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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
Of course, I’d probably be more
invested in this election cycle if I weren’t feeling so cynical about the whole
thing. Not to get political (he says,
getting political), but off all the candidates still in the race for the two
major parties, there’s only one I would vote for, and he’s not a
frontrunner. It doesn’t help matters
that neither of the frontrunners is particularly popular—with anyone. The last few elections there’s always been at
least 1 candidate whose platform I could support—or at least that I could
believe wasn’t actively trying to destroy this country! That didn’t mean that the 1 candidate always
won, but there was always someone to vote for.
This time around, if the race continues the way it’s shaping up, I do
not see either major party candidate doing anything other than ruin our
country.
*ahem*.
Now back to your
regularly-scheduled Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. review!
I have to say that I did not see
all of the twists and turns coming in this episode. The relationship drama seemed to take the
spotlight for much of the episode, but there was enough other stuff going on—and
the relationship drama was engaging enough—that I was invested through the
whole thing.
Let’s just get that out of the
way first: both “ships” from season 1
set sail in this episode and had some very good moments. However, at the end of the day only one of
those “ships” really made any headway.
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| Image Courtesy www.mcuexchange.com |
Pretty early in the episode Daisy
returns to Hive, who is at a spot where she would often park to sleep while she
was on her own. The two of them have a
sweet moment together as she talks about Ward and Hive mines Ward’s
memories. It is interesting that even
with their connection, Daisy is still happy that Ward is dead—and even more
interesting that Hive says Ward himself is also in his own way glad to be dead. This also gives Hive an opportunity to start
teasing out his plan: there will be no more
war and no more pain because everyone will be one. He is going to create a perfect home for the
Inhumans. While he is talking about
this, Daisy puts her head on his shoulder and he puts his arm around her. This is all the “SkyeWard” that the episode
contains, and it’s really just there as a nice nod for the fans.
Fitz and Simmons, on the other
hand, get much more development in their relationship, particularly after their
kiss at the end of last week’s episode. Near
the beginning of this episode, they take some time to discuss the ramifications
of their kiss for their working relationship and decided that they need to work
on keeping their good working relationship no matter what happens in their
personal relationship. Later on while
they are in Romania on their mission, they go off-comm. for a while to talk
further about their relationship. They realize
that their relationship up until now has been very linear, but that they have
come to a “Singularity”—a moment in their relationship which, once it happens,
will leave nothing the same again. What’s
the moment? The two of them having
sex: once they’ve slept together, there
will be no way for their relationship to be the same ever again. So considering that it took 1 season (8 years
of knowing each other) for Fitz to say he loves her, then another 1½ years for
them to kiss, and then another several months for them to kiss again and
actually mean it, what’s the timetable in the whole “sex” thing? Actually it’s the end of this episode when
they finally have sex.
I’ve said in the past that I am
not a huge fan of relationship drama as a major aspect of a series or movie—that’s
one of the definite issues I’ve had with Arrow in particular. However, even though the relationship drama
was a major aspect of this Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode, I really didn’t
feel like it overwhelmed or distracted from the rest of the episode. The most that it did in that respect was to
increase the stakes somewhat for Fitz and Simmons’ confrontations with Team
Hive.
The rest of the episode focused
in on the fallout from last week’s revelation.
We see Coulson and May’s reactions to Daisy being compromised by
Hive. S.H.I.E.L.D. attempts to rescue
Alisha, who has been under their protection since her run-in with Lash and then
to track down Hive. Fitz and Simmons
follow up on a lead which could give them a way to counter Hive’s power. However, just about nothing actually goes
their way.
Even though Daisy messed up
S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hangar and damaged the hydraulics on the door so it can’t open
more than partway, May still manages to maneuver Zephyr One out of the
hangar. She, Lincoln, and Coulson (whose
leg was seriously injured in the earthquake) fly to Alisha’s safe house, where
Lincoln (wearing a “murder vest” so they can kill him if Hive gets him) goes in
to try to bring Alisha in. However, they
are too late: Daisy and Hive have
already been there and turned her. One
of her cones tries to sneak up on Lincoln, but he sees it coming and fights
back. May and Coulson come in to save
him, but May gets knocked down and Lincoln starts to go crazy with his electrical
powers to force Alisha into revealing Daisy’s location. Instead of talking, Alisha clone 1 shoots
Alisha clone 2 right before Coulson shoots the remaining clone. This shocks Lincoln, who knows just how
painful that actually is for Alisha: she
feels everything that happens to her clones!
Realizing just how badly compromised Lincoln is by everything—and unwilling
to risk someone that Daisy cares so much for—Coulson chooses to take Lincoln
out of the field. I really enjoyed
seeing Coulson and May fighting over Coulson’s erratic actions with respect to
Daisy. We’ve known just how much he
cares for Daisy ever since season 1, and now that she’s been turned Coulson is
willing to do just about anything to get her back, no matter who’s at risk. May is with him on that, but she does not
appreciate being the one doing Coulson’s dirty work. I feel like this is a conversation that’s
been a long time coming between them.
From here, Coulson and his team
follow Hive and Daisy to South Dakota, where they visited James (the Inhuman
Lincoln brought her to a couple weeks ago).
