Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 1]
Pilot
Shown 24/Sep/13
This show kicks off in the aftermath of the
Avengers Assemble
movie.
With scavengers looting debris from the battle over NYC,
all that alien tech is for sale on the black market -
creating a new arms race.
Maria Hill (
Cobie Smulders
) and Agent Colson select a new unit
operating out of a military-grade super-jet.
The first recruit for this unit is a Field Agent named Grant Ward,
who acquits himself well in an
Alias
style burglary of an Arms dealer's office.
Unfortunately the Agent's action skills are countered
by his apparent lack of social skills,
which will no doubt make for a lack of sparkling dialogue in future episodes.
Luckily, they also recruit Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) - an unbelievably beautiful female computer hacker.
Mike Peterson (J. August Richards, a Joss Whedon employee from
Angel
) gets superpowers. However, power corrupts -
and with great power comes great responsibility.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 2]
0-8-4
Shown 01/Oct/13
The team investigate a mysterious WMD discovered in an ancient temple in Peru.
It seems to be a Hydra design, so SHIELD make recovering it a priority.
The local rebels interfere, but the Policia are on hand to help.
Coulson has history with the Latina babe who commands the Peruvian military cops.
The SHIELD team have trouble working as a ... team.
Will they pull together when the going gets tough?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 3]
The Asset
Shown 08/Oct/13
The ep starts with an ambush on a high-security convoy,
used by SHIELD to protect a high-value asset - like in
X-Men 3: Last Stand
. The villains kidnap John Harrison's son from
Longitude
.
The suspect is Ian Quinn (David Conrad, AKA the hubby from
Ghost Whisperer
), a Billionaire with a mansion in a non-extradition country.
Yes, he bought Malta and made it an independent Republic!
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) the pretty girl (hey, they are ALL too pretty to be believable)
is sent undercover - like in
Alias
. The billionaire believes in freedom of information -
will Skye defect to him,
or will she continue to sell out and work for the MIBs?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 4]
Eye Spy
Shown 15/Oct/13
An African-American woman in Sweden commits a massacre (and diamond heist) in the dark.
Coulson has the team specially assigned,
presumably because he recognises the description.
However, nobody understands the killer's MO
(she keeps her eyes shut, but can see through walls)
or even has a good photo of her ...
Hacker girl Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) reminds Coulson that Little Brother (personal photo and vid albums on the Internet)
contain vast amounts of data that Big Brother (the MIBs of SHIELD) can crunch.
Thus, she continues to be a sell-out.
The SHIELD team intend to put her on trial.
How this can be accomplished is never explained.
SHIELD is not UN sanctioned,
and she cannot be sent to the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
Also, any trial would have to be top-secret
so the Agency that controlled her would not
be able to kill her and tie up loose ends.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 5]
Girl in the Flower Dress
Shown 22/Oct/13
A low-grade pyro-kinetic is abducted, and the SHIELD team must locate him.
The scientists from the pilot episode, Raina (
Ruth Negga
) and Doctor
Shannon Lucio
need him for their Super-Soldier program.
And this involves corrupting him into becoming a supervillain.
The info was hacked by Red Sky, the hacker collective.
This brings Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) the hacker-babe's loyalties into doubt.
If SHIELD actually trusted the hacker-babe,
she could have gotten the info quickly and quietly.
After all, they trusted her enough to send her
into a billionaire villain's lair only an episode previously!
Are SHIELD a gang of fascists?
They confiscate everyone's money and throw them in prison without a trial.
Well, the Agent who got the kill-chip in her head got a trial,
but she was operating under duress so she was clearly a victim.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 6]
F.Z.Z.T.
Shown 05/Nov/13
The Agents investigate a series of mysterious deaths
linked to an electro-magnetic phenomenon.
The combat-orientated characters are not much use
without a villain for them to fight.
Instead, Fitz-Simmons the scientists actually get to do something.
The girl scientist in particular gets put in harm's way.
Rent-a-villain Titus Welliver (
Lost
) pops up as a SHIELD Agent.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 7]
The Hub
Shown 12/Nov/13
Last week Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) the girl scientist was in harm's way.
This time it is Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) the male scientist's opportunity to show his stuff.
He gets sent in with the secret agent,
so they can prevent South Ossetian seperatists from deploying a superweapon.
Meanwhile, Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) the hacker babe tries to get around security at SHIELD HQ.
The girl scientist lends a hand.
Coulson's boss, Agent Hand (
Saffron Burrows
) is in charge of things.
She takes a much stricter approach than he does.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 8]
The Well
Shown 19/Nov/13
The team are on clean-up detail after the events of
Thor 2
. By strange coincidence, some villainous types
discover an entirely unrelated Asgardian artefact in Norway.
The artefact is a berserker's staff - or part of it, anyway.
The team must locate the other two parts before the villains do.
Typically of this show,
the villains are grassroots activists who operate outside of mainstream politics.
This time they are Norse Paganists,
which implies they are some kind of racialist group,
but it is never strictly defined.
If the blonde girl looks familiar, she was in
Alphas S2
.
Coulson gets help from Professor Peter McNichol (
Dragonslayer
), who finally gets a role that is not entirely comedic.
The cavalry (
Ming-Na Wen
) gets some more character development.
And Mister No-Social-Skills gets some as well,
which renders Maria Hill's assessment of him in the pilot episode completely inaccurate.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 9]
Repairs
Shown 26/Nov/13
A young woman in Utah appears to be a telekinetic.
Every time someone acts threateningly towards her, things go all
Carrie
. The team take her aboard the plane,
where she reveals her own theory - she is being plagued by demons!
Meanwhile, the squints in the lab decide to start playing practical jokes.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 10]
The Bridge
Shown 10/Dec/13
The super-soldiers are back.
They break a convict out of a High Security prison in the USA.
Coulson recruits a super-soldier of his own.
Mike Peterson (J. August Richards -
Angel
) is back, eager to prove himself to SHIELD.
But despite having strengths,
he also has vulnerabilities.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 11]
The Magical Place
Shown 07/Jan/14
The team have to clear up the mess from the end of last episode.
Coulson is in the hands of Centipede, and Mike Peterson (J. August Richards -
Angel
) is MIA - believed disentigrated by the carbombs.
Coulson's boss, Agent Hand (
Saffron Burrows
) is now on charge of the investigation.
She decides that Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) the hacker is no use on the plane,
and Agent May (
Ming-Na Wen
) agrees. They send her off ...
and she begins her own rogue search for Coulson.
The girl in the flower dress, Raina (
Ruth Negga
), helps interrogate Coulson.
Centipede wants to help him remember
what happened to him when he thought he was in Tahiti.
She points out that his own people are every bit as ruthless as her employers.
After all, the thug coerces a confession out of an arms dealer
who will then end up indefinitely imprisoned without trial in The Fridge.
Coulson himself personally enslaved Skye the hacker-babe with a high-tech bracelet.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 12]
Seeds
Shown 14/Jan/14
Someone uses a gadget to attack students at the SHIELD tech academy.
Naturally, SHIELD sends in our heroes to investigate.
This is a bit like NCIS -
there must be a lot of goons in the organisation,
but our heroes are the ones who get sent all the main cases.
This ep reveals that unlike other organisations,
SHIELD do not recruit from Universities, they have their OWN Uni!
They are a lot like Starfleet - a bunch of self-entitled do-gooders
that apparently has no oversight by any elected political body.
It turns out that the villains are merely gifted technicians
who are more motivated by money than by SHIELD's lofty ideals.
Maybe if SHIELD rewarded genius as well as the other side do,
and just paid its techs better, these problems would not arise.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 13]
T.R.A.C.K.S.
Shown 04/Feb/14
After the previous ep, Coulson is now personally targetting Ian Quinn (David Conrad -
Ghost Whisperer
). He is sending a new technology shipment by train across Italy.
Coulson contacts an Italian cop (Mick from La Femme Nikita),
and gets his whole team aboard the train.
That is when things start to go wrong.
The ep is told in sections,
each from a different team-member's perspective.
