Agents of SHIELD: "The Singularity" Review (Season 3, Episode 18)

"Manners...maketh...man."

"The Singularity" was a worthy follow-up to last week's great episode, as the team got back into action after Daisy's betrayal. All of the main cast got to see some action, and everything seemed to work together quite well/

The ball gets rolling almost immediately with SHIELD recovering from Daisy's sabotage and in pursuit before the first commercial break. From there, Fitz, Simmons and Mack begin their quest for a cure for Hive-ness...Hive-itis? Ahh, whatever. Meanwhile, Coulson, May and Lincoln begin tracking down Daisy, Hive and his other Inhuman cronies.

It's always great to see Fitz and Simmons in the field, instead of in the lab or just there to spew some exposition-y technobabble. De Caestecker and Henstridge were both great and, as always, had awesome chemistry. Their dynamic this week reminded me of their energetic dynamic in Season 1. And then they finally "Cross the event horizon." Yay.

Hive and Daisy's Inhuman recruitment/enslavement tour provided a lot of entertainment, especially once they arrived on James'/Hellfire's doorstep. What I find very unnerving is how Daisy and the others don't seem like they're being mind-controlled. They still act like their normal selves, but probably a tad more aggressive. Daisy's confrontation with Fitz made this abundantly clear, since she tells him about her vision and warns him to back off or she'll snap his neck. Yeesh. But it's a much more interesting way of portraying mind control rather than having Hive's minions be emotionless puppets.

Hive and Daisy's rendezvous at the beginning of the episode was also one of its best scenes. It's been a while since we've seen Chloe Bennet and Brett Dalton on screen together, and both were awesome. Dalton, of course, continues to nail it, and he and Bennet were able to work off each other to make it feel like Daisy was with Hive, not Ward.  Bravo.

Other Thoughts:

• Yeah, Coulson's SHIELD shield was great. His Captain America fanboy-ing was showing again too.
• I thought Lincoln was awesome this week, especially when he rages out on the Alisha clone.
• Liked the Season 1 callback with the cyber-eyes. Where is Deathlok, anyway?

Rating: 8.5/10  murder vests

Next week, Hive goes all mad scientist on a few folks, and the Kree come a-knocking...

Noah