while “A Wanted (Inhu)man” fails the grade on one crucial level, there’s a lot here to suggest that season three is moving in the right direction.

 

The Good:

  • The twist when you realise that Coulson has sold out Lincoln.
  • The twist when Simmons says she must go back to the alien planet.

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  • Simmons sobbing on Fitz’s shoulder in the restaurant.
  • The subtitles for Hunter and Spud’s drunken cockney conversation.
  • May’s short but brutal fight scene.
  • Hunter’s realisation that the bare knuckle fight may not be the doddle he thought it was going to be.

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  • Coulson’s car envy when he sees Rosalind Price’s motor.
  • Lots of pretty effects when Lincoln uses his powers (electricity bolts are clearly an off-the-peg CG effect but they’re put to good use here).
  • May: “You lied to her” Hunter: “Barely. Besides, she knows I’m lying to her. It’s not even really a lie. Works for us. For now.” A lovely, revealing character beat.
  • Hunter betting on why Andrew and May split… and losing.

 

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  • May’s “I’m-pretending-to-smile-but-really-I-want-to-kick-you-in-the-balls” expression is a joy to behold.

 

The Bad:

  • It never feels like Lincoln is truly at the centre of a nationwide manhunt, or that the revelation of his existence has sent the United States into a frenzy of paranoia.
  • Daisy’s reaction to Lincoln being betrayed seems suspiciously low key. We thought she’s have a tantrum registering 11 on the Richter scale.
  • The whole section with Lincoln’s old mate feels incredibly artificial, and the heart attack feels like something out of a sitcom rather than tragic; we haven’t known the guy long enough to care.

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  • Hunter’s ’90s Madchester fashion choice.
  • The really unconvincing, self-conscious cockney banter (the subtitles saved the scene, though).

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  • Daisy and Lincoln kissing – nothing wrong with it in theory, it just came across as a bit corny at that point.
  • Rosalind’s series of hand-related jokes was downright cringeworthy. Presumably it was supposed to humanise her character but it just made her look stupid.

 

And The Random:

  • Mack is playing Halo 5 Guardians at the end of the episode. Considering the game has no split-screen, offline multiplayer mode there was little point him handing a controller to Daisy.

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  • There’s a lovely transition between two different scenes in the Playground at one point that doesn’t cut from one to the next but instead simply tracks from the corridor to the lab through the door. Whether or not it was the director’s intention, the effect of this is to reinforce that different sets of characters – despite working so closely together – at that moment have two entirely different priorities foremost in the minds.

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  • Although never specified in the script this map shows that Lincoln was in Indianapolis when Daisy called him at the start of the episode.

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  • Gratuitous shirtless shot of the week. He could have just rolled his sleeve up.

Review by Dave Golder

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Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E02 “Purpose In The Machine” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E02 “Purpose In The Machine” REVIEW

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stars 3.5

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writer: DJ Doyle
Director: Kevin Tancharoen

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • Fitz works out that the monolith is a portal to somewhere alien. Simmons could be there… still alive.
  • Coulson places SHIELD’s resourced behind rescuing her.
  • They spring Asgardian Elliot Randolph (you may distantly recall him) from jail because he’s an expert in ancient portals.
  • He leads them to a castle in England he once visited where there’s a dilapidated machine that was being used to force the portal to open.
  • Coulson gets the monolith transported there as well and they use Daisy’s powers to get the machine working.
  • Fitz leaps through the portal they open and rescues Simmons, bringing her home. She’s not saying much.
  • May is living with her dad who’s recuperating from an accident. He knows she’s not really there for him though.
  • Hunter turns up to enlist May’s help in his hunt for Ward. She’s reluctant at first but dad gives her the kick she needs.
  • Ward is rebuilding Hydra. This includes signing up Baron Von Strucker’s son (and professional ’80s James Spader impersonator), Werner Von Strucker.
  • Von Stucker Jr enrols on one of  Andrew Garner’s courses.

 

Review:

Another solid but hardly blockbuster episode of Agents Of SHIELD making you wonder when this season is going to kick into gear properly. Oddly, having introduced the ATCU in the season premiere, the show ignores them for this follow-up episode while Daisy’s new Inhumans-collecting project is reduced to just one scene of exposition. In fact, Inhumans are barely mentioned which is odd when they’re clearly going to be one of the major elements of the season.