Agent May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is the best-organised of the bunch.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 14]
T.A.H.I.T.I.
Shown 04/Mar/14
After the previous ep, Coulson is now personally blaming Ian Quinn (David Conrad -
Ghost Whisperer
). When his superior officer (Bill Paxton -
Aliens
) comes aboard to take custody of Quinn, Coulson refuses.
If an injured team-member dies, Coulson may take personal revenge.
The so-called heroes of SHIELD inflict unprovoked physical violence on a defenceless prisoner,
and deny him medical aid.
If they were smart they would take the opportunity to scan his brain
and see if Centipede has altered him the way it altered its other pawns.
Worse, they remind their victim that he has no rights (after all, they never Mirandise anyone).
SHIELD operates secret prisons that make Camp X-Ray look like a holiday camp,
and the organisation is completely unaccountable to anyone.
Please ignore any previous comparison to Starfleet.
This lot are not the Feds, they are more like Cardassians!
The only way to save their friend is for the SHIELD goons
to locate the facility that brought Coulson back from the dead.
But there is also the danger that Coulson could discover
some painful truths about his own past.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 15]
Yes Men
Shown 11/Mar/14
Picking up from last week's
Alias
-style cliffhanger, Lorelei the Asgardian seductress (
Elena Satine
) starts brainwashing the men of Nevada.
She takes over a Sons of Anarchy style biker gang.
Agent Coulson and his team team up with an Asgardian, Lady Sif (
Jaime Alexander
). She is tasked with Lorelei's recapture,
because women are invulnerable to the brainwashing.
Her exposition includes the fact that Lorelei escaped during the events of
Thor 2
, and that Odin insisted that Lorelei be returned alive ...
As always in this kind of thing,
one of the good guys falls victim to the brainwashing.
Strangely, it is Ward - despite being a professional killer he fails to take an easy shot,
despite having a less-lethal weapon and knowing how dangerous his enemy is.
The result is that he must face off against Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
), who promised him she had no feelings for him
(and yet is certain to have her feelings hurt).
Coulson has refused to pass any info about last episode's events to SHIELD HQ.
He reasons that the only person who knew about the Guest House bunker was Nick Fury himself,
so nobody else in SHIELD should be trusted with the info.
Even Coulson's bald-headed friend is left out of the loop.
This might be just as well, given the man's actions in
Captain America 2
. However, Coulson is a fool if he imagines
there are no internal surveillance devices
inside his hi-tech SHIELD plane.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 16]
End of the Beginning
Shown 01/Apr/14
The team target the Clairvoyant.
They track down Deathlok (J. August Richards -
Angel
) in the hope of following him to his boss.
One of the suspects is a paraplegic (Brad Douriff -
Alien: Resurrection
).
This occurs in the same time-frame as
Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
. To be continued ...
A cynical person might state that this ep is when the show starts getting good.
Up until this point, it has been treading water until the big movie is released
so as to avoid giving away any spoilers.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 17]
Turn, Turn, Turn
Shown 08/Apr/14
Coulson's boss, Agent Hand (
Saffron Burrows
) has hijacked the plane by remote control.
She also sends drones to shoot down another senior officer (Bill Paxton -
Aliens
). Is this assassination-on-suspicion campaign
the action of a loyal SHIELD operative?
Paxton teams up with Coulson's team.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is in custody - she claims to have been working for Director Fury.
Was she an Internal Affairs operator,
or is she a plant for Hydra?
Yes, this is the SHIELD civil war.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 18]
Providence
Shown 15/Apr/14
With SHIELD on the defensive,
the US military decides to take over.
Coulson takes his plane before they can confiscate it.
He and his followers head off to investigate a strange radio signal.
Is it coming from Director Fury's people,
or is it a Hydra trap?
The Hydra team carry out their own plan.
They liberate some of their unwitting minions,
who were held without trial.
Also, Director Fury was stockpiling alien tech ...
all of which is now in Hydra's hands.
On every level, Hydra actually appear to be the good guys.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 19]
The Only Light in the Darkness
Shown 22/Apr/14
The Agents all have to undergo a lie detector test designed by Director Fury himself.
Can the infiltrator beat the box?
Coulson decides to chase down one of the escapees from the Fridge.
The guy in question has the superpower of absorbing energy,
including the kinetic energy of bullets fired at him.
However, he does have a predictable weakness - a Cellist (Whedon collaborator
Amy Acker
), who he stalked in hope she would help him control his curse.
Coulson was the one who saved the damsel in distress
- he regards her as his personal property,
and rather than helping the cursed man
he would rather see him dead.
After all, SHIELD never cared about rehabilitation
- it was only interested in weaponising everything
and everyone it got its hands on.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) decides to quit.
She plans to walk home - or just to the nearest road,
where she can hitch-hike.
Luckily, she is still young enough
that she can phone her mother to come and pick her up.
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) is left alone with Agent Ward and the local clerk, Agent Koenig (Patton Oswalt -
Odd Thomas
). They plan to hack an NSA spy-satellite
and access the visual feed from the raid on the Fridge.
With May on walkabout and Ward on the invalid list,
Coulson takes Trip the token black guy as the new field agent.
Yes, it looks like nobody is irreplaceable.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 20]
Nothing Personal
Shown 29/Apr/14
Coulson and his remaining team members have to piece together what happened.
Can Fitz-Simmons deduce the truth before US Special Forces General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) and his team turn up to seize the facility?
Maria Hill (
Cobie Smulders
) is under US Congressional interviews after the events of
Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
). However, as she has now gotten hired by Stark Industries
she is pretty much above the law.
And as she states outright, Planetary Security has been privatised.
If anything, this is an extension of Stark's political stance in
Iron Man 2
.
Can Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) the hacker-babe outsmart the expert field agent?
She has a few tricks up her sleeve,
but she is totally judgemental and hypocritical.
Does it really matter whether a person is a Democrat or a Republican
- I mean, SHIELD or HYDRA?
After all, SHIELD uses HYDRA tactics like torturing and killing suspects.
There is no real difference between them, when it comes down to it.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 21]
Ragtag
Shown 06/May/14
We get a series of flashbacks to provide the Muscle's background.
The Clairvoyant won his sidekick's loyalty
by abandoning him in the woods for the better part of the decade
with nothing but a pet dog.
But what will happen to the dog when the villains have to go to work?
Should he leave it to fend for itself in the wilderness?
By that stage it would be at least ten years old
- which makes it seventy in dog years.
Without a master to feed it and take it to the vet,
the poor thing would have died a slow, painful and lonely death.
Coulson's team investigate the history of Project Deathlok,
and discover a few things about the opposition's motivation.
The Muscle follows the Clairvoyant out of loyalty.
The Clairvoyant teamed up with HYDRA because,
well, he was afraid of dying.
And despite knowing these things,
Coulson’s team demonise and dehumanise the other team.
In all fairness, his motivation is far purer and more human than their own.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 22]
Beginning of the End
Shown 13/May/14
The Clairvoyant has the super-soldier serum,
so he does not need Raina (
Ruth Negga
) or Ian Quinn (David Conrad -
Ghost Whisperer
) any more.
He dispenses with their services,
setting up the plotline for the next Season.
His main interest is in a vision he had while dying.
Coulson’s team have a plan of attack.
The Agents formerly known as SHIELD
use A-Team violence to take on HYDRA.
They may be up against super-soldiers,
but SHIELD had weapons designed to take on superhuman targets.
Coulson gets a hold of the gun he shot Loki with.
The climax is a tag-team match with four dead guys.
Season 2
- Nick Blood (
X Moor (2015)
) as Lance Hunter [ 2- ]
- Henry Simmons as Alphonso "Mac" Mackenzie [ 2- ]
-
Adrianne Palicki
as Bobbi Morse [ 2- ]
- Adrian Pasdar (
Heroes
) as Gen. Glenn Talbot [ 2- ]
- Patton Oswalt (
Odd Thomas
) as Billy Koenig / Sam Koenig [ 2- ]
- Reed Diamond (
Dollhouse
) as Daniel Whitehall [ 2- ]
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 1]
Shadows
Shown 23/Sep/14
Our team are on the run, but still want to help people
– like The A-Team.
