3x09 Closure

9.5/10. One of the most intense episodes AoS has ever done, for all the right reasons.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s spiritual forebearer, a character was killed with little-to-no warning. In the aftermath, their significant other changed, became irrational, vengeful, and impulsive. It's hard not to see the echoes of that storyline here as Coulson becomes coldly focused on taking out Ward in the wake of him killing Rosalind.

But isn't that just like a Whedon show? Or even a Whedon-lite show? Take a couple of characters who have affection for each other, let them circle around one another for a while, and then right when they move past their issues and get together, kill one of them off? It's an old trick, and a pretty convenient one when you're trying to maintain conflict in a show, but damn if it didn't work like gangbusters here, both as an unexpected shock in the opening minute of an otherwise placid scene, and as a motivation for Coulson to go full commando in his single-minded pursuit to bring Ward to justice.

And one of the things I love about the show at this point in its lifespan is that it's been around enough that it can recognize and invoke its own history. As the show was still getting off the ground, it had to hunt for scraps from the Marvel films to give it legitimacy and weight in the broader scope of the MCU. But now, with two and a half seasons behind it, AoS can use its past to inform its present. To the point, we have mentions of Garrett, of Ward nearly drowning FitzSimmons, of Daisy sympathizing with Ward after remembering how she was suckered in by her mother, and Ward talking about the lessons he's learned about not following someone or something blindly. There's layers to the characters' development on this show, and it's nice to see the series mining that.

To wit, we finally have a bit more clarity as to what happened with Ward and his family through Ward's younger brother Thomas. I like the decision for the show to have its cake and eat it to on that front, with Ward's parents and brother genuinely having been abusive, but having Ward be legitimately cruel in the wake of that abuse. It helps explain who Ward is without justifying his actions, and the story told by Thomas, along with the actor's performance, went a long way toward bringing that point home.

Make no mistake, this was Ward's episode as much as it was Coulson's. The dialogue, as usual, is a little too on the nose, but Ward's not wrong when he tells Coulson that they're not so different. They each have cell-phone throwing fits after being thwarted and out-guessed by the other. They both have a revenge mission. They're both putting their personal issues ahead of their broader goals. I've gone back and forth on Brett Dalton's performance in the show, but he cut the right streak of eerily calm, coldly sadistic, and angry-yet-vulnerable in that distress.

Clark Gregg wasn't quite as impressive on that front, but still managed to do a very good job at selling Coulson's immediate and understandable turn from casual, if dad-like Lothario to trained spy ready to put his skills to use in service of taking out his enemy whatever the cost.

There's a lot more going on in the episode as well that shows promise. I'm running out of ways to talk about how good and compelling the dynamic between Fitz and Simmons is. Fitz's pained reactions to Simmons being tortured, and Simmons distress at Fitz planning to enter the portal and plea that he let them kill her instead were both emotionally piercing moments. Mallick has grown on me, and his speech to Ward about leading, about hoping to find someone who could seize the opportunity with him, was delivered superbly and made Mallick more than just a cackling villain.

And now we have DIrector Mack! He's been one of the more likeable and charismatic characters on the show lately, so it's nice to see him get a more prominent role. Daisy is officially leading a team of Inhumans, and while that has less promise in my book, it's still nice to see them finally pull the trigger on something they've been teasing for so long. And Bobbi and Hunter are once again playing the "this is an unnecessary risk" game, with Coulson in tow this time. Not all of this contributed to the meat of the episode, but each, at a minimum provided a solid building block, and in the case of Fitz and Simmons, raised the stakes of the episode's main plot.

It wasn't perfect though. The score was particularly overbearing here -- we didn't need sad violins to know that Coulson was upset by Rosalind's death. And even in a show with aliens and super powers, it's pretty implausible for Coulson to be able to jump out of a plane and land perfectly into a portal the size of a kiddie pool. Still, throwing three of the show's main characters, two of whom have tremendously bad blood with the other, onto an alien planet that was the site of the series best episode to date, is a hell of a way to head into the midseason finale. This was a thriller of an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and helps bring the slower parts of the season together into a rollicking finish. I'm looking forward to it.