Instead, the main plot deals with the search for Simmons, which could have been good if it weren’t dealt with like a bit of annoying housekeeping that needed to be done. The route to the discovery of the machine (“I know a bloke who might know… oh good, he does!” is about as complex as things gets) is hardly going to cause a nail-biting  epidemic, and Elliot Randolph – fine actor that Peter MacNicol is – surely couldn’t have been in anybody’s Top 10 Characters We’d Like To See Return lists?

Things could have been saved if the machine in the castle had a bit of a “wow” factor. There was an opportunity here to create a bonkers steampunk contraption or a symphony in gothic electronics à la Frankenstein. But nah. Just a room with some cogs and a hole. And predominantly brown. As always. Agents Of SHIELD is such a brown show.

Okay, so yeah Fitz throwing himself into the portal and rescuing Jemma is an uplifting character moment, and the scenes of her emerging from the dusty remnants of the shattered monolith and snuggling up to Fitz when she’s back home are lovely. But the actual rescue – all close-ups and blue filters – is visually drab.

May’s storyline – “Dad know best!” – is weirdly uninspiring too until Hunter shows up. His welcome from May at the front door, his cringe when he calls May middle-aged and his glee at hearing the news about Jemma are all fun moments. But May playing golf and reminiscing about ice-skating is hardly the most riveting character building TV’s ever witnessed.

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Luckily we have the increasingly Bond villain-esque Ward to keep the episode entertaining. From his first appearance to last here, Brett Dalton is like a force of nature and having a whale of a time. The scene where he slaloms a car at breakneck speed around a warehouse of underlings under command not to flinch as he nearly knocks them down while an ex-Hydra agent clings to the bonnet is a absolute classic. What a bastard. But a hugely watchable bastard. Werner Von Strucker looks like a promising proto -psycho ally as well.

And though new Inhuman activity is thin on the ground, the conversation between Andrew and Daisy about her need to create the“secret warriors” is a welcome, well-judged scene. While Coulson and co might see the project as one of damage limitation (or prevention) Daisy desperately want the new Inhumans to have a purpose and meaning. Of course, their real purpose will be to give Agents Of SHIELD  a small-screen superteam by the end of the season, but it’s nice to know Daisy is concerned about their hearts and minds as well as their powers and potential to kick ass.

That’s if Andrew ever gives any of them a positive psyche assessment. Does this guy have an agenda?

 

The Good:

  • Ward is magnificent throughout. His first scene – giving the guy from the Hydra old guard a joy ride on the bonnet of his own car – is all kinds of fun, but we also like the subtle touch later on when – during a fight – Ward is happy to dispatch guys with his fists until the moment when one of his opponents draws blood… then the gun comes out.

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  • It’s great to have Jemma back and even better that she’s not giving any secrets away yet about her alien adventures. She’s clearly traumatised.

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  • Plus, the moment when she snuggles up to Fitz is really sweet.
  • The chat Andrew and Daisy have about why Daisy feels the need to create the Secret Warriors feels authentic.
  • Although it was very silly, you have to love the way Mack says, “Yeeahhhh!” with as much bass as he can muster when Randolph points out there in the middle of the world’s biggest sub-woofer.

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  • Line of the episode: “Mid-life crisis… Early midlife crisis.”
  • This exchange is good too: “This is why I got rid of all the SHIELD logos on our vehicles. It’s like screaming for attention.” “You know there’s a ginormous eagle symbol on top of our jet?” “Yeah, sometimes I can’t help myself with the cool.”

 

The Bad:

  • The teaser – allegedly set in Gloucestershire, England, 1839 – is embarrassingly unconvincing and badly staged.
  • Simmons’s rescue feels a little convenient, quick and easy.
  • The sequence of Simmons actually being rescued is a mess.
  • The design of the machine is disappointingly dull.
  • May’s plot isn’t particularly interesting/revealing.
  • Lack of “Wow!” moments.
  • Not sure about new “revengey” Coulson – he doesn’t look like he’s out for blood so much as about to pen a strongly-worded letter to his local council.

 

And The Random:

  • At one point Randolph refers to Bobbi as “Amazon Woman”. Adrianne Palicki, who plays Bobbi, was once as the most famous Amazon woman of all, Wonder Woman, in a failed US TV pilot in 2011.

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  • Werner Von Strucker is a character from the Marvel comics universe (though nowhere near as interesting as his brother Andreas Von Strucker, aka the Swardsman). He first appeared in Nick Fury, Agents of SHIELD #1 (1989) where, after the death of his dad, he tried to rebuild Hydra. But he was a bit crap and when his dad was resurrected he killed him off as a liability (in Daredevil #309, 1992). He has actually made a previous screen appearance in the David Hasselhoff-starring TV movie Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (1998) where he was played by Scott Heindl.

