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Overall, the penultimate episode of Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 (counting the 2-hour finale as a single episode)
definitely did its due diligence in setting events into motion for the season
finale. The battle lines between the two
sides are drawn. Hive’s plan is now in
perfect focus. If Hive succeeds, it is
clear that that would mean the end of the world—or at least the end of the
human race’s dominance on this planet!
At the same time, “Emancipation”
also succeeded in presenting the natural tie-in between Captain America:
Civil War and this show. It made
perfect sense in the context of the show, and the position taken by Coulson and
his team fits with both what we know of their characters and the events of the
show. It isn’t as game-changing as the Captain
America: The Winter Soldier tie-in from 2 years ago, but it does set
S.H.I.E.L.D. on a new path moving forward as they consider how best to address
the government’s desire to register and document all enhanced individuals.
This episode does just about
everything it needs to do, and it does it all quite well.
Warning: There are spoilers for both Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America: Civil War in this review.
The episode opens with a news
report of Captain America’s disappearance after his “public feud” with Tony
Stark and the Avengers—I’m still not entirely sure when this takes place within
the narrative of Captain America: Civil War, but my guess is shortly
after the U.N. bombing. Of course, the
“public feud” could just as easily refer to the climactic battle between the
two teams of Avengers. Ultimately, that
isn’t quite as important as the conversation between May and Coulson, as well
as Coulson’s discussion with General Talbot.
May does not want the government
getting in the way and using the Sokovia Accords to “hamstring” their ability
to counter Hive’s plans. And this really
does come out all through the episode:
S.H.I.E.L.D. can handle Hive; all they need from the government is room
to operate.
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
Talbot, however, does not want to
accept this as an answer at first. He is
there to meet Coulson because the President believes that S.H.I.E.L.D. has
“undocumented enhanced assets” working for them, and he wants these assets to
be documented in conformity with the Sokovia Accords. Coulson, however, does not want to document
the Inhumans for several reasons. In the
first place, S.H.I.E.L.D. operates in the shadows, not the spotlight, and
bringing registration into the mix would force them into the spotlight
alongside the Avengers. When Coulson
introduces Talbot to Elena, they reveal their second reason for not
registering: the registration can be
misused if it falls into the wrong hands.
If anyone in Colombia discovered that Elena is an Inhuman, she and her
entire family could face reprisals because of her actions against government
corruption. Talbot doesn’t think that
would happen; Elena thinks he’s naïve.
Coulson next brings him to visit Lincoln, who is still locked up in
isolation after trashing his immune system last week. Lincoln is clearly going stir-crazy and
all-but-begs Talbot to get him out of there in exchange for agreeing to be
registered—Coulson rejects it. Finally,
Coulson brings him to the containment pod where they have been keeping Lash,
a.k.a. “Rasta-Hulk,” ever since he transformed for good.
Things take an interesting turn
when Talbot asks to know where Daisy is and reveals that the U.S. Military
actually saw satellite footage of her in Hive’s village with Hive himself. Coulson finally agrees to “read in” Talbot on
the Hive situation—it’s pretty funny when Talbot refuses to believe that the “devil”
is real and he’s an Inhuman. That’s
something that I really appreciate in this episode: Talbot’s banter with Coulson. In general Talbot serves as the straight-man
for all Coulson’s wisecracks, but every so often he gets a good line. Talbot quickly accepts that Coulson is
actually serious about the potentially-global threat posed by Hive and proposes
taking the situation away from S.H.I.E.L.D. and letting the Military go in and
bomb Hive to pieces. Coulson’s response
is pretty much the answer to why this show exists: “By the time they believe you, it will be too
late.” Simply put, S.H.I.E.L.D. exists
to protect people from the weird things they would never believe, and that even
includes the military. And that is why Coulson
refuses to align S.H.I.E.L.D. under the Accords: oversight would slow them down. All Coulson needs from Talbot is time and
leeway to act. But Talbot doesn’t want
to give it to him.
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Granted, you can definitely see
why Talbot wouldn’t want to leave Coulson to his own devices: while Talbot is on the base, Daisy actually
breaks Lincoln out of his room using her hacking skills. Lincoln has been cooped up and longing to see
Daisy ever since she was turned by Hive, so it isn’t exactly much of a stretch
to think that he would want to escape and join her (without Hive). It’s actually pretty cool how Daisy can use
her knowledge of the base systems to get Lincoln out without him confronting more
agents than the one guy assigned to guard his door. However, as soon as the team realizes that he’s
out, they start searching for him, and Mack finds him in the quinjet hangar
where Daisy is waiting to hijack the jet’s autopilot and fly her to him. Lincoln and Mack have a very quick fight as
Mack tries to stop him, but Lincoln of course electrifies himself and shocks
Mack.