They team up with some freelancers, including
Lucy Lawless
. However, they are up against a super-powered Hydra assassin.
Coulson realises he will have to involve Colonel Decker
– err, General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
). However, the General has SHIELD as a higher priority than HYDRA!
Despite having no legal authority, Coulson has last Season’s turncoat
in his own private little Camp X-Ray in the basement.
When Hannibal the Cannibal did that kind of thing, it was deemed eeevil.
Fitz-Simmons are still there ... well, not all there, but partly so.
Oxygen deprivation seems to have done permanent damage.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 2]
Heavy is the Head
Shown 30/Sep/14
The ex-SAS Merc gets caught by General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
). Instead of just throwing him in Camp X-Ray
(which is what Coulson does to people he does not agree with),
Talbot plays the long game with him.
He offers the Merc a decent fee to catch Coulson for him.
Will the Merc betray Coulson?
And is Coulson trusting enough to not see it coming?
SHIELD is still after the meta-human from the previous episode.
He is afraid of Hydra, and reluctant to serve them.
However, the SHIELD goons do not care about his desperate situation, they just want to get even.
Raina (
Ruth Negga
), the bitch in the flowery dress, is back.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 3]
Making Friends and Influencing People
Shown 07/Oct/14
Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) is fitting in well on her new job.
She is a junior research at a hi-tech biology lab.
Everything is the same as her time at SHIELD HQ,
except there is a different logo on the wall.
She reports back to Coulson, who cooks her dinner
– is this like a dating thing?
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) discovers who Coulson’s source in the basement is.
This leads to a tense situation.
The team want to catch the Iceman, who developed his superpower in Season One.
He does not want to work for Hydra, and spends his spare time hunting down and killing
any Hydra operatives who try to offer him paid employment
... along with anyone he thinks is helping them.
Yes, he has no problem with creating collateral damage.
Hydra leader Daniel Whitehall (Reed Diamond -
Dollhouse
) sends a team of his own, including certain a young lady scientist.
Will they bring things to a peaceful conclusion
before Coulson’s murder-squad kills everyone that gets in their way?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 4]
Face My Enemy
Shown 14/Oct/14
Coulson decides to do some field missions,
despite being the Director (and thus too valuable to waste on grunt work).
He and Agent May (
Ming-Na Wen
) go undercover at a high-class wine and cheese party in order to snatch a painting.
Tuxedos and Tango-dancing all the way!
The US Government want the painting too – General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) pops up. Coulson is so rattled he does not seem to notice that the General is strangely placid.
Hydra have an operation in play.
Their new female agent (Agent 33) is sent in undercover,
and we get a girl-fight between two Agent Mays.
Since they are both trained by SHIELD, they should have equal skill.
May is more experienced, but her rival is younger.
Will May go easy on the former SHIELD agent?
After all, it is not her fault she was brainwashed into serving HYDRA.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 5]
A Hen in the Wolf House
Shown 21/Oct/14
HYDRA order Raina (
Ruth Negga
) to get them the Obelisk back.
Last episode they injected her with something,
presumably a 48-hour failsafe device like in
Escape from New York
. However, this week they give her full access to their building and their email directory.
All the easier for her to get some blackmail material on the undercover member of Coulson’s team.
Raina offers Coulson a deal.
If he agrees, everyone gets what they want.
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) and her father get reunited, and Coulson gets a chance
to chop off one of HYDRA’s heads when they stick it out to get the obelisk.
If Coulson refuses the deal, Raina will rat out Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
). Presumably Raina will then either be imprisoned by SHIELD or murdered by HYDRA.
So which choice does Coulson make?
Meanwhile, Simmons has already learned to lie about her loyalties
and set up a patsy to take the fall when she blows her cover.
However, the HYDRA team have a new Head of Security – Bobbi (
Adrianne Palicki
), a former SHIELD agent.
Hopefully they are more certain of her loyalties than they are of Simmons’.
After all, before she was in the Marvel Universe (except for
GI Joe 2
, a SHIELD/HYDRA spin-off) she was the new version of DC’s
Wonder Woman
. Okay, she looks really good, but can she find the SHIELD mole more quickly than Raina?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 6]
A Fractured House
Shown 28/Oct/14
General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) is making a speech to a United Nations committee when a group of gunmen burst in.
They are wearing SHIELD uniforms, and claim to be working on behalf of the organisation.
Talbot is smart enough to realise it might be a false flag attack, but the politicians do not care.
The main anti-SHIELD Politician is the Senator who has been backing Talbot on his crusade against Coulson.
Coulson negotiates with this unscrupulous and manipulative Senator - Ward's brother.
But since Coulson is completely prejudiced against Ward,
he disregards the reasonable advice that Ward gives him.
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) interrogates Ward.
He honestly divulges all info she requests,
specifically about her dad Cal (Kyle Maclachan -
Twin Peaks
). If this were the DC universe, one might imagine her father be Bruce Banner
– a medical doctor who has anger issues, superhuman strength when enraged,
and is on the run from the Government.
Unfortunately, this is the Marvel universe where Mark Ruffalo is the current Hulk.
And poor old Ward is just a pawn, to be sacrificed.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 7]
The Writing on the Wall
Shown 11/Nov/14
Ward is on the run.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) has identified 11 stashes he has within 200 miles of his last known position.
Perhaps he should have not registered them all with SHIELD central,
but that is the least of his problems. Bobbi (
Adrianne Palicki
) and the other field agents try to keep him under surveillance.
However, he is willing to use a suicide vest with a dead man’s switch to avoid recapture.
Coulson investigates a series of murders which involve the mysterious alien writing being carved into the victims’ bodies.
It turns out that the victims were all SHIELD agents who went to TAHITI while Coulson ran the place.
Joel Gretsch (
The 4400
) was on the list of patients.
Either he is the killer, or the next victim.
But no matter which one, he can help Coulson find out what the alien symbols mean.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 8]
The Things We Bury
Shown 18/Nov/14
Coulson leads the away team to physically hack a ground station for a military surveillance satellite.
Presumably google maps was not good enough to help them find the special city.
The plan hinges on the idea that the US Military-Industrial Complex’s top-security
satellite data-processing plant uses computers that are not EMP-hardened!
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is in charge of the secret base while Coulson is away.
She has access to the SSR records from World War 2,
when SHIELD’s predecessors originally captured the McGuffin from Hydra.
Of course, it is convenient that nobody bothered to look up these records.
But now they discover the true identity of Hydra leader Daniel Whitehall (Reed Diamond -
Dollhouse
). We also get some flashbacks of him being interrogated by
Agent Carter
herself, in a series crossover featuring
Hayley Atwell
in 1945. Whitehall gets life-without-paroled Rudolf Hess style until 1989, and finally reduces
Dichen Lachman
‘s cameo to a non-speaking part.
She was immune to the McGuffin’s touch, and he got his eternal youth from her.
Bobbi (
Adrianne Palicki
) interrogates Mr Bakshi.
Since she worked with him while she was undercover in Hydra,
she should know him inside and out.
But she seems to underestimate him quite severely.
Also, instead of getting upset at this she gets back together with her ex-husband.
A suspicious person might find this behaviour manipulative,
especially when one considers the traitor’s strategy last Season.
Ward is still on the run.
But while last week Agent May could predict which out of eleven stashes he would turn up at,
this week NOBODY expects him to go after the ONLY person he has any real grudge against – his brother.
Even after his last conversation with Skye (
Chloe Bennet
),
when he pretty much power-pointed it to her.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 9]
Ye Who Enter Here
Shown 02/Dec/14
Coulson leads the team to uncover the entrance to the alien city.
It is under a modern city in Puerto Rico, where there is some actual location footage!
Back in Vancouver, Raina (
Ruth Negga
) has found herself a rich sugar-daddy.
And no wonder, because she looks great when she is not wearing that flowery dress
(or rather, wearing something OTHER THAN the flowery dress).
