3x16 Paradise Lost

Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain. That's a lesson one notable baddie on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a forebear to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., delivered in a particularly harrowing episode. Apparently it's one that HiveWard, and the show's writers, took to heart. Malick spends the whole episode worrying that HiveWard is going to kill him, that he's stringing him along and propping him up in front of the rest of his Hydra buddies so that he can revel in his demise, only for the show to swerve us at the last minute.

It deserves credit for that. Too often, this show falls into predictable tropes and patterns, to where it's easy to call out plot point in advance. Here, the show seemed to be headed for an obvious end-point -- HiveWard carries the memories of Malick's brother, and takes his revenge by killing the man who brought him back to Earth. But HiveWard doesn't let him off that easy. Instead, he makes him suffer.

I appreciate the backstory to give Malick's relationship with HiveWard some depth. As usual, the acting was pretty middling, and the flashbacks were especially ham-fisted (though it was nice that they brought back Whitehall and differentiated the various factions within Hydra a bit) but the concept of HiveWard carrying a bit of the memories, a bit of the personalities of every one of his hosts is an intriguing science fiction twist to the whole collective consciousness angle. Many things about the back half of Season 3 have been a little lackluster, but HiveWard hasn't been one of them.

The whole attack with Giyera and bringing the ship down into a Hydra facility was kind of dull. The empty room fight scene between him and May had some pretty cool moments, but otherwise I'm kind of tired of his schtick. On the other hand, Daisy and Lincoln's run-in with the sarcastic Inhuman out in the desert was a hoot. Can we get more of him on the show? Maybe to replace Lincoln? It's always so striking when AoS brings in someone with real personality and character like Hunter and Mack because they immediately stand out amid the otherwise same-y vibe for the series. His anger, nonchalance, and mistrust for Lincoln were all endearing qualities in an agitator of a character, and hopefully it leads to more of him. I'm envisioning him as a Doc-like acolyte of either HiveWard or Lash for the inevitable confrontation.

It does feel like we're building toward that confrontation. James gives us a little more backstory on HiveWard, on the Kree, and how all of this got started. The show has been dabbling in a number of ideas of fate and destiny this half-season, from the prophetic visions last week's Inhuman gave to Daisy and to Malick, to the ideas Lincoln presents about every Inhuman being created for a reason. Hopefully the writers behind the show are actually going somewhere worthwhile with all of this, because while it's nice to get more background to heighten the stakes, it can feel like all for naught if the payoff isn't at least solid.

All-in-all, this was a decently good episode, with enough interesting ideas floating around to make up for the usual missteps and wobbliness of the execution. The Secret Warriors tease feels a little silly, but that's the campy tone of the show, so we'll see where it goes.