And this is when the biggest
twist of the episode comes in: Lincoln
was playing Daisy the whole time! He,
May, and Coulson allowed Daisy to hack in and break him out, but when she
activated the quinjet, he wasn’t on board; instead, it’s Lash that will meet
Hive at his new base. This gives us a really
good sequence as Lash fights Hive and we see that his powers are actually a
perfect counter to Hive. His energy beam
completely disintegrates the parasites that Hive attacks him with, and he cuts
a hole through Hive’s chest instantly. However,
Lash’s purpose here is not to destroy Hive as we initially assumed. Rather, Lash leaves Hive lying on the ground
and goes to save Daisy, who just came out to stop him from killing Hive. Lash knocks Daisy to the ground and puts his
hand over her chest. But instead of
killing her, he actually purifies her by removing all the parasites from her. It’s not entirely clear exactly how the
process works, but my guess is that he can kind of sense the parasites and
attack them individually. Daisy is
freed, but while Lash is distracted, James returns and puts a hole through Lash’s
chest with his flaming chain(!), killing him.
Fortunately, Daisy is still able to escape and return to S.H.I.E.L.D. in
the stolen quinjet.
While I did enjoy the fight
between Lash and Hive, I thought it was a little too small, particularly with
Lash having been built up as such a powerful antagonist. In comparison to what I was hoping for, the
fight was just over too quickly. Perhaps
I would have been more satisfied if they’d pulled out something new for Hive so
that he had more of a chance against Lash.
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| Image Courtesy marvel.wikia.com |
The major Hive plot for the episode
focused on his continued attempts to recreate the experiment that created
him. He and James lure a group of the
Watchdogs (remember them?) into a trap where James takes them down by
channeling his fire through a chain.
They bring the Watchdogs back to base and lock them in a storage
container. Dr. Radcliff pumps his new
compound formed from Daisy’s blood, Terrigen, and Hive’s parasites into the
container, where it succeeds in transforming the Watchdogs. And what happens? The “Alpha” test of the compound produces a
group of “Primitive” abominations which are utterly stupid, blindly loyal, and
super strong. In other words, Hive
created the Alpha Primitives! I thought this was a cool direction for them
to take with Hive’s plan: He doesn’t
exactly want the humans to turn into Inhumans with the same awesome abilities
as Daisy or James; he’s content with an army of subservient drones.
Near the end of this episode,
Fitz and Simmons realize what Hive’s endgame is (based on their knowledge of
both Will and Ward). Using the compound
which Dr. Radcliff created, Hive can transform regular humans into Alpha
Primitives under his control almost instantaneously. However, in order to do so en mass, Hive
would need to detonate a bomb filled with the compound at a high enough
altitude for the compound to spread over and infect a majority of the human
population—in other words, a variation of a Terrigen Bomb. And unfortunately, Talbot reveals that Hive actually
has just the warhead he needs to put this plan into motion. So next week’s season finally is going to see
Coulson and the Secret Warriors attempting to prevent Hive from detonating his
Terrigen Bomb and enslaving the majority of the human race as Alpha Primitives. And unfortunately this is not the kind of
thing that they can just call in the Mighty Avengers to fix; who’s going to
believe them?
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There is also one other subplot
to discuss: Mack and Elena. Her previous episodes made it quite clear
that there was some sort of spark between them, even if the humans-vs.-Inhumans
subplot from “The Team” (3x17) put them at odds with each other. In this episode they are clearly back to
being friends. In fact, she even dotes
over him a little, helping him with his injuries from last week’s confrontation
with Daisy. When Lincoln knocks Mack
out, Elena is the one who berates Lincoln for injuring members of his own
team. And then at the end of the
episode, she gives her crucifix to him, telling him to “keep the faith.” Taking this whole relationship/friendship
into account, this is actually being done quite well, even if it is only being
used to imply that Mack will be the agent in the quinjet who dies in next week’s
season finale. I really hope that this will
not be the case, as Mack has become one of the better characters on this series
in the past season. However, I don’t
really have an alternative theory to propose.
This was a fun episode. It followed up on the key themes from Civil
War which needed to be addressed on the series. It put the characters in place for the season
finale next week. It offered some decent
action—even if it wasn’t as much as I was hoping for between Hive and
Lash. I was disappointed that Lash didn’t
get a better sendoff, but it was at least okay considering that he gave himself
up to save Daisy. On that note, I don’t
think Lash’s preordained purpose was specifically to save Daisy; I think
it would be more accurate to say that his purpose was as a counter to Hive
(which isn’t the same thing as saying that his purpose was to kill
Hive). Based on his power set, Lash
could both destroy Hive and free an Inhuman from his control. In the episode, Lash chose to use his
power to save Daisy specifically.
What did you think of this episode? Did you enjoy the Civil War
tie-in? Did you see the “Alpha
Primitives” coming? Let me know in the
comments!
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