The greatest strength and greatest weakness of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lies in one particular element: its ties to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When done right (such as in the Season 1 finale wherein it was revealed that S.H.I.E.L.D. was secretly harboring a score of Hydra agents), the show manages to add to the mythos. However, it's also a double edge sword in that the series has restrictions placed upon it because of the connection, and can be hampered by the events of the MCU, needing to tread carefully with which characters they can use and which storylines they can employ. This same Season 1 finale also caused the series being hamstrung prior to that, which resulted in some really bad television in those first seventeen or so episodes. What you got, ultimately, was a fantastic handful of episodes in a sea of mediocrity. This leads me to our most recent episode that tries, and fails unfortunately, to tie the series into the events of Captain America: Civil War.
We start with Coulson sitting in a bar, watching the television as they begin making reference to the Sokovia Accords, the de facto “Superhuman Registration Act” beguiling the Avengers at the time. Enter General Talbot, who informs Coulson that he’ll need to release all information about his new organization and the Inhumans that are a part of it to the government. It essentially hijacks the plot of the season and has us take a hard turn from where we were going prior to this, even though we are still given some Hive plot later on. The show assumes you're following what’s happening in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this point, and heck, expects you to have seen Civil War already. Of course, if you’re watching Agents, you’re probably watching everything Marvel related, but it's a big leap to take. What follows is a plotline of Coulson simply walking Talbot around and reintroducing the audience to everything that we already know. If you haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on in the series until now, I don’t know what to tell you.
To be honest, I don’t know what the best solution is to the connectivity between the TV show and the movies, but there has to be something better than this. The fact that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has to play catchup with the big event movie of May (like with Captain America: Winter Soldier ) needed to be something the showrunners took into account previously, or simply not mention it at all. This also brings me to another point in that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s modus operandi involves it being in the shadows (sort of), so having the government simply "out" their existence puts a monkey wrench into some plotlines of the show. It also presents story ideas that can never be followed up on, such as seeing Tony Stark and the rest of the Avengers discover that Coulson is alive. Are you telling me that when Talbot reports back to the government, Stark won’t be privy to that information? It’s such a shame that we can’t have the reverberations work both ways. as it simply points out what an island the TV show is. I think moving forward, taking the Netflix Marvel approach would be for the best (as in, making it its own universe that's far more tangentially connected to the MCU).
Anyway, Talbot is introduced to each of the Inhumans, demanding that they be chronicled and all their secrets laid bare. Even with this happening, there’s surprisingly little conflict at the somewhat frightening idea of having each of the Inhumans need to register with the government. Meanwhile, Hive has managed to capture members of the Watchdogs and plans to begin testing out his experiment to turn them into Inhumans. The experiment is seemingly a failure, as Radcliffe wasn’t able to transform them into full Inhumans, but rather terrifying looking half breeds who still manage to follow Hive’s command. Accepting the results, Hive begins to plan, of course, to infect everyone on the planet with this new concoction.
At the same time, the brainwashed Daisy is hacking into Lincoln’s cell where he’s being held for his own safety by S.H.I.E.L.D. Now, I can understand hacking into some electronics, and I’ll even buy hacking into a Quinjet to steer it to a desired location, but Daisy hacks into everything. She communicates with Lincoln through his television, watches everything through security cameras, opens doors, turns on lights, and even manages to give Lincoln an idea of how to “McGuyver” his way out. It’s a bit much but I’m willing to role with the punches, to a degree, to move the story along, though I feel like there could have been a more seamless way to do this. Daisy seemingly entices Lincoln to come join her with Hive, lying that she would meet him alone as Hive lays in wait to join his cause. In the best moment of the night, the Quinjet arrives at Hive’s HQ and as everyone waits for Lincoln to jump out, Lash does instead! Yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. managed to pull a switcheroo and send Lash against Hive in a battle royale.
As the two begin to brawl, punches are exchanged and Lash begins tearing through his Inhuman Watchdogs. As Daisy attempts to take down Lash, the Inhuman monster manages to grab her and instead of killing her, pulls out Hive’s influence and turns her back to normal. Unfortunately, for his act of kindness, he gets a flaming chain through the heart courtesy of James. Daisy manages to escape and returns back to S.H.I.E.L.D., as they discover that Hive plans on using the warhead stolen in an earlier episode to unleash the Inhuman contagion. I absolutely hated the development of Lash “curing” Daisy. It felt so cheap and unearned, and was a quick resolution to a really intricate problem the team was facing, almost as if the whole thing was simply a one and done issue to toss the side for the season finale.
If you didn’t guess it already, I really hated this episode. I think it took a lot of the goodwill produced by some of the better earlier episodes, and pushed a lot to the side to either get ready for the finale in an inorganic fashion or try to jackhammer the events of Civil War into the series. It doesn’t work and I hope that somehow we can find a more even keel for trying to incorporate the Marvel Universe into the show moving forward.
Rating: ★ Poor
Agents of M.I.S.C.E.L.L.A.N.E.A.
-James, a.k.a. Hellfire, uses his traditional flaming chain from the comics here for the first time.
-We get basically zero reaction from May that her ex-husband died. We get a single solitary shot of her kneeling next to his body, but that’s it. They needed to give us something more here.
-I’m a fan of what Brett Dalton has done with Hive, but its time for the actor to go. He’s run his course now and we need to go in a new direction for next season.
-Mack and Yo-Yo continue to be adorable together.
-Best Quotes:
Talbot - “What in the Kinevil happened to you?”
Daisy - “Was someone being a bad boy?”
May - “Time for your feeding.”
Fitz - “Seems like everything is going to hell and we’re only slowing things down for a minute."
Yo-Yo - “You need a beer and some faith.”
Lincoln - “I could fry that mustache right off your face.”
Talbot - “I don’t care if that thing used to be Ghandi!”
Watchdog - “End of the line Inhuman, there’s no where left to run.” James - “I suppose there’s always hell.”
Daisy - “We can still MacGyver you out.”
James - “They are some very ugly muffins.”
Talbot - “Who in tarnation names these things?”
