8.8/10. This wasn't perfect -- everyone from Ward to Gideon Malick to Coulson himself can devolve into sounding more like a Bond villain than someone truly evil or scary, and the action scenes still tend to be underwhelming, but this was still a very good episode that did a great job at trying many of the threads that have been spun this season together.
The big reveal involving the true motivation of Hydra is some pretty sizeable plot machinery to move into place, and helps give AoS a certain gravity in the events it's depicting this season, something helpful when the Marvel movies seem to ignore what's happening on television (and essentially vice versa in AoS Season 2). Connecting Mallick to everything from the ATCU, the Monolith, the Inhumans, and more gives the season a certain retroactive focus that's makes you go "Aha!" when it all comes together. Charting the way forward, of course, could be perilous, but it was a satisfying reveal that adds shading to everything Hydra's done in the MCU, which counts for something.
As for the individual pieces of the episode, I generally liked Coulson and Rosalind's scenes, and the actress who plays Rosalind really sold the character's hurt and thinking their whole relationship was a plot. The infiltration story with Bobbi, Hunter, Daisy, and Mack was a fun little jaunt as well, and it seems like the show is leaning more toward these types of mini-plots within episodes. Ward got a little hammy at times, but his sequence on the airplane was creepy and great, and I enjoyed his and Mallick's exchanges at the end of the episode as well.
And they kissed! FitzSimmons kissed! I know the folks behind the show are just stringing us along, but the FitzSimmons storyline continues to be one of the strongest elements of the show, and the fact that they vocalized and developed how uncomfortable their situation is right now was a nice touch, even if Simmons storming off felt like a little too much. (It makes total sense from a character standpoint that she'd feel that way and react that way. I don't object to that, but there was just something...preteen whiny(?) in the depiction of her frustration that took it down a notch.) Still, it was an emotionally-charged scene that let the actors carry the weight of the moment. Great stuff.
Otherwise, I continue not to care about Lincoln, and I'm very intrigued as to where AoS is going with this Hydra storyline. There was a good bit of promise here.
(Oh, and I also liked the throwaway line that confirmed that Powers Boothe was playing the same guy he was in Avengers.)
I hate the team being split apart, I hate this whole bureaucracy bullshit, I hate people saying "that's classified", I hate the new SHIELD. Or the old SHIELD, I guess. Like, I understand that they had to become legit again at some point, but so far, I don't like it.
Aside from the aforementioned things, I actually enjoyed this episode a lot. Daisy's storyline is pretty interesting, and I learned a little more about Ghost Rider. I didn't grow up reading comic books. I didn't even know that this character existed until he was introduced on the show, so, unsurprisingly, I wasn't on the Ghost Rider Hype Train. I think he's cool, he looks awesome, and I can't wait to see his backstory, but I'm just not losing my mind over him like a lot of other people. Every season needs a villain (Is he even a villain? I'm honestly not sure at this point), and we've already had a Neo Nazi organisation which turned out to be a weird cult, an ancient parasitic creature banished to another planet and brought back by said cult to rule the world, and a batshit crazy immortal Inhuman that wanted to kill 99% of humanity. Ghost Rider is a dude running around Los Angeles killing pedophiles and murderers. Okay, so he sold his soul to the devil, but he still feels like significantly less of a threat than some of the bad guys we've had before. He seems pretty powerful, I'll give him that, but Daisy should've totally kicked his ass. She can bring down buildings with her powers, for crying out loud. She could've just launched his fiery ass into the Pacific or something.
So the new director is a boring, generic white dude... HOLY SHIT, he's an Inhuman! That was something I definitely didn't see coming.
I wish they'd just stop hurting May for 5 seconds. They should create a spin-off called "Melinda May has a nice day, there's no crisis or impending doom, nobody dies and everyone's happy for a change". I'd totally watch it.
The heartbreak on Mack's face when he realised that YoYo had been working with Daisy this whole time... I have no words.
And the "the most ridiculous thing in this episode" award goes to a group of government officials on a tour around a clandestine SHIELD base acting like a bunch of overexcited 9-year-olds on a school trip.
Overall, it was a good episode, a lot of stuff happened, the special effects were cool, as always. See you next week!
YASSSSSS! Get ready, HYDRA, Quake is coming for all of your asses. As soon as I saw those Terrigen crystals in the lab, I knew Daisy was going to get her hands on them somehow. With only 4 episodes left, they really need to start wrapping up the Framework business soon. At least Radcliffe told Daisy how to get out (their whole conversation was absolutely heartbreaking, by the way; I never thought I'd feel bad for Radcliffe, but I'm kind of a mess because of him now). I was afraid Aida would interrupt them or kill him before he got the chance, but apparently even she can't predict everything.
I like how Jemma is obviously struggling with accepting the fact that even though the Framework is not real, what goes on inside it feels real. It's even more challenging for her now that she's met Mack because he is pretty much the only team member who is happy in the Framework. Coulson feels ashamed of the part he played in spreading HYDRA's lies, May has to live with the consequences of what she did in Bahrain, Mace lost everyone he cared about, Fitz is arguably the most miserable of them all (even if he doesn't realize it). But Mack has his daughter and a quiet life, and the world ruled by HYDRA may be horrible, but he's probably happier here than Jemma's ever seen him in real life and you can see her determination waver, if just for a second. Because she knows that in the end, she'll have to take his little girl away from him, and sure, Hope may not technically be real, but she talks and smiles, and plays, and makes her father laugh, and she's smart, and sweet, and how can Jemma possibly tell Mack that his child is just a string of ones and zeroes?
I will never be able to look at Iain de Caestecker the same way again. Evil Fitz is genuinely frightening. One moment that really got me in this episode was when he wiped his hands after hitting Daisy. As if she, an Inhuman, was filthy. It made me feel a little bit sick.
We finally got to meet Fitz's father, who looks a lot more unassuming than I imagined (but to be fair, at this point I pretty much imagined Hitler, so there's that). But he's exactly as cold, aloof and ruthless as I expected. What could Fitz's mother possibly have seen in this guy?
I loved the scene when we saw a crack in May's façade. You could really feel all the pain she hides beneath. She just can't catch a break, can she? She kills a little girl, it shatters her into a million pieces and she has to live with the weight of it. She saves the little girl, hundreds of people die, Nazis take over and she has to carry a different kind of a burden, one that isn't any lighter or easier to bear. At least she's awake now. I knew Coulson would be her trigger, even if he himself doesn't quite remember their relationship.
Antoine Triplett, as I live and breathe! It's been so long. I never thought we'd see him again. Remember when he and Daisy (who was still Skye back then) were partners and went on missions together? Good times.
Mace's death didn't come as much of a surprise, but it was poignant and beautifully done. I never really bonded that much with his character, but it still hit me right in the feels. I wonder who's in charge of SHIELD now.
It's super cool when a show has built enough of its own mythology to be able to drop references to things that happened in the previous seasons. There were plenty of those here: Coulson getting "hives" when looking at Ward, Cal's super strength serum with a drop of peppermint, Bakshi's brainwashing recording... It feels so satisfying when you've been watching something for years and the showrunners put those little Easter eggs in there, like they're asking, "You get it, right? You see what we did there?"
(Yes, I do.)
All the Framework episodes have been excellent so far, and it's kind of hard to rank them, but dare I say this was the best one yet?
