6.8/10
Lincoln is one of the most boring characters on a show that has had to fight accusations that it's dull. Focusing the main story of the episode on him was a recipe for doldrums that the show lived up to. Even seeing him go all Static Shock on the power lines or bus or guards didn't do much for me. Accidentally killing a friend who's mistrustful of you should be a meaningful event, but it was constructed so haphazardly, and with such an uninteresting character, that I barely cared. The lack of chemistry between him and Skye/Daisy meant that I only groaned when they kissed. Daisy herself has had to overcome bland mary sue characterization, and pairing her with a piece of stubbly milquetoast doesn't do anything to help that.
I did appreciate Coulson's part of it. I go back and forth on his interactions with Rosalind. On the one hand, at times it feels like a dinner theater version of Hepburn and Tracy. On the other hand, when things are clicking, it makes Coulson feel like a human being and not just a delivery mechanism for exposition, high-minded ideals, and ill-fitting quips. I'm cautiously optimistic about the storyline, and especially pleased that they tied it to Coulson learning lessons from the "Real Shield" debacle.
Hunter and May's storyline worked well enough, as they're two of the better characters on the show, even if the "fight club to get into Hydra" plot felt a bit tacked on. May struggling to not just get right down to business in the pub while Hunter and his mate were Brit-ing it up was amusing, and her and Hunter feinting toward what happened during May's vacation was nice. I was surprised at how bloody they let the Hunter fight get, and it's always nice to see May kicking some ass, even if it felt shoehorned in. Again, we'll see where it goes.
And as usual, Fitz and Simmons are the best thing about the show, with Fitz doing everything he can to get things back to normal even if it's not what Simmons needs, and Simmons convincingly showing the psychological scars from her experiences. Are Fitz and Simmons's storylines any better than anyone else's? Probably not, but they're better actors than most on the show, and they sell the emotional undercurrent of all of their stories, which gives them greater weight than anyone but May can muster.
(Oh, and what was with all of the dutch angles in this episode? Seemed like a weird quirk in the way the episode was shot.)
When they showed off the hard drives they took from the suspect in this episode, they showed a power supply. This is like saying they took a generator and showing an extension cable.
Far and away the best episode Agents of Shield has ever produced. The only episode that can give it a run for its money is last season's spotlight episode on how May earned her nickname. There's a lesson there -- centering an episode on an individual story, particularly one that centers around one of the better actors in the cast, gives the show a focus that is often lacking when trying to juggle multiple intersecting plotlines at once.
This was a hell of a showcase for Elizabeth Henstridge. The production design team helped. (Production design as a plus in 'Agents of Shield"? I"m as surprised as you are.) The blue tint was a cheap way to sell the alienness of the world, but it totally worked, and the dessert topography really sold the desolateness of the environment and contributed to the sense of hopelessness in that world.
But Henstridge is what made the episode work. She sold the isolation, the small moments of crestfallen loneliness and discouragement, the little joys of success and friendship, the simple humanity of a survival story. Her burp, her wistfulness when she says "My dad would like you," and her conversations with an imaginary Fitz (a nice nod toward Fitz doing the same routine last season) all made her feel like a three-dimensional person in an extreme situation. There's a sense that this is Marvel's take on 'Castaway' or even 'Last Man on Earth', and doing this kind of laser-focused narrative requires a lot of the actors involved. These types of stories are, by necessity, character pieces; Henstridge was more than up to the challenge, and it deepened my appreciation for Simmons.
The actor who played Will was pretty good as well, and while his story could have felt too cliche, it worked in the context of the episode as a whole. Really, this felt like a well-structured science fiction short story as much as it did an episode of an ongoing series, and that's not a knock. Knowing Fitz and Simmons's relationship helped give certain moments more weight and significance, but it could almost work as a standalone piece. That's how strong and self-contained this was.
There was also a legitimate sense of menace from the planet. The zomibe-like astronaut, the tentacle creature, and the dust storms all suggested something frightening and alien about this world. It prompted so many great emotional moments from the two characters stuck on it. Doing an episode like this, so unlike AoS's usual M.O., was something of a gamble, but it paid off like gangbusters here.
Oh my fucking god. During the conversation between Daisy and May' husband, I was struck by a random thought: what if he's Lash? It would work for him surviving that ambush, maybe explain why he supposedly left May, the thing they made all mysterious and shit, and would be ironic because of him evaluating other inhumans while also being shocking, personal and impactful for the main group of characters. And now the show reveals that is true. proudly brushes dust off of my invisible detective badge
"i've just got science stuff. stuff i've got to science the stuff out of" i love barry omg
Yeesssss, I was really missing Dr Wells. Love to see him being a douchebag. This episode was dope. Honestly, I love this new dick and badass Dr Wells. I was hoping to see Tom Cavanagh again in the show. He is absolutely amazing. But I have one quetion, is it a coincidence that Zoom sends Linda Park to kill the Flash? or does he knew more about it? I really think that Zoom is Barry from Earth-2 or from another time line. This will be awesome. I just want to know more about Zoom.
