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Before starting in on the review, I want to
thank ABC for finally getting it right in terms of their coverage of
today’s primaries. Instead of
interrupting the show midsentence, they simply put a box at the bottom of the
screen to read. That is definitely the
way that I prefer for them to offer that information during a show I want to
watch. In the future, ABC, please
just do that!
Now, on with the review!
This episode gave me just about
everything I was hoping for: background
on Hive, character development, and even a thematic connection to Captain
America: Civil War. Next week will
see much more in terms of Civil War tie-in, but this was a respectable
way to kick it off in my opinion.
The episode opens with Hive’s
memories of the experiment which first turned him into what he is now. He is taken by Kree Reapers while hunting,
brought to their ship, and experimented on using the Kree’s own blood. He underwent Terrigenesis, and Hive was
created. Now, Hive intends to carry out
that same experiment on the humans so that they can all become Inhuman (and he can
control all of them). His first test
subjects are the three Hydra leaders who escaped S.H.I.E.L.D.’s crackdown at
the end of the previous episode—but none of them actually survive the
experiment because they used Hive’s blood (meaning Ward’s blood plus whatever
Hive puts into it) rather than Kree blood.
In order for the experiment to succeed, they need to use blood from a
living Kree. I have to admit, the effect
of watching a man’s face melt was really intense, similar to the effect of Hive
consuming humans.
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The Civil War connection
in this episode is more thematic than anything else. Hive references both Iron Man and Captain
America as examples of the exclusivity of power, something which can only lead
to conflict. He also blames his exile on
people’s fear of him and his influence over Inhumans. The paranoia bred “civil war,” which led to
his expulsion. We don’t learn anything
more about that original “civil war,” but the “civil war” in this episode is
pretty intense as Daisy is turned against Mack in a fight which neither of them
particularly wants. S.H.I.E.L.D. sends
May and Mack to Hive’s town along with four additional agents from their
Operations Division. The six of them go
in to eliminate Hive and avoid confrontations with the other Inhumans. May gets a location from James by flirting
with him (no, really, he is that clueless that he bought her “I’m Hydra”
routine), and the team investigates. However,
they find the Kree Artifact set up and transmitting: it is a beacon designed to summon the Kree
Reapers who created Hive and the Inhumans in the first place. Evidently they left it behind so Hive could
summon them if the Inhumans got out of hand.
Hive activated it now to draw the Kree Reapers to Earth so he could
capture one and use it as a blood source.
It’s a little convenient that
there’s a ship of Kree Reapers in the solar system that can respond to the
beacon, but Hive does a decent job of explaining what’s going on. The Kree thought that if the Inhumans got out
of control, their Reapers could put an end to them, and left the original
Reapers in stasis for that possibility. These
two Reapers don’t seem to be the brightest bulbs; they are more or less animals
which act based on instinct to hunt down and destroy Inhumans. One of them manages to take out a pair of
Alisha clones pretty handily, but he then gets himself taken out by a very
impressive showing from Daisy. One definite
benefit of Hive-Daisy is just how much she has been embracing her powers since
Hive turned her. She is inventing new
(and more brutal) uses of her powers in each episode, and the Kree Reaper
simply cannot do anything against her.
She subdues him and Radcliff hooks him up to his device to drain his
blood.
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The next part might be the best
character moment in the entire episode as Mack enters the “workshop” and tries
to reason with Daisy. He thinks that
there’s a part of her which is fighting against Hive’s control—that’s how she
slipped up and led S.H.I.E.L.D. to them.
She, however, does not want to be saved because she has finally found
meaning and purpose, and she is no longer being used by S.H.I.E.L.D., which
created her to be a weapon which they could use in their war. Mack refuses to rise to the bait and doubles down
on trying to appeal to the part of her which was his partner and his friend
before this all began. She throws it
back into his face, saying that at one time she considered him like a big
brother… but considering how poorly he discharged that duty for his own
little brother, she can’t stand the idea of him as a big brother to her. It’s amazing just how natural what Daisy is
saying and doing feels. She is not being
forced to act against her will per se, but is acting like she had all her
inhibitions taken away. Now she wants
Mack to join them by going through the process of becoming Inhuman—she wants
all of her S.H.I.E.L.D. friends to undergo the procedure. And for a moment I thought that they might
actually let Mack become their guinea pig… right up until he threw a splinter bomb
at the Kree, eliminating his body and ensuring that Radcliff couldn’t collect
enough Kree blood for his experiment.