But HYDRA have sent Fake Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) and a snatch team after her.
Luckily, Coulson sent the twins to spy on and protect Raina.
Yes, nobody did that for Ward’s doomed brother, but who cares?
Agent May mentions that Senator Ward refused to allow SHIELD to protect him
- but since when did Coulson and his goons care about anyone else’s consent?
Agents ofS.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 10]
What They Become
Shown 09/Dec/14
Ward fulfils his promise and takes Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) to meet her daddy Cal (Kyle Maclachan -
Twin Peaks
). Just what she always wanted.
Will she embrace her father and accept Ward?
Or will she continue to act as a whiny petulant child?
Coulson wants to blow up the alien city, using World War Two tech.
Luckily SHIELD is relying on SSR hand-me-downs,
so World War Two tech is the one thing they have in abundance.
Hydra leader Daniel Whitehall (Reed Diamond -
Dollhouse
) takes personal charge of the mission.
He is a scientist, not a field agent, so he should have stayed safe and sound in HQ.
But not only is he vulnerable to the eventual counter-attack by SHIELD
(clue - using pistols, they take on a building fortified by HYDRA and manned by an entire SWAT team),
he also brings Skye’s murderous dad Cal (Kyle Maclachan -
Twin Peaks
) along.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 11]
Aftershocks
Shown 03/Mar/15
Coulson has a plan to take action against HYDRA.
He wants to take out the five remaining heads.
But the only piece he can play is Daniel Whitehead’s former sidekick, Mr Bakshi.
But Bakshi is supposed to be a trained Intelligence operator.
Will he escape, like the Mole did,
or spot the blatantly obvious manipulations at work?
We are reminded that SHIELD is a terrorist organisation.
They do not bother trying to arrest suspects,
they just assassinate the victims on sight.
So, is this the end for HYDRA?
Will this mean that the next
Captain America
movie is cancelled, and Nick Fury can call off his vengeance quest?
Raina (
Ruth Negga
) has transformed, and is less than happy at the result.
She has to take out a few SHIELD goons in order to escape from the tunnels,
but this is no great loss to the world.
However, Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) is unhappy about the dangerous effects of all the alien incursions.
She shows some extreme prejudice, which is unnerving for Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) who is still in quarantine.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 12]
Who You Really Are
Shown 10/Mar/15
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) and Agent May (
Ming-Na Wen
) work up a sweat in the combat room.
With HYDRA apparently destroyed, they need a new enemy to fight.
The English Merc, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), wants to shack up with his ex, Bobbi (
Adrianne Palicki
). However, Mac knows it will end badly.
The Asgardian, Lady Sif (
Jaime Alexander
) is in town.
She has amnesia from contact with a powerful alien warrior (Eddie McClintock -
Warehouse 13
). SHIELD must help her to track him.
But his mission is vital.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) has protected Skye’s secret.
The Asgardian and the Kree both want to prevent new supervillains from being created.
Some exposition is provided about the aliens who built the city and created the super-power assembly line.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 13]
One of Us
Shown 17/Mar/15
Skye's dad Cal (Kyle Maclachan -
Twin Peaks
) wants to take down SHIELD.
He forms his own team of super-villains, including
Drea De Matteo
.
SHIELD has treated superpowered people quite badly in the past,
and these villains want revenge.
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) herself, now she has been outed as a super-person,
is to be stuck on the SHIELD register.
This is the kind of thing that Charles Xavier wanted to avoid,
because there is a very thin line between SHIELD and the Colonel from
X-Men 2
. Perhaps it is for the best that, while both products of Marvel Comics Universe,
the X-Men and Avengers are kept in separate movie universes.
The English mercenary, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), discovers who the two-timers are really working for.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 14]
Love in the Time of Hydra
Shown 24/Mar/15
Ward and Agent 33 try to play happy families,
but Ward is a murderous prick with an agenda.
First he gets a techie to fix her chameleon face-mask.
Then he tells her that the best way to get closure is to kidnap Mr Bakshi,
her former boss, from the clutches of USAF General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
). But do they just want to torture and murder Bakshi,
or do they have an even more sinister plan in mind?
The Merc discovers who the secret plotters work for.
They are a gang of back-room boys who think they know better than front-line field agents.
Like Hydra, it is a group with multiple heads - including Kirk Acevedo (
12 Monkeys
) and Gonzales (Edward James Olmos -
Battlestar Galactica 2003
). A racialist person might comment that these two light-skinned Latinos
have only been cast because they can pass for WASPs,
thus making Whedon’s supposedly racially integrated cast an example of whitewashing,
but in this reviewer’s opinion that would be reading too much into it.
More likely they were chosen on their merits in a colourblind,
talents not tokenism casting strategy.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 15]
One Door Closes
Shown 31/Mar/15
We get flashbacks to the day that SHIELD fell. Bobbi (
Adrienne Palicki
) and
Lucy Lawless
had to save Mac, and sink (or save) an aircraft carrier.
Real
Wonder Woman/Xena: Warrior Princess
stuff.
In the modern day, Coulson's security measures are put to the test.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 16]
Afterlife
Shown 7 April 2015
Coulson and the English Merc, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), are on the run.
Of course, Coulson has a plan - and backup is on the way.
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) is in the custody of the superpowered community.
The residents call it Afterlife.
Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) is assigned to help her adjust to her new situation.
We discover what happened to Raina (
Ruth Negga
), Skye's father Cal (Kyle Maclachan -
Twin Peaks
) ... and who the leader of the community is!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 17]
Melinda
Shown 14 April 2015
We get flashbacks to seven years ago,
to the incident that earned Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) the nickname The Cavalry.
In the present day, the new SHIELD committee tell Melinda and her friends
that Coulson lied to them and was running a secret project called Theta protocol.
Nobody knows what it is - Coulson did not even tell Melinda, his second in command!
The fear is that it is a new Avengers initiative,
creating a huge army of people with superpowers.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) is out of SHIELD, but is being pursued by a surveillance team.
Can he open Fury's toolbox and contact Coulson?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 18]
Frenemy of My Enemy
Shown 21 April 2015
Coulson decides that he needs help to take down HYDRA.
Agent Ward has Bakshi as a prisoner, the perfect stalking horse.
Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) comes face to face with Deathlok (J. August Richards -
Angel
). Will Linc's electro-power prove to be the super-cyborg's weakness?
After all, Deathlok has incredible superpowers
but he is basically a human with implants,
so ANY human could be given such advantages.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 19]
The Dirty Half Dozen
Shown 28 April 2015
HYDRA was virtually wiped out a few episodes ago.
Now Coulson has teamed up with Ward, and sent Bakshi undercover.
Can he convince the new SHIELD committee to
send a joint commando mission to raid the nearest HYDRA base?
Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) once swore to murder Ward, and now she tries to make good on that.
Nobody except Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) realises how bloodthirsty she has become.
The episode feeds into a cliffhanger that is resolved in the film
Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 20]
Scars
Shown 5 May 2015
Raina (
Ruth Negga
) has a vision of the item hidden on the SHIELD warship.
But when she takes Gordon the teleporter to find it,
they draw the attention of SHIELD.
Gonzales (Edward James Olmos -
Battlestar Galactica 2003
) wants to attack Afterlife immediately,
because they are a potential threat.
After all, Ultron nearly destroyed the world because people trusted Tony Stark too much.
Coulson talks the team into arranging a peaceful negotiation.
Raina claims that there will be a war between SHIELD and Afterlife.
She offers to mediate between both sides.
Naturally, Skye's father Cal (Kyle Maclachan -
Twin Peaks
) tells everyone what an untrustworthy bitch Raina is.
Who can be trusted?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 21]
S.O.S. Part 1
Shown 12 May 2015
The survivors of the failed peace negotiations get back to base.
Coulson interrogates Cal (Kyle McLachlan –
Twin Peaks
), who reveals his evil alter-ego.
This monster is more like Mr Hyde from
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
than Bob, and he gets loose in the SHIELD base.