Anyhow, this was the best episode of the season so far.
I enjoy so much Tom Cavanagh's performance of another different character and the way he reacted when Caitlin and Cisco told him about his counterpart from Earth-1
Good episode that one. Lots of things to comment on. I love coincidences and casualities and seeing Barry in Dr Wells wheelchair was incredible. Not to say seeing Harry Wells in the Reverse Flash suit (I have to confess that I got excited). I love the way Tom Cavanagh plays his roles, absolutely different to one another, but brilliant. He is amazing. Indeed, Cisco training Harry to be Wells was hillarious, even when he asked him to say that famous sentence. It was cool to see their different reactions to that sentence (Cisco's expression was like holy crap! whereas Wells was like wtf). The Wells dynamic is gold! When Cisco said "give me Your best Wells" I couldn't laugh more. The same happened when he said "up the creep factor". That one was pure gold. And seeing Wells back in the Reverse Flash suit was wow, pretty haunting. Even the way he talked to Grodd made me think that he is still hiding something. I love seeing a bit of the Wells we all knew.
Besides, as Barry spends most of the episode on the wheelchair, we get to know more of the dynamic Cisco-Wells, which is something I've been eaiting for since Harry appeared at STAR labs.
This episode was not only about Grodd, but also about Barry's fears and trauma, which I liked a lot. I still think that Zoom is Barry's dad and, until someone tells me the opposite (which I wish, otherwise it will disappoint me to know it from the very first episodes) I will think the same. And come on, he appears just after Zoom, too obvious to tjink that Henry csn be Zoom. Anyway, seeing Henry back is so great. He shouldn't have left so soon and the way he did.
I love what the scriptwriter do in The Flash, those film references! That ending reminded me so much to the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but with giant ones. Moreover, Caitlin's clothes and the fact that Grodd keeps her locked in a huge building...absolutely amazing.
Thea has the best line. "A bunch of superheroes hiding out at a farm house, I feel like I have seen that before in a movie."
RIP to all the phones who gave up their lives in this episode :P
Great episode this week. Some intense stuff. Coulson going all Captain America haha, loved it :D
Sad to see Ros and Banks die. Really thought they'd stay for longer.
Love to see what'll happen next. This is getting really exciting. Loving every bit of it!
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.
A Perl vs Python rant? Really? It's like the show writer went on USENET to pilfer for quotes for the technobabble.
I really hate this anti-Putin and anti-Russian propaganda that is going on on american tv. There is no "mass corruption" in Russia as they say, and all those "anti-Putin bloggers" are just pets of american government who are spreading lies about "corruption" in Russian government and if any danger will get close to them (by the way, Putin did not pursuit ANY "opposite" blogger at all), they will flee to america to their masters. I bet that creators were forced to put this story about bloggers and Russian spies, because it seems to be totally out context.
HANDS DOWN TO THE SASSIER TRIO ON TELEVISION: CAPTAIN COLD, HEATWAVE AND WHITE CANARY.
I was pissed the whole time at Barry for not saying to Patty about him. He was so retarded for being mute all the time she started talking about them and even letting her go in the end like that when she said she's leaving the city. I was like "JUST FREAKING TELL HER ALREADY YOU IDIOT, DON'T BE MUTE LIKE THAT". Jesus. And Wally made zero sense to me, the way he was bitching to Joe about him, and it was him who came to them in the first place. WTF he wants then? Bad script really.
WTF! I definitely did NOT see that coming. Killing one of your main characters in your pilot (albeit part two) is unheard of. I'm really shocked. Hawkman is the shortest-lived main character in the Arrowverse
I hate characters like Pike, you just know that the only reason they exist is to cause trouble... Come on writers of The 100, you can do better than that...
as if the girl power until now wasnt enough with peggy, now we have a female villain whos super smart and super badass and i am so hyped
I thought it was impossible that Malcolm could be so easily defeated. But anyway, there's no Ra's al ghul but the consequences will be unbearable. Now Dahrk knows about William and Ollie doesn't even suspect that Malcolm and Dahrk are working together.
Anyhow, I enjoyed this episode a lot. I loved the father-daughter relationships alongside and I hope the season keeps on like that. Fights, betrayals and that Oliver. I need that Oliver from Seasons 1 N' 2. That is the one we all fans want.
Awesome episode. Looking forward to next week's. Excited to see how the plot evolves. and also to dig more information about the grave thing. Crossing names out of the list. The same goes for The Flash.
Peace out!!!
Just been rescued after months of painful, psychologically-traumatising incarceration at the hands of the multiverse's biggest, nastiest speedster? Pull out the "I can't leave - what about my life, my friends!?" line when your father tries to save you from a horrible death.
Whoever wrote that needs a whipping.