Daisy reacts by attacking Mack and pretty much brutalizing him, breaking
the bones in his arms, pummeling his chest, and even doing something to his
head/ear. It was only the timely
intervention of S.H.I.E.L.D. which prevented Daisy from actually killing
him. I actually would not have been
surprised at all if they decided to kill off Mack in that scene, although I am
glad that they didn’t kill him.
Meanwhile, Hive fights the other
Kree Reaper while the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team watches from the
sidelines. The Reaper gets in a lot of
good shots, but I don’t think Hive can actually feel pain from blows dealt to
his human host. Every single punch the
Reaper throws at him gets taken and ignored.
Finally Hive lays into him, consuming the Kree. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team opens fire on Hive, but
it is largely ineffective; even their biggest guns don’t make enough of a dent
as he succeeds in repairing a shoulder in a matter of seconds after they get in
a single good hit. S.H.I.E.L.D. flees,
rescues Mack and escapes in a containment pod before Hive can do anything to
them. This was actually quite
surprising: I thought that they were
going to kill off multiple members of the strike group in this episode, but no
one exactly died.
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The other key plot in this
episode focuses on Lincoln. After being benched
at the end of the last episode, Lincoln is not taking his confinement and
uselessness well. He wants to be able to
help find Daisy, but he can’t leave the base because Coulson is afraid of the
consequences if Hive turns another of his agents. The one thing that he can sign up for,
however, is to help Fitz and Simmons figure out an atnti-toxin which can counteract
Hive’s control over Inhumans. Simmons is
worried that it is too dangerous, but Lincoln ignores her fears and injects
himself behind their back. The anti-toxin
completely destroys his immune system, leaving him in a compromised and fragile
state. In this state he must be confined
to an isolation chamber and tended pretty regularly. However, he is able to sustain himself with
the hope that this will help to develop a cure for Daisy. Unfortunately, the episode ends on the dour
note that the anti-toxin failed. However,
last time Simmons developed a treatment and it failed, it turned out that the
treatment didn’t actually fail but succeeded on a delayed timetable (1x06, “FZZT”). Could the same thing be true in this
situation? Yes, but I’m not sure the
likelihood of them recycling that cliché.
I think Lincoln has benefited the
most from all the recent changes—Bobbi and Hunter leaving and Daisy being
turned. He has gotten quite a bit more
screen time, and I think that he’s capitalized on it. Yes, he is still Daisy’s boyfriend, and yes,
he still doesn’t get along with Daisy’s “parents” (May has a great moment
of not minimizing his affections for Daisy because “The rest of us have known
her a lot longer”). These last few
episodes, particularly since Daisy revealed herself to be the traitor, have actually
started to make me care what happens to Lincoln and see him as more than just “the
love interest.” I might be the only one,
but I don’t think so.
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One other aspect we need to talk
about is Hive. Now that we know his
plan, what can we really say about it? For
starters, it’s pretty insane for him to be turning regular humans into
Inhumans, even if he does still retain his original memories of the process
they used on him. I think that at some
point he will succeed, but I don’t know if using Daisy’s blood will yield immediate
results. To be honest, my first thought
on seeing him experimenting on the Hydra leaders was that instead of creating
new Inhumans, Hive would actually end up with the MCU equivalent of Alpha
Primitives (a slave class genetically created by the Inhumans to be strong and
dumb). It didn’t happen yet, but it
still could be the case.
Hive himself is something of an
enigma. He is incredibly soft-spoken,
but every word he speaks sounds like he is about to do something crazy. I really like Brett Dalton’s portrayal of the
character. Over 3 seasons he has
hands-down won the award for Most Versatile Actor. He started off playing this strong-but-silent
Good Guy™ character, but by the end of season 1 he is Traitor McTraitorson. Season 2 he goes from being the Penitent
Exposition Troll to the standard antihero type.
Then in season 3 he goes whole-hog as a villain before dying and coming
back as an ancient Inhuman god! Considering
that Ward himself is dead at this point, it’s a pretty safe bet that this is
the last version of the character that’s going to appear, but I suppose they
could always do something wild to keep him around. Personally, my preference would be for them
to give him a good send-off and move on.
I really enjoyed this episode,
particularly the conflict between Mack and Daisy. I really expected that she would actually
kill him there, but I’m kind of glad she didn’t. One thing is definitely sure: Daisy is fully under Hive’s control, and
really loving it. I am really excited
for next week’s episode, not only because I’m curious how S.H.I.E.L.D.
will run with the aftermath of Civil War, but also because I want to see
exactly how they are setting up the finale.
What was your favorite part of this
episode? How do you think they will
counter Hive’s control? Let me know in
the comments!
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