Currently my favourite show and I don't mind the Fight Club references at all. I can relate to Elliot as a nerd who has mental issues.
It's amazing how the handle the tension of this when we all know how it ends. All the time waiting for the moment when Christopher asks Simpson to try the gloves because we know they lost the case that day, and still, while everyone gets up to see if thei fit, the silence in the room made me sit in the edge of my seat.
A lot of TV series today rely on plot twist and surprise endings to keep us watching, and it's very nice to see that a good tv show can be made even without those things and still have tension and drama. And the cast only makes it better. By now I'm thinking this show the surprise of the season.
This episode was so hard to watch. Sarah Paulson deserves an Emmy.
Perhaps, 'til now, the best episode on this season.
Made me remember of that great movie called 'the Hedgehog Day'.
You have no ideia how exhausting is to be crazy.
I really liked the line "and when i saved someone. ..that's when it really made a change". Good episode, and i especially liked how fast writers moved pass a changed time line, not confusing us too much.
First I just want to say that I hope that this amazing show gets a second season, because apparently the timeline is not simple enough for some people.
Moving on, the biggest surprise of this episode is definitely the ending. Viewers already know that the recent missions Cole went on have not been successful in erasing the current dystopian future, yet the events of this episode ― sterilising the Precursor and/or Cassandra being kidnapped by the Army of the 12 Monkeys ― changed the 2043 we have came to know into an alternate dystopian future with West VII at its centre. And I'm sure I'm not the first one to mention this, but I'm now even more convinced that Cassandra and Jones are intricately linked, and the same goes for Cole and the Precursor, seeing as how Jennifer keeps mentioning both persons' eyes and the fact that Cole got a migraine from standing too close to the Precursor.
8.5/10
Wow. This episode was insane. Let's hope the finale is even better.
Harold casually strolling into an NSA facility to upload a super virus. I've never thought he was capable of pulling something like that off, but I love this darker version of him.
The simulations were my favorite part of the episode. It was interesting to see what the characters' lives would look like without The Machine. I'm thrilled that we got to see evil Root again. It made me realize (not for the first time) just how phenomenal Root's character development had been.
To quote Harold himself: "Anyone who looks on the world as if it were a game of chess deserves to lose". Samaritan's going down! But I hate the way they handled Greer's death, to be honest. He didn't deserve to die on his own terms. I wanted Shaw to kill him, preferably in a very painful, very creative way that would've made Game of Thrones look family-friendly in comparison. I wanted him to watch Samaritan burn. Why can't we have nice things?
I need to start preparing myself for next week. Don't get me wrong, I love all the main characters, but if Root's the only one to die this season, I will be bitter forever. I'm expecting a bloodbath, and I hope the writers don't disappoint me.
I want Rachel and Quinn on the same team again.
Best episode of this season
I can't stop laughing! By far the best episode this season.
"Ma'am your daughters dazzling eyes could start a fire themselves."
"Yea, Well that's terrifying."
Oh Catherine, you're just pure gold
This was the best episode of the entire series. Both extremely sad and funny.
I can't believe that happened to Poussey. I'm devasted.
Excellent way to end the season, this one has been the best since the first.
Really liked the idea of recruiting former numbers as assets. Also it gives a good foundation for a potential spinoff.
My poor Maura!
I don't want something bad happen to her.
Nina, thank God you're okay now.
Priyanka and Tate's acting during the scene where Simon is trying to convince Alex to get out of the car was fantastic.
I have to say I enjoyed seeing Rich Dotcom again lol! He may be a nut but he is a fun nut to watch. The ending with Bethany was a shock but I can't wait for what it means having her supposed dead g/f back on the scene!
Awesome finale and a great DC reference at the end. Can't wait for more.
Evil Katie Cassidy with black lipstick, dressed in leather? Sign me the hell up! I loved her!
My poor baby Caitlin. I'm glad she's back with the team. She, Barry and Cisco had a really nice moment with the group hug. The original trio of nerds back together, as it should be.
"This is the part where I play stupid and you explain the science."
That's it. That's the show in a nutshell.
A lot of good lines in this episode. Very quotable.
"- I didn't know you cared, Detective.
- Yes, you did."
That was a nice spin on the clichéd "I don't" response. Joe is a gift to this world.
I love how Cisco and Harry are BFFs now. Their relationship is super fun to watch.
Barry and Iris are adorable. I didn't really like the idea of those two together in season 1. I thought that their childhood-friends dynamic with the boy inevitably falling in love with the girl was kind of unoriginal and boring. Now I'm starting to like them. I still wouldn't mind Barry and Caitlin together, though. Grant Gustin is a magical actor who has chemistry with everyone.
I wish I could get my hands on Zoom right now. Damn, leave Barry alone! That puppy of a person has been through enough. He deserves some happiness for once.
If all doppelgangers are mirror reflections of each other, does this mean that 90% of the population on Earth 2 are left-handed?
What an episode! Zoom causing his usual havoc, Barry refusing to recreate the 'accident' made him into the Flash and we get to see Cisco's brother and his Earth 2 doppelganger. Now onto that ending...wow...Barry decides to go ahead with the particle acceleration recreation and get his powers back to stop Zoom. It goes spectacularly wrong as Barry is apparently disintegrated and Wally and Jesse get caught up in the energy wave.
Well for me this can only mean Barry is gonna be trapped in the Speed Force and Wally and Jesse are on their way to becoming their comic book counterparts Kid Flash and Jesse Quick. I hope I'm right cos that is gonna be so cool! Roll on the next episode, I can't wait!!!