As soon as I saw Jay standing alone by the not entirely closed breach I fucking knew he's a goner. But what's up with the man in the mask "knocking out" his name? Is Jay a key to defeating Zoom? Is Hunter Zolomon Zoom after all and it wasn't just an easter egg for the comic book readers? My original thought that the Earth-2 Jay is somehow Zoom from the past and his experimenting with Velocity' variations will be his super villain origins, but surely Zoom wouldn't kill himself, so that went out of the window. I also had a crazy thought that the man in the mask himself is Jay, because the back of his head looked kind of similar. Man it's messing with my head. They sure keep up the mystery this season.
Every time I see Kane, I can't help but think of Desmond and how I miss his accent in Lost.
This episode was the first in a while that focused mainly in the relationships between the characters and the action was not very important. Liked the change of pace and I want to see how Liz will deal with these two men trying to control her life now.
im not seeing anyone making death threats to writers or crying and downvoting because Sinclair died, but its ok, he wasnt gay so he is unimportant and it doesent matter if he dies
i love Miller and i loved Lexa, but Lexa died to move the plot foward not because the writers thought "oh lets kill Lexa because she is gay haha so funny"
how many main characters have died? more than 10 for sure, so why we only focus on the gay one? gay characters are unkillable? for me they are the same as any character i dont make distinctions and neither the writers
My name is Barry Allen, and I am the dumbest Man Alive. To the Earth-2 people I am an ordinary speedster, but secretly with the help of Dr Wells I gave my speed to Zoom and became a normal guy. I hunted down the man who killed Jay Garrick, but in doing so, he took Caitlin as a prisoner and my speed was gone. And I am the only one dumb Enough to do it. I am the Dumb
Another great episode. Probably one of my favourites of the entire show, to be honest.
I couldn't stop cracking up for the first 5 minutes. The scene with The Machine experiencing a facial recognition error was shown at New York Comic Con last October. I watched it on YouTube months ago, and I thought it was pure gold, but I was sure it was just a fun, little bonus. I never expected it to be an actual scene from an actual episode, but I'm so glad it is. The cast's impressions of each other were hilarious. Amy Acker's Reese and Finch were particularly on point. We also got Root in bunny slippers and her and Finch redecorating the subway. It was nice to have some happy stuff before things got serious again.
The Machine going crazy was really sad for me, especially when Harold realised that she was suffering, reliving her deaths over and over. His speech about things not being black and white and about people doing their best really touched me. Harold was a different man when he created The Machine, and since then he's had to learn that good and bad aren't always mutually exclusive, which is exactly what The Machine needed to understand in this episode. I love how they draw parallels between The Machine and her human agents.
How great is the relationship between Root and Harold? They've come so far. She kidnapped him when they first met, and now they're working together, fighting against Samaritan together, living together, and he's willing to sacrifice The Machine if he has to choose between her and Root? I'm in tears. And Bear likes Root too!
Of course that random guy we saw in the middle of the episode wasn't random. I really should've seen it coming.
The ending was amazing as well. Team Machine on a picnic? That's some fanfiction shit right there, and I love it. I know it won't last, but they deserve some peace and quiet every once in a while.
One of the greatest Game of Thrones episodes EVER, from the start to the finish. May this season be the best one so far!
Seeing Jon and Sansa reuniting was so satisfying ^_^ Sansa has matured a lot. Brienne actually made it in time for once xD
Loved the ending. Danny with her usual coming out of the fire naked, looking badass xD
Okay, so apparently this episode aired a day early in Canada? Thank you, Canada. You rock.
That being said, my mind is filled with incomprehensible yelling, and my hands are shaking, so I'll keep this one brief.
Have we just watched Shaw's Winter Soldier origin story?
Sarah Shahi was on fire, hot damn. What an amazing performance.
I was sure that Shaw's escape wasn't real the moment I saw that random-ass boat. Way too convenient. Then the episode made me doubt a few times whether it was a simulation or reality, but in the end it turned out to be exactly what I'd suspected from the beginning.
I'd been waiting to see my baby Shaw again for so long, but I wasn't prepared for that. God, I can't deal with my emotions. It's too much.
I just really want them to kill Greer, all right? Slowly and painfully. Hell, I'd kill that asshole myself if I could.
If the simulation was in Shaw's head, why wasn't it from her point of view? And have those creeps watched Shoot bang every time they've run it?
This episode was unbelievably sad, and I'll probably still be crying about it next week, but Sarah Shahi tearing apart Amy Acker's shirt might just be the greatest thing I've ever witnessed with my own two eyes. Is there any chance we'll get some more of that when Root and Shaw are finally reunited in the real world?
Shaw has chosen to put a bullet in her head 6,741 times instead of killing Root. I'm bawling. Ultimate OTP goals right there.
What an exquisite episode. It struck the perfect balance between heartbreaking and awesome. Easily one of the best they've ever done and definitely in my top 3.
I'll be on the floor sobbing uncontrollably if anyone would like to join me.
Damn, this season has been epic as fuck. Hope they can keep up this quality for next season and don't give in to the stupid Tumblr fans like Arrow has.