Hive demands to know where the other component of the Kree artifact is,
and one James has been transformed and turned he immediately reveals its
location under his cabin. Daisy’s use of
her powers to unearth the artifact draws S.H.I.E.L.D. to the cabin, but Hive
leaves it booby-trapped. Coulson and May
arrive to find the hole in the floor just before the explosives detonate. They take shelter in the hole in the ground
just before the explosion, and Coulson uses an energy shield built into his
cybernetic hand to save them. I think
the energy shield was the coolest part of this episode, as it is a definite
Easter egg for Captain America’s photonic energy shield from the comics. And of course Coulson would want a shield
similar to Captain America’s!
Before moving on, we can also
talk about James, who received the Inhuman ability to “charge” objects with
fire so they explode. It’s not exactly
like pyro-kinesis; he seems to need an object to “charge.” This is a really neat take on the J.T. James
from the Secret Warriors comics. However,
the comic book inspiration was not an Inhuman but instead the grandson of
Carter Slade, the original Ghost Rider, and had the ability to channel “hellfire”
through his chain. James even settles on
the codename of his comic counterpart, Hellfire, at the end of the episode.
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| Image Courtesy www.mcuexchange.com |
While Coulson’s team is trying to
secure the Inhumans, Fitz, Simmons, and Mack go to Romania to track down Dr.
Radcliffe, a scientist who worked for Transia Corporation in the lab that Hive
destroyed. Hopefully his research will
hold the key to defeating Hive and negating his power over the Inhumans. Interestingly, Radcliffe is a “transhumanist,”
which means that he is interested in turning ordinary humans into something greater
than a human. When Fitz and Simmons go
into the bar he works out of, just about everyone there has some form of
biological enhancement. His assistant
basically has a smart-phone built into her forearm. They don’t show a ton here, but the lack of
really seeing differences actually works quite well: the imagination can do a
lot of crazy things with this kind of premise.
Radcliffe agrees to talk to them, but instantly distrusts them because the
tech they brought to show him was developed from Hydra tech. Unfortunately, before Fitz can convince him
to help them save Daisy, Ward and Daisy arrive to abduct Radcliffe for
themselves. Daisy takes the opportunity
to hold Fitz down with her power and tell him to stop trying to rescue her—she’s
happy—and that if he really loves Simmons then the two of them need to get out
of S.H.I.E.L.D. so they can avoid being the ones who die in the quinjet from
her vision. Hive meanwhile stops to talk
to Simmons as Will, but this absolutely freaks her out and turns her against him
all the more: she empties her handgun
into Ward’s gut and escapes. While the
two of them are dealing with Daisy and Hive, Mack is trying to fight James, but
he can’t really get anywhere against him.
In the end everyone leaves, but no one gets exactly what they came for.
Hive brings Radcliffe to a town
that he purchased with Malick’s money, where he informs him that he brought him
there so he can recreate the Kree experimentation on regular humans, bringing
them up to the level of the Inhumans. In
other words, Hive wants to make the entire human race into superhumans. Whoa…
One of the best parts of this
episode—leaving all the romantic stuff to the side for now—is just how
comfortable and “happy” Daisy appears to be.
She now has a family with Hive and his Inhumans. She has also figured out several new and
inventive ways to use her powers, such as flat-out holding Fitz against the
wall and holding the air out off his lungs.
James getting his powers was also really cool. I actually found it quite fascinating the
effect that being “Hived” had on James’ transformation: all of the aches and pains seemingly
disappeared as soon as James was under Hive’s control. They also gave a good explanation for what
Hive’s control means: the Inhumans are
essentially addicted to it because Hive’s parasites release high levels of
dopamine in their brains. I can see ways
that they could defeat Hive and rescue the Inhumans under his control, but I’m
still interested to see how it will actually happen.
Something that became pretty
clear in this episode is the definite parallels between Hive and his Inhumans
and Apocalypse and the four horsemen—not the least the fact that Hive now has
four Inhumans under his control (Daisy, James, Alisha, and Giyera). In both cases, a highly-advanced member of
their respective race who comes from ancient times has returned to establish a
utopian sanctuary for his kind. He has a
very low opinion of regular humans and sees them as of little value. He gathers followers, whom he has a
particular way of controlling, and it is up to the rest of his race to defeat
them and avert the impending doom.
The parallels are all there, but I
think that what we’ve seen of Hive makes him appear more interesting to me than
Apocalypse. In contrast to Apocalypse’s “cult
leader” mentality toward his followers, Hive actually sees them all as part of
a single organism. Rather than simply
doing away with normal humans, Hive appears to see some value in them (even if
that value is primarily as food and as hosts).
Though both Apocalypse and Hive may have a similar view of their
followers (as being beneath them and disposable), Hive’s view seems a little
more nuanced as he still retains the human memories of his previous hosts.
I really enjoyed this episode and
I can’t wait to see how S.H.I.E.L.D. will react to everything that happened!
What was your favorite part of
this episode? How do you think the
Fitz/Simmons relationship will get complicated next episode? Let me know in the comments!
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