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  • May’s dad is played by James Hong who will forever be remembered as the artificial eye manufacturer Hannibal Chew in Blade Runner (1982). His suspiciously un-grey hair is very distracting…

Review by Dave Golder

 

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Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD S03E01 “Laws Of Nature” REVIEW

by with No Comment Reviews

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD S03E01 “Laws Of Nature” REVIEW

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stars 3.5

Airing in the UK on: E4, Sundays, 9pm
Writers: Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen
Director: Vincent Misiano

 

Essential Plot Points:

  • SHIELD is trying to locate and recruit Inhumans but a mysterious, government-backed organisation, the ACTU, keeps beating them to it.
  • Coulson seems both repulsed by the ACTU’s methods while being  intrigued by its leader, Rosalind Price. They do banter. A lot.
  • Someone else is also tracking down Inhumans but he appears to be an independent agent who wants to kill them. He’s a big blue guy with claws and energy beams.
  • Fitz turns Indiana Jones, trotting the globe to find clues about what the monolith has done with Simmons.
  • Simmons is on an alien planet looking scared.
  • With Bobbi still recovering from her season two finale ordeal, Hunter vows to take revenge on Ward.

Review:

Agents Of SHIELD returns with a blistering cold opening full of action and powers and FX –promising great things for this “Year Of The New Inhumans” –then rapidly settles back into the show it’s always been, with all the plus points and problems that entails. It’s fast-paced, but oddly talky, apparently hoping that if the talk is fast-paced too (they call it banter) we won’t notice. There are loads of different storylines, all with potential, but none of them have the room to develop into something that really grabs you. It’s full of great characters but has a lead who’s like a desperate-to-be-hip vicar. It’s really witty and clever in places but downright cheesy in others. And it has amazing special effects but is pretty drab in the other design aspects.

Watching Agents Of SHIELD has always been like watching Andrew Murray. You know it’s trying really hard, it serves loads of aces and occasionally claims a major win. On the other hand it never looks completely at ease, you can see the effort it’s making and there’s always the danger of it going off the boil at any moment. “Laws Of Nature” is the perfect example. As a season premiere it ticks a lot of boxes (action, spectacle, new big bads, new directions for existing characters) and there’s a lot to enjoy, but there’s something a bit plodding and half-hearted about the way the elements end up on screen. As the impressive Avengers-style action unfurls in the pre-credit teaser you hope that this is year that the show truly becomes the small screen superhero accompaniment to Marvel’s big screen hitters, but as the episode progresses and a bunch of plots fight for the oxygen, the fear sets in once again that SHIELD is going to flounder.

There is, perhaps, too much going on, and that’s even with May’s marital woes being sensibly set aside for now. There’s the ACTU, the new government-backed task force that’s butting horns with SHIELD now, who feel similar to just about every other slightly dodgy government-backed task force with a shady agenda in telefantasy. Sure, they may develop into something more interesting but this is the season premiere and the whiff of familiarity here hardly gets you automatically reaching for the “record series” button.

Then there’s Daisy recruiting for her Secret Warriors, which actually has a lot of potential and is one of the most effective threads in the episode. Not just on the action side of things, but Daisy’s conversations with Joey, and Joey trying to come to terms with this paradigm shift in his life, were solidly-written and acted too; just the right balance of exposition and character beats. It was actually refreshing to see Daisy slightly shocked the Joey wasn’t all “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” and realising that recruiting may not be a doddle. The transition from Skye to Daisy seems to have her done her the world of good.

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Meanwhile Fitz is off playing Indiana Jones in an attempt to rescue Simmons in a series of scenes that were fun, but only felt half-convincing and half-baked. Iain De Caestecker is in first rate form through the whole episode and her alone sells these scenes, but honestly, would the episode have suffered if the Moroccan section had been cut entirely and we’d just had Fitz arriving late in the episode with his mysterious artefact? If the idea is to show what lengths he’s prepared to go to, then those lengths needed to be a little more extreme and/or exciting. Luckily Fitz gets to have his crazy moment at the episode’s end which leaves you in no doubt the emotional turmoil he’s going through.

Lash makes a pretty impressive entrance (even though he’s not named yet) but in typical SHIELD style it’s in a slightly mundane environment (a hospital) that somehow robs the scenes of some impact. At least it wasn’t a hotel room for a change. Having said that, Lash is immediately infinitely more intriguing than the ACTU as an adversary.

Also immediately intriguing is Simmons’s fate, revealed at the end of the episode in a fantastic play of the “WTF?!” card. Simmons on an alien planet? Suddenly this season looks like it might actually make an interesting change of course.

It’s easy to get too picky and pernickety with Agents Of SHIELD but that’s because, as with Andy Murray, you always want it do do better. This is a perfectly enjoyable, entertaining season opener, it just lacks a bit of the wow factor. But at least there are hints that plenty of wow factors could be in store.

 

The Good:

  • The season kicks off with a pretty impressive cold open: a powers-filled, FX-packed action sequence of the kind you wish the show could afford more often. It definitely felt like it took place in a corner of the same universe where the Avengers live.
  • Lash looks very impressive – a rare case of a character on screen being more outlandish than his comic book counterpart.
  • Lash taking the combined forces of Quake and Lincoln on his chest and still managing to lurch in their direction was very, very impressive.
  • The moment when Price and Coulson realise that it’s neither of their outfits that are killing Inhumans.

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  • The new grim, determined, resourceful Fitz is hugely entertaining to watch, even if he does look like a member of a new Romantic band from the early ’8os during the period when they all shot their pop videos abroad, dressed like something out Brideshead Revisited.
  • Fitz’s hissyfit at the end of the episode is a fantastically believable bit of acting. Almost painful to watch.
  • “Assist Skye with the intake.”
    “Daisy.”
    “Daisy. Dammit. Hard for us to get used to, huh?”
    “Umm, no. Just you.” – An amusing and revealing little character beat.
  • It’s great to see Daisy starting to form the Secret Warriors even if her first recruit looks like he has a long way to go before he’s field ready.
  • Mack continues the sudden improvement he showed in the season two finale. He’s actually got something approaching a personality and function in the show now.

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  • That final scene.

The Bad:

  • The ACTU don’t make a particularly thrilling entrance. Rosalind is fine, but as an organisation, the ACTU their MO has a “been there, done that” whiff of familiarity to it.
  • The production design, lighting and camerawork is still as annoyingly bland as it’s always been on this show – it simply doesn’t look as stylish as the shows it should be competing with. All Warners’ superhero shows look far more impressive, and that’s even taking into account Arrow’s unnatural reliance on warehouses. Agents of SHIELD often feels like it’s being shot in the way shows were made in the ’80s.
  • “May took off on vacation and never came back… so I lost my right hand too.” Terrible line, terribly delivered (as if Clark Gregg was embarrassed having to say it).
  • Whiney Lincoln isn’t much fun to watch. Make him a Secret Warrior – QUICK!
  • It’s great to have a homosexual Inhuman, but it would have been better if they didn’t feel the need to hammer it home by drawing parallels between coming out as gay and coming out as Inhuman. It’s not like it’s a metaphor that hasn’t been laboured to death in the past. Why can’t gay characters just be gay and not to need to have some justification/reason for being so?

 

And The Random:

  • Let’s first address all those MCU references in traditional Marvel Comics fashion:

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  • President Ellis is played by William Sadler reprising the role he played in Iron Man 3. His name is a reference to comics scribe Warren Ellis who wrote the six-issue mini series “Extremis” which inspired many elements in Iron Man 3. His speech here seems to be the first step toward the Superhero Registration Act that will form a major part of Captain America: Civil War.

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  • DID YOU SPOT? The axe that Mack used to cut off Coulson’s arm in last season’s finale is now on the wall in Coulson’s office.

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  • Later in the episode it transpires that SHIELD has also kept Coulson’s severed arm as a souvenir too.

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  • WHIH is a fictional news channel that has featured in a number of MCU films and shows, including The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Daredevil and Jessica Jones. It also cropped up in the game LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, and was the basis of a webseries that appeared in the run-up to the release of Ant-Man.

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  • Last season (in episode six, “A Fractured House”) Coulson seemed annoyed when he found a Grumpy Cat mug in the SHIELD kitchen. In this episode he seems quite happy to be drinking from one. For the record: it’s an “I hate Mondays” Grumpy Cat mug.
  • This is the first episode of the show that Agent May hasn’t appeared in. We thought Simmons was a no-show as well unless that final scene.

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  • Lash is actually a relatively new character in the Marvel Comics universe having been introduced in Inhumans #1 (2004). In the comics he doesn’t believe all potential Inhumans are worthy of undergoing terrigenesis. So when King Black Bolt activates a Terrigen Bomb above New York, flooding the world with Terrigen Mist and awakening the powers of inhuman descendants living among humanity, Lash embarks on a mission to find all the individuals affected, and judge for himself whether they were worthy to live with their new abilities.

Review by Dave Golder