Posts tagged: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

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

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.

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:

• 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”).

• May’s idea of a job interview.

• 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.

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

• “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:

• The 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.”

Review by Dave Golder

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

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…

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).

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…

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:

• 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.

• And this image is just brilliant.

The Bad:

• 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.

• 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

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.

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.

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:

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

• 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:

• 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:

• Dwight 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?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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).

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other Agents Of SHIELD reviews

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

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.

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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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