I bought that Lincoln wanted to get out of the old SSR base. I bought that he believed in Daisy, and that after seeing Talbot and the way he was being treated by Shield, that he would be more amenable to breaking out and chasing after her. I believed his puppy dog eyes and his anger and his "I was only ever hear for you" routine.
And that's a good thing! Too often, this show's beats, plot developments, and even lines are too predictable. It's pleasant to have a show like AoS be able to successfully misdirect you now and again. Granted, part of that stems from the fact that Lincoln has been written as something of an idiot who would be the exact type of person to get suckered in by a feint from Daisy, but still. That's using the audience's expectations in your favor, and that's a good thing.
The downside is that at the end of the day, I just don't care about Daisy and Lincoln as a couple. Does anyone? There have to be some people out ther who think it's a good idea, right? I just can't get over their lack of chemistry, or the way it feels like the two of them are just going through the motions. This was the most convincing Lincoln has ever been in his affections for Daisy, and it was all, ostensibly, a deception. Now maybe you can handwave it based on the principle that he was using his real emotions about missing Daisy to deceive her, but still, it's tough to center the big twist in an episode on a relationship that the audience has trouble buying into.
What's strange is that the show has done particularly well at setting up other relationships. Fitz and Simmons barely get any time to be romantic with one another in this episode, and yet even Fitz's little comment about whether Simmons is free for an hour is just cute enough, and their chemistry is so perfect, that it's enough to buoy an otherwise tense moment. At the same time, Mack and Elena have probably spent a grand total of about 15 minutes on screen together over the course of three episodes, and yet I'm truly rooting for them.
Part of that is just the alchemy of two actors finding the right vibe together, and you can't coach that or write it or direct it; it just sort of happens. But much of it is in the writing and the performances. We see Mack and Elena coming from different places and having common ground. We see Mack being something approaching a Shield lifer, whereas Elena is just getting started. We see Elena being a woman of supreme faith, with Mack questioning his. Nevertheless, they clearly have empathy and affection for one another despite their differing points of view, and it makes them feel closer and more relatable for it.
Coulson and Talbot, on the other hand, are not especially close. Talbot is finally let into the new Shield HQ without being blindfolded or otherwise hoodwinked on his way, as Coulson let's him see behind the curtain. Talbot, of course, doesn't like what he sees -- a hotheaded Inhuman, a monster kept in a box, and lots of information about Hive and Daisy that Coulson isn't particularly forthright with.
In the wake of all of this, we get a bit of Civil War redux. It's a laudable attempt to meld AoS with its cinematic counterparts, even though the film side of the MCU has little interest in coordinating with the plebs on the boob tube. Again, you have to more or less handwave why The Avengers aren't involved with Hive, but that's firmly within the confines of acceptable willing suspension of disbelief, and having Talbot as the effective representative of the Sokovia Accords is a nice way to, at a minimum, inject some of the ideas and themes of the latest Captain America film into the show.
Talbot, for his part, represents some legitimate concerns. The Inhumans have done some pretty severe damage. Not being able to keep track of powered people means that folks like Daisy can be out there and dangerous with no supervision and limited control, putting everyone, even the highly trained Shield agents, at risk. On the other hand, Coulson's not out of line when he says that he's kept lists like that in the past and he's seen where they lead, and that by the time the government cuts through all the red tape to approve a mission, it may be too late to stop someone like Hive. He even does a good job of trying to distinguish Shield from The Avengers by noting that the more prominent superhero team is a very public group, whereas Shield is, at least nominally, supposed to operate in the shadows.
Sometimes that type of operation leads to taking steps that the higher ups in the government wouldn't appreciate, like sending one monster to take out another. The whole Lash thing has been pretty hit or miss in my book. I love the dichotomy of Andrew Garner having to balance his real persona with this force within him, and yet having a roided up Sonic the Hedgehog roaming around with his chintzy forehead prosthetics didn't do much for me. The idea that every Inhuman has a destiny and a purpose and that Lash's was to save Daisy makes me wonder why he had to kill all of those other Inhumans to achieve that goal. It also makes me wonder why he didn't make more of an effort to kill the guy who was making more Inhumans before he went all Florence Nightingale on Miss Johnson.
But that, I suppose, would have deprived us of two more episodes where we get to see the Shield team do battle with Hive and take on his "primitive Inhumans" who seemed like mild versions of the Putties the Power Rangers used to fight. It would also deprive us of a brief but emotional scene of May mourning the man she loves, and of Shield getting its protagonist back on the side of the good guys where the big villain (not to mention his Gambit-inspired henchman) are still out there to fight.
But that's the other side of the twist. Surprises are nice, but if you look back at them and discover that the narrative loop-de-loops were just a means to move the pieces around the board so that they're ready for the next big event, the twist still seems cool, but also a bit hollow. It's nice to see some growth from Lincoln, that he can be a team player even when it involves his girlfriend and he's smart enough not to trust someone under Hive's "sway" no matter how much he might want to. It's nice to see Talbott at least halfway understand Coulson's position and give him enough leash to do what he needs to do. It's nice to see Elena hand Mack the infamous necklace (in what's probably a fake out) that seems to spell doom.
At the end of the day, however, this all has to amount to something. Too often, Agents of Shield is just a series of semi-cool moments and action movie trailer one-liners, without enough connective tissue or narrative momentum to hold them together. I enjoyed those moments for the most part in this episode, but I'm still waiting to see if they'll add up to something greater.
