Dang it, SHIELD! I'm running out of ways to say "this episode was great" every week! Keep on being great, but you're paying for my eventual purchase of a thesaurus!
In all seriousness, this was another excellent week for SHIELD and this season has given us one fantastic episode after another, though they each have weak points, including "Many Heads, One Tale."
Right from the get-go, this episode is thrilling, as Malick tries to kill Ward after finding out he's after the contents of the VonStrucker family vault. Ward easily beats his attackers to a pulp, tortures them until he gets the location of the vault, and makes himself scarce. Those were some pretty intense scenes, reminding us that Ward's a pretty brutal guy and lightyears away from any sort of redemption, despite what others believe.
The main focus of the episode was what's really going on with Coulson and Rosalind, and it was refreshing to learn that Coulson wasn't so naive not to completely trust Rosalind and having the team infiltrate the ATCU while she visited SHIELD HQ. The scene where Coulson confronts Rosalind in the cell was a doozy, and when it became apparent that Rosalind was as in the dark about ATCU secrets as Coulson was, and Coulson continued to press her for answers, I was screaming in my head "Phil, shut up!"
The team's infiltration was also extremely entertaining, especially seeing so many of the characters together doing spy stuff, which we haven't seen in a while. Highlights included Hunter's cover as a hacker turned FBI agent and Daisy feeding him computer jargon to ramble on about, Mack's impression of a bubbly IT hotline guy, and Bobbi's fight with the Magneto-lite ATCU agent. A nice bit of heart was thrown into the mix too with a great scene between May and Lincoln where May apologizes for Andrew murdering Lincoln's friends. It was a nice little scene and it's always great to see May show some of her more compassionate side instead of her usual stoic demeanour.
Then, of course, there was the much-hyped about development in the Fitz/Simmons drama, as the two continued to find a way to save Will and confront the feelings they have for one another. I liked how Fitz brought up how cursed they are, which is something I brought up in my review of "4,722 Hours." Every time the two come close to expressing their feelings, a wrench is thrown on their plans. Simmons' dilemma as to who to be with is pretty understandable. Will was there for her on the planet and Fitz jumped through a hole in the universe to save her. As the IGN review for this episode said, it's a love triangle done right.
The biggest part of the episode was when all the subplots were revealed to be related, as Ward learned from Malick the true history of HYDRA. Turns out, they've been around longer than WWII, and their true mission is to find a way to rescue an exiled Inhuman from an alien world. If you haven't guessed it already, this Inhuman is most likely the one Simmons and Will met on that world, and HYDRA was the secret society that sent Will there. Malick's been using ATCU resources to build an Inhuman army (which Andrew looks as though he'll be recruited into) for the exile to command when he returns. It's a big retcon of HYDRA's comic origin, but it kind of works here. The main problem I have with it is why does every bad thing in Agents of SHIELD have to be caused by HYDRA? I was expecting, and looking forward to, a different evil organization for SHIELD to butt heads with, and there's no shortage of them in the Marvel universe. There's the Serpent Society, Zodiac, the Illuminati, AIM, those guys Nobu works for in Daredevil who gave him the Black Sky, or just make up a new one. HYDRA doesn't have to be the evil group behind everything.
Other Thoughts:
- So are Rosalind and Banks unofficially part of SHIELD now?
- The new HYDRA origin actually lends some context as to why they were after the Tesseract. It's the "Space Gem" and is a doorway to the other end of space as well as a huge power source.
- We got confirmation that Malick and the guy on the World Security Council, also played by Powers Boothe, are indeed the same character. Yay.
- Wow. Andrew's seemingly back in the game quicker than I thought he'd be.
- So even though Ward and Malick are "partners" now, it's hard for me not to think Ward still has a secret card to play at some point down the line.
- Aww. A baby monolith.
Rating: 9.0/10 cups of tea
SHIELD isn't back until December 1st, so I get a week to make it through Jessica Jones. When it returns, though, it looks like Coulson and Ward are having a showdown.
Noah
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