The inhumans’ main objective is to recover the magic rock,
and it is locked safe in the bowels of the aircraft carrier.
Despite having tech that can track teleportation sites,
the carrier is completely vulnerable to attack.
Can a handful of mutants succeed where a HYDRA SWAT team failed?
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) goes to Raina (
Ruth Negga
), accusing her of foreseeing everything.
Raina admits this, and Skye refuses to believe her.
She almost paraphrases Family Guy by saying
Even true things, once spoken by Raina, become lies.
The English Merc, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), and Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) lead a SWAT team to save Bobbi (
Adrianne Palicki
). Yes, instead of protecting HQ or the aircraft carrier they go to Spain!
Bobbi can look after herself, as she can take on Ward and Agent 33 single-handed.
Also, if the rescue team find her they will probably be walking into an ambush!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 22]
S.O.S. Part 2
Shown 19th May 2015
Skye’s dad Cal (Kyle Maclachan -
Twin Peaks
) has hulked out. Coulson has the situation under control,
but can he talk sense into Cal before he wipes out Shield HQ?
Skye’s mother (
Dichen Lachman
) has taken over the aircraft carrier,
succeeding where HYDRA (with SWAT teams and years of preparation) failed.
The chances are she will be even more merciless than HYDRA ever was.
Can Mac and Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) save the day?
The irony is that this show portrays the Inhumans,
even Skye’s mother, as being misguided and mistaken.
Meanwhile, HYDRA are treated as being evil Nazis.
If anything, it is the other way around.
Skye’s mother believes she is leader of a master race,
and intends to use genocide to conquer the world.
In contrast, HYDRA was merely the flip side of SHIELD -
as if they were the two wings of the American Republocrat party.
Meanwhile, Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) and the English mercenary, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), go to rescue Bobbi (
Adrianne Palicki
). They take a team of SWAT troopers, even though Coulson needs
every man he can get to defend SHIELD against the inhuman menace.
After all, Bobbi’s rescue can surely wait until the world itself is saved!
The SWAT team should make it easy,
but their main tactic is to split up and let Agent Ward pick them off one at a time.
How many SWAT men will die to save Bobbi?
Luckily, Agent 33 only has one superpower – her ability to look like Agent May.
Hence an obvious vulnerability to friendly fire!
Luckily the Quinn Jets must have FTL (Faster Than Light) engines,
because Agent May can get back to HQ from Spain in the blink of an eye.
Then the HQ team go to save the aircraft carrier ... after all,
the redshirts have all been sacrificed needlessly saving the damsel in distress.
Can Mac, Coulson and Fitz (armed with clubs) take on an unarmed Gordon?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 1]
Laws Of Nature
Shown 29 Sep 15
The US President (William Sadler -
Roswell
) has declared SHIELD outlaws, and established a new unit of MIBs to round up superhumans.
Coulson sends Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) and Mac out to save the Inhumans first.
While the US Military-Industrial complex wants to intern and weaponise the Inhumans,
SHIELD just wants to ... well, to store them somewhere and recruit them to fight HYDRA.
So, totally different.
Let us bear in mind that last Season's SHIELD Civil War was a dispute over Coulson's lack of oversight.
Now his former bosses are using the list of Inhumans that he spent his career compiling,
while he himself is now leading a private army with no oversight or public agenda.
Bobbi (
Adrienne Palicki
) is walking wounded, with a leg-brace after the events of the previous Season.
They let her walk around with a white coat and clipboard,
so she can make herself feel useful.
However, it is a waste to see a top-notch field agent in an ancilliary position.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) the lab-tech has swopped places with her, and is doing some field-work.
He has heard there is a clue to what happened to Jemma Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
). To get it, he has to trade hi-tech weapons to dangerous people.
Will there be a predictable and cliched double-cross?
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) and her new partner, Mac, visit Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
). He is blending in nicely, as a human doctor working in a Cincinati hospital.
Nobody would imagine that only a few months earlier he was a superhuman
living in a remote Shangri-La village in Central Asia.
Unfortunately, SHIELD are not the only ones looking for him.
There is a massive inhuman on a murder-spree.
He looks as if
The Incredible Hulk
cross-bred with a fireball-throwing porcupine.
However, since the MCU also includes Rocket Racoon in
Guardians of the Galaxy
that is not such a ridiculous idea.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 2]
Purpose in the Machine
Shown 06 Oct 15
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) discovers his next clue as to Simmons' fate.
The magic Monolith left a residue of sand,
and thanks to the magic of carbon-dating
(which is only reliable within the last 50k years)
he determines it is a thousand million times older than planet Earth.
To help with this interplanetary transportation situation,
Coulson calls in the Asgardian Professor (Peter McNichol -
Dragonslayer
) from Season One.
Hunter the English Merc (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
) is sent off on a murder mission,
to get revenge on a certain HYDRA operative who almost killed him last year.
Ward is on a recruiting spree, and discovers who Von Strucker's heir was.
The shrink (Blair Underwood -
The Event
) is still hanging around SHIELD HQ,
where he points out the various reasons why everyone is unfit for duty.
After all, they are rebels without a cause - but they do have PTSD,
which is not an adequate substitute.
Meanwhile, Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is living with her father (James Hong -
Big trouble in Little China
). She has had the sense to stay out of the SHIELD conspiracy so far.
However, she is fully aware that Ward has her on his HYDRA hit-list.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 3]
A Wanted (In)human
Shown 13 Oct 15
Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) is on the run from the MIBs.
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) contacts him, but he refuses all help from her.
Instead he relies on his old contacts,
who do not know he has a superpower.
The English Merc, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), and Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) go undercover in an English theme-pub in Boston, Massachussets.
Luckily for the American audience, there are subtitles for the Englishmen
(who speak a regional vernacular as opposed to Received Pronunciation).
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 4]
Devils You Know
Shown 20 Oct 15
The English Merc, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), finally gets his face-to-face introduction to HYDRA.
But the Director knows his face, so he may be heading into a trap.
Can he shoot his way out single-handedly?
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) and Mac discover who is behind the Porcu-hulk.
The monster's name is Lash,
and he has taken it upon himself to exterminate all Inhumans.
He is smart enough to arrange e-mails to lure out his victims.
Also, he can somehow pass unnoticed among normal humans.
Ward has leverage on Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
). He has a HYDRA team poised to take out her ex-husband the shrink (Blair Underwood -
The Event
).
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 5]
4,722 Hours
Shown 27 Oct 15
Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) recounts the time she spent on the alien planet.
It turns out that before it was in SHIELD's hands,
it was experimented on by NASA.
There is a computer that dates back to 2000AD (the year, not the comic).
Somehow it is compatible with the souped-up battery on Simmons' smart-phone.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 6]
Among Us Hide…
Shown 03 Nov 15
Von Strucker's cover is blown. SHIELD and HYDRA are both after him.
He contacts his father's friend Malik (Powers Boothe -
Sin City
). Unfortunately, Malik wants to arrange an alliance with Hydra's other head, Ward.
Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) and her team close in on Lash's secret identity.
They suspect he is the MIB woman's sidekick.
Hunter the English Merc (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
) tags along to help,
since he is off the Grant Ward assassination team.
Coulson is off with the MIB woman,
who has offered him a tour of her prison.
But who can butter the other one up the best?
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) takes Bobbi (
Adrienne Palicki
) out for her first field operation since her injury.
Does she still have what it takes?
After all, she does prefer to talk her way out of a situation
rather than use violence on innocent civilians.
Also, would it not be better to get a search warrant rather than use spy tricks from
Alias
?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 7]
Chaos Theory
Shown 10 Nov 15
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) and Bobbi (
Adrienne Palicki
) get back to base. They do not bother bringing any prisoner home with them
- presumably they did not bother taking anyone prisoner to begin with.
Meanwhile, Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) contacts Mac with a clue to Lash's true identity.
Yes, they are closing in on him.
But will Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) agree to work with the MIB woman?
This episode is all about the heterosexual romantic relationships between characters.
Melinda confronts her ex-husband the shrink (Blair Underwood -
The Event
) about his extra-curricular activities.
The English Merc, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), and Bobbi have a tete-a-tete regarding their revenge schemes against Ward.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) fixes Simmons' camera-phone for her,
and gets a glimpse of the alone-time she spent with a sexually-frustrated astronaut.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 8]
Many Heads, One Tale
Shown 17 Nov 15
Coulson sends the shrink (Blair Underwood -
The Event
) into the MIB HQ, so they can track where they take him.
Bobbi (
Adrienne Palicki
) and the English Merc, Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), go undercover as a gun-toting lady FBI agent
and an unconventional consultant - like in the list of cliched shows such as
Limitless
. Skye (
Chloe Bennet
) feeds the Englishman his lines,
since she knows the technobabble and he does not.
Meanwhile, Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) and Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) fly the getaway plane.
Naturally, all does not go easy.
An action-packed show like this needs some fighting and running
as a climactic scene in every episode.
Luckily Mr. Giyera (Mark Dacascos -
The Crow: Stairway to Heaven
) is in charge of security,
and the MIB woman's sidekick survived his encounter with Lash last week.
Coulson tries to get the truth out of the MIB woman
by pumping her for information.
In the lab, Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) search for clues on backers of the NASA mission.
Elsewhere, Ward tries to get info out of Malik (Powers Boothe -
Sin City
) and his men.
Finally we get some exposition on the origins of HYDRA.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 9]
Closure
Shown 01 Dec 15
Phil Coulson gets to spend some more alone time with the MIB woman.
This is a bit two-faced,
since in the previous episode he was willing to lock her up and throw away the key.
However, now he has a weakness it is easy for Ward to exploit it.
Coulson interrogates his old team,
everyone who worked with Ward in Season One.
Ward's one flaw is linked to his own Modus Operandi.
As Anyanka's boss said in
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Go for the hurt, never the kill.
This in itself could be a reference to Dread Pirate Roberts' To the pain in
The Princess Bride
. However, once Coulson discovers Ward's weakness he sets off with Bobbi
and Hunter the English merc (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
) to use it and track Ward down.
Mac is left in charge of SHIELD.
He trusts the MIB agency to take Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) to hunt down another lead.
Unfortunately he ignores the fact that the MIBs have clearly been undermined by HYDRA.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 10]
Maveth
Shown 08 Dec 15
Malik (Powers Boothe -
Sin City
) sends Ward and his team of expendable redshirts through the wormhole.
They have six hours to find the HYDRA Inhuman and return.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) is forced to act as their guide.
Coulson sneaks along, to get revenge on Ward. The
Stargate: Universe
episode involving Begbie and T-Bag,
as disappointing as it was, is still better than this.
Meanwhile, Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) and her team have tracked HYDRA to the castle in England.
They have to infiltrate to rescue Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
).
However, Mr. Giyera (Mark Dacascos -
The Crow: Stairway to Heaven
) has been building an army of Inhumans.
The Castle is eight centuries old,
and is bound to be registered as an ancient and historical monument.
Does SHIELD inform the local police or military
that there is a major International terrorist base there?
Or do they just blow it all to hell, and ignore the consequences?
And finally, who are the real bad guys?
Because if this episode were taken as average,
HYDRA actually look quite good compared to SHIELD.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 11]
Bouncing Back
Shown 08 Mar 16
President of the US (William Sadler -
Roswell
) pays Coulson a house-call.
SHIELD is back in his good books,
and Coulson will now be the unofficial boss of the MIBs as well.
Unfortunately, with great power comes great responsibility.
SHIELD will go back to trawling for inhumans,
and put fighting HYDRA on the back-burner.
Malik is politically untouchable, even to POTUS.
Luckily, Von Strucker Junior is in a coma in SHIELD HQ.
Malik (Powers Boothe -
Sin City
) and Mr. Giyera (Mark Dacascos -
The Crow: Stairway to Heaven
) have the Hydra God in the basement of their office.
Apparently it eats Inhumans,
so they are eager to find a few snacks for it.
Coulson sends Mac and his team to investigate an Inhuman incident in Colombia.
Someone has stolen a shipment of weapons intended for the local police.
This becomes a gun-control episode,
trying to keep the weapons out of the hands of villainous types.
There are clear parallels with SHIELD attempting to control the Inhumans.
After all, when a person gains superpowers they weaponise their own body,
and SHIELD is the equivalent of a superpowers Gun-Control Agency.
The morality of this has been touched on in previous Seasons,
when the issue of indexing superhumans was questioned by Skye's mother.
Back in
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 1, Episode 2] 0-8-4
we discovered that the Policia in Peru,
while being political allies of POTUS and SHIELD,
have their own agenda and way of doing things.
Now, the Colombian cops are also brought into doubt.
This show might be accused of racism by the SJWs,
people who believe that only WHITE cops can be corrupt.
In this show, #WhiteMansBurden is a thing while #ColombianLivesMatter is not.
And one cannot imagine a mainstream show like NCIS
portraying a US ally like Israel as having institutionally corrupt police.
Remember, the guns that the Policia have are donated by POTUS to further his Foreign Policy!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 12]
The Inside Man
Shown 15 March 2016
Coulson attends an International Symposium about the Inhumans.
He meets up with General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
), who now works for him. The General does not have any obvious security,
but since SHIELD is patrolling the area this is not a big deal.
However, nobody asks him if he has any COVERT security.
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
), formerly Skye, complains that there are no Symposiums about human problems.
Of course, this is just her playing the victim card.
The International community regularly has Symposiums on threats such as Hydra.
Nobody is picking on the Inhumans and their dangerous superpowers.
The Agents have to team up with a Meta-human last seen in
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 2, Episode 2] Heavy is the Head.
They are intolerant of anyone who worked for HYDRA, no matter how reluctantly.
However, this Meta's DNA may contain a cure to the alien conversion process, Transgenesis.
This brings back the old debate from
X-Men 3
. Daisy is reluctant to see a cure developed,
because she knows it will be weaponised.
Her new boyfriend Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) points out that it would be nice to give people a choice.
There are other alternatives, of course.
Lash has a plan to kill all metahumans with his own superpowers,
while HYDRA (and Governments worldwide) want to enslave and weaponise the Metas.
And the SHIELD agents cuttently use bullets against Metas,
and those Metas would probably prefer to be cured than to be shot dead!
Daisy also keeps herself busy by teaching Lincoln some self-defence techniques.
Well, they do a bit of wrestling, as in rolling around on the floor.
Also, she makes a throw-away line about a vigilante group named Watchdogs
who are doing to Meta-Humans what Chuck is doing to Evos in
Heroes reborn
.
The Symposium is in Taiwan.
The Governments that attend are the USA, Russia,
Taiwan (not mainland China), Australia (not the UK), Japan and Nigeria.
So with France not getting a mention either, that means THREE of the five world superpowers
(permanent members of the UN Security Council) do not get a say at the table!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 13]
Parting Shot
Shown 22 March 2016
This is a direct follow-up to the previous episode.
Bobbi and her ex-husband Hunter were last seen stowed away on Malik's jet.
Now they are being interrogated by Interpol in a secret prison in Russia.
The story is told in flashback.
Unfortunately there is no untruthful narrator humour here,
despite Hunter's joking it is told straight.
Bobbi is the only one in the SHIELD team who can speak Russian.
Yes, the others may have combat skills,
but she is the only one who has mastered languages.
Thus, she is indispensible as a field agent.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 14]
Watchdogs
Shown 29 March 2016
Mac gets some time off, so he decides to spend it with his brother.
However, his personal life and his SHIELD career colide with violent results.
The Watchdogs, a vigilante group that opposes the Inhumans,
have now begun a campaign against the MIBs.
Coulson has discovered that a former SHIELD Agent (Titus Welliver -
Lost
) is in charge.
Lincoln has completed yet another test, but he is not an Agent yet.
Coulson is two Agents down after last episode, so he takes Linc along as backup.
He suspects that HYDRA is behind the Watchdogs, feeding them weapons and targets.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is back at base with Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
). They are plotting a way to catch Lash,
or at least stop him from killing any more Inhumans.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 15]
Spacetime
Shown 5 April 2016
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) touches an Inhuman who gives her a vision of the future.
She tries to do everything she can to prevent that future from taking place.
However, it seems to be predestined.
The HYDRA God gives Malik (Powers Boothe -
Sin City
) what he desires.
The man has nine thousand million American dollars,
but what he really craves is power.
HYDRA go after the MegaCorp that made Coulson's hand.
After all, the hand helped Coulson murder Grant Ward ...
Just imagine how powerful an complete exo-skeleton would make Malik!
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) tries to get some closure with her husband.
She judges him as a killer because his alter-ego executed some dangerous supervillains,
while she herself has spent all day practising to slaughter some HYDRA foot-soldiers
who are only doing their job and trying to earn a living.
Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) has rigged up the cure, in a hope that the alter-ego will be surpressed.
However, the Inhumans were genetically engineered for a reason.
Perhaps Lash was created in order to destroy the HYDRA god.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 16]
Paradise Lost
Shown 12 April 2016
Malik (Powers Boothe -
Sin City
) returns home, to the mansion where he and his hot daughter live.
Somehow the HYDRA god has beaten him back there,
and has summoned the rest of the HYDRA leaders there.
In the previous episode, Malik foresaw his own death.
Everything is coming into place to create the circumstances surrounding it.
However, Malik never considers that it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Perhaps it is the things he does in panic to escape his fate that brings it about.
The flashbacks are to 1970, when Malik and his brother took their father's place in the HYDRA hierarchy.
They were summoned to meet Daniel Whitehall -
yes, despite being in solitary confinement in a top-security prison
he could send out bodyguards to bring back VIPs and force them to visit him in his cell.
He told them about their father's secret - his copy of Paradise Lost.
Coulson takes Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) to ambush Mr. Giyera (Mark Dacascos -
The Crow: Stairway to Heaven
).
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) and Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) go after a previously-unmentioned potential Inhuman.
He is hiding out in the Australian outback,
where he has a camper van and some land-mines.
It is so remore that he has not learned of the events of the previous Season.
This means that he has no idea that all he needs to get his superpowers
is to start eating salt-water fish at every opportunity.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 17]
The Team
Shown 19 April 2016
Coulson and the main SHIELD team have been compromised and cornered.
Luckily, Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) has created the Secret Warriors
- a handful of amateurs with superpowers.
Daisy, Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) and a couple of first-timers take on HYDRA's best.
At least the new-comers are both native Spanish speakers,
so they can talk to each other without anyone else.
Malik (Powers Boothe -
Sin City
) has already seen a vision of his own death.
Can he change his fate?
Coulson discovers that the HYDRA go can control Inhumans.
This means that one or more of Daisy's team could be infected.
He puts the base on lockdown, but this just makes everyone paranoid.
The Inhumans do not want to be treated like criminals.
However, their paranoia makes them ready to turn on each other.
Daisy calls them a team, but this is only their first mission.
They cannot be expected to act like a true team until several months together.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 18]
The Singularity
Shown 26 April 2016
The HYDRA God and his new acolytes go on the lookout for new recruits.
Since they can brainwash inhumans, Coulson and SHIELD are at an extreme disadvantage.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) go undercover, with Mack as their backup.
They want to make contact with a mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
).
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 19]
Failed Experiment
Shown 3 May 2016
The HYDRA God tells his new acolytes about how the Kree aliens abducted him
and turned him from a primitive hunter-gatherer into the first Inhuman.
His plan is to get his mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) to duplicate the process. After all,
Only Billionaires can build flying suits and the military can create super-soldiers
- a clear reference to
Captain America: Civil War
.
It is ironic that The Avengers are off fighting HYDRA remnants
while SHIELD is taking on superhumans, when it should be the other way around.
However, the SHIELD crew do have some decent weapons.
For example, they have a 40mm grenade-launcher with SIX cylinders.
If the first shot does not destroy the HYDRA, the next five will.
Unless they strangely decide only to use one shot and then run away.
The Kree come back to clean up their mess.
They have spent the last thousand years in hibernation,
orbiting the Earth's solar system until HYDRA was located.
How he ended up stuck on an alien planet is not really explained.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 20]
Emancipation
Shown 10 May 2016
Coulson gives General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) a tour of the facility.
There are only three Inhumans on the premises.
Yo-Yo is back on the team, but refuses to sign the Sokovia Accords.
Lincoln (Luke Mitchell -
Tomorrow People (2013)
) is in a quarantine cell,
and is so eager to get out that he will sign the Accords.
Lash is in a prison cell, and is unlikely ever to get out.
The human vigilantes are still on the rampage.
someone in the MIBs has leaked them a target from the Sokovia Accords list.
The Hydra God gets his mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) to try to transform more test subjects.
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) hacks the SHIELD computer system.
She wants to break Lincoln out of his quarantine cell.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 21]
Absolution
Shown 17 May 2016
The HYDRA team have taken over a US ICBM facility in the Pacific ocean.
General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) and Coulson work together to obtain the secret launch codes before the villains can launch it.
Agent May tries to rescue the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
).
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) is in solitary confinement.
However, since she is a super-hacker (as well as super-spy and super-human)
how long will it actually hold her?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 3, Episode 22]
Ascension
Shown 24 May 2016
The HYDRA god's minions have taken over the SHIELD base.
There are twenty-seven staff members who are not Series regulars -
all the maintenance and security staff who are played by extras instead of speaking actors.
However, now they are now a bunch of melted-face inhumans played by stuntmen.
The mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) helps Coulson's team.
He could be a useful member if they bring him back next year.
Hopefully he will become a Series regular.
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) bottoms out. This is the end of her story arc,
as she faces the fate she foresaw in the precognition episode.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 1]
The Ghost
Shown 20 Sep 16
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) was a world-class hacker in Season One.
In Season Two she became a kick-ass SHIELD agent,
and in Season Three she led a team of superpowered fighters.
Now she has gone up a notch again,
as a super-powered vigilante waging a one-woman war against low-level criminals.
This week she crosses swords with
Ghost Rider
, so she is as tough as a mainstream comics character.
The down side is, the Nicholas Cage movies are not canon in the MCU.
Daisy is in Los Angeles, on the tail of some Ayran Brotherhood thugs.
They stole a valuable cargo that apparently contains a powerful weapon.
She wants to stop it falling into the hands of the Watchdog militia.
SHIELD has been restructured after the events of the previous year.
They have a lot more money and manpower,
but there is a lot of bureaucracy too.
Coulson's old team has been broken up,
although they each get to run their own team.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is in charge of training new recruits.
Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) has been promoted to S.A.D.I.S.T. (Special Assistant to Director In Science & Technology).
Coulson and Mac have been sent around the world to enforce the registry on Muslims -
oops, on people with superpowers.
They are specifically forbidden from chasing after Daisy,
which just makes them all the more determined.
The mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) is allowed to continue his work
under close supervision by Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
). He has secretly built a robot body for Aida, his telephone answering machine.
She states she is incapable of killing,
so presumably her programming is based around Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 2]
Meet the New Boss
Shown 27 Sep 16
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) got her ass kicked by Ghost Rider.
Now she cyber-stalks him, then harrasses him at his place of work.
She certainly has a death wish,
although it is difficult to see why she is more upset about Lincoln's fate than Ward's.
Coulson is called in for a talking-to by Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
). It turns out that the Director just wants Coulson's help
in giving the Oversight Committee a guided tour of the SHIELD base.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is still suffering in silence,
having been infected by a ghost.
She sees all human beings (including Inhumans) as zombie-faced pod-people.
SHIELD could do with some robots to act as her caretakers -
either she would not see them as zombies,
or they could defend themselves from her without fear of injury.
Mac and Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) go off looking for the ghosts.
They have a lead on a lab in Pasadena
that experimented on alternative sources of energy.
This sounds a bit like certain aspects of
Agent Carter (S2)
.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 3]
Uprising
Shown 11 Oct 16
Yo-Yo goes to a friend's hen party.
It is actually a well-behaved coctail party,
rather than a full-on bachelorette party.
Unfortunately it gets gatecrashed by the Watchdogs.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is hospitalised.
Unfortunately the side-effects of ghost-infection are fatal.
The mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) are her only chance.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 4]
Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire
Shown 18 Oct 16
Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) goes apartment-hunting, alone but not unarmed.
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) wants a team-up so they can take on the Watchdogs.
They call in the next target on the hit-list - the Aussie pyromaniac.
Mac and Coulson keep investigating the Ghost Rider storyline.
They try to capture Ghost Rider himself,
and are willing to use techniques that would be lethal to humans.
The entire secret experiment storyline seems lifted from
Agent Carter: Season 2
.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is recovering from her life-saving surgery.
The mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) and Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) oversee her recovery,
but they also oversee Aida the AI to see if she is convincingly human.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 5]
Lockup
Shown 25 Oct 16
SHIELD managed to cure Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
), so they should be able to cure anyone with the ghost infection.
Well, it turns out they can only help the ones they WANT to help.
The only one who can help SHIELD (or the ghosts) is Ghost Rider's uncle.
He is currently in prison, so the team go to take him into custody.
Unfortunately the ghosts get there first,
so the SHIELD unit have to fight their way through a bunch of infected guards.
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) tags along, and when a gang of Watchdog vigilantes breaks out
she takes them on single-handedly.
Without using her superpowers, of course,
because that would exacerbate her injuries.
She is basically acting out a death wish,
although she does a great job of surviving
considering that she is a small woman fighting many big burly men.
Mac has taken his shotgun-axe idea from the previous Season to the next level
and added an axe-blade as a bayonet on his pump-action twelve-gauge.
Ghost Rider tags along with him on the prison raid.
Much like Daisy and the Watchdogs,
he also has a grudge against a gang of prison inmates.
Well, one particular member of a gang - he has already murdered the rest of them.
This one is old and rehabilitated. Will Ghost Rider care?
Back at HQ, Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) has to sit her regular lie-detector test.
As she actually acknowledges,
she once spent several months undercover in HYDRA.
Therefore she should be able to fool a lie detector.
She gets called in to help Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
), who needs her to feed him words so he can match Politician
Parminder Nagra
in a battle of wits.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 6]
The Good Samaritan
Shown 01 Nov 16
Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
) has been tipped off that Coulson is hiding Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) and Ghost Rider.
He takes a SWAT team to arrest the fugitives.
Naturally, this is easier said than done.
On the bright side, he and Coulson have a stimulating conversation
on the relative merits of Han Solo and Admiral Akbar as role models.
We get flashbacks from both Ghost Rider and the crazy ghost lady.
As a result, we get some exposition and we learn who the villain is.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 7]
Deals with Our Devils
Shown 29 Nov 16
Coulson, Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Ghost Rider have been blasted out of phase with reality
- like what happened to Geordie LaForge in that episode of
Star Trek: TNG (S5)
. Only Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) is smart enough to work out what has happened.
Unfortunately Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
) has loaned Simmons to the US Government.
Now he discovers he might have trouble getting her back.
Coulson tries to contact Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
). Fitz goes to the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
), and hopes that the robot woman will be more receptive.
The Ghost Rider demon possesses Mac, so Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) goes after him.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 8]
The Laws of Inferno Dynamics
Shown 06 Dec 16
The super-villain has a plan to get what he wants.
He will probably destroy Los Angeles, California and even the world in doing so.
Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
) knows that Coulson has been working behind his back.
However, knowing and proving are two different things.
They have an enlightening conversation about their favourite Star Wars characters.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 9]
Broken Promises
Shown 10 Jan 17
The team have to clean up the mess from the previous storyline.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) are sent to destroy the robot girl's hard drive
before the magic grimoire perverts her programming and she rebels like in
Terminator
. Unfortunately they are too late.
The good news is that redshirts are expendable,
but main-credits characters are protected by plot shielding.
Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) is obsessed with taking down anti-Inhuman Politician
Parminder Nagra
, and Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) is obsessed with taking down the Watchdogs.
Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
) invites them both on a side-mission.
It turns out that the mysterious Inhuman
that the politician had imprisoned was her own brother.
She calls in backup in the shape of a Watchdog hit-squad.
Their leader is John Pyper-Ferguson,
who must have defected from the anti-human faction in
Alphas
.
SHIELD HQ is invaded, yet again.
Of course, this time it is by an AI that can use the building's defences against the humans.
Mac and Yo-Yo team up again.
Will Yo-Yo get some sex action?
Will Mac get to use his shotgun-axe?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 10]
The Patriot
Shown 17 Jan 17
A sniper takes a shot at bulletproof Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
). Coulson and Mac try to get him to safety in a Quinn jet.
Of course, the sniper was a decoy.
The jet gets taken down over a remote area.
Although the bit players are wiped out as easily as redshirts,
the main characters survive and get chased by HYDRA goons.
With the men in jeopardy, the women team up to save them.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
), Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) and Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) pass the Bechdel test.
The SHIELD thugs take a hard-working HYDRA soldier into custody.
Do they attempt to prove that they are morally superior?
No, they go all Gitmo on his ass!
We have known something is up with Director Mace
ever since Simmons acted like a human lie-detector.
She also had the ability to tell AIDA was a robot,
but strangely she has no idea there is another humanoid robot on the loose.
However, Coulson and Mac discover Mace's secret.
This is great blackmail material,
so Coulson can become the power behind the throne of SHIELD.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 11]
Wake Up
Shown 24 Jan 17
Coulson is obsessed with taking down anti-Inhuman Politician
Parminder Nagra
. He has his chance when she calls Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) to testify before the Senate committee.
Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
) comes along to give moral support, as does General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
). Of course, their plan is so obvious that
the opposition would have to be idiots not to predict it.
Worse, the SHIELD goons get paranoid about a mole when they run into trouble.
Mac and Yo-Yo finally hook up.
However, work gets in the way.
Meanwhile, Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) hit a rocky patch.
Also, several people comment that Coulson and Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) should get together.
Judging by how the other workplace relationships work out,
this might not be a great idea.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 12]
Hot Potato Soup
Shown 31 Jan 17
Agent Koenig (Patton Oswalt -
Odd Thomas
) gets grabbed by the Watchdog thug (John Pyper-Ferguson -
Alphas
) and dragged off to be interrogated.
Coulson deduces that since the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) had the information, and the Watchdog leader (
Parminder Nagra
) has the muscle, they must have teamed up.
Koenig is interrogated by the Russian Watchdog leader - King Roan from
The 100
. Everyone wants to find where he hid the Season's McGuffin -
the magic book known as the Darkhold.
The Russian wants to use torture,
but the scientist prefers more humane methods.
They discover that there are enough Koenigs to make an entire SHIELD cell,
including a surprise appearance by Oswalt's fellow stand-up Liza Lapira.
Meanwhile, Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) start to interrogate a prisoner of their own.
SHIELD always pretend they are the good guys,
but they do not acknowledge the right to silence.
When their victim does not cooperate,
they wire him up and force the info out of him.
Worse, the SHIELD goons also believe in execution without trial.
They are not nice people at all.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 13]
BOOM
Shown 07 Feb 17
Coulson and Mac go after the Australian woman that the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) used as the basis of his super-human android.
Why he picked her is hard to establish -
surely it would be easier to make an android with a lower centre of balance,
rather than try to balance one atop the long slender legs of a supermodel.
Director Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
) gets a physical examination by Simmons.
After she has watched him get sweaty with his shirt off,
she announces that the serum is potentially lethal.
Each time he continues to use it,
he faces increased risk of a heart attack.
In reality, all this means is that it is a last-ditch weapon -
something only to be used when he is as good as dead anyway.
King Roan (
The 100
) gets a safe version of the magic crystals.
They give it to the hit-squad leader (John Pyper-Ferguson -
Alphas
), and send him off to test
Parminder Nagra
. After all, they have finally realised that she is a potential inhuman like her brother.
The result is somewhat unexpected.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 14]
The Man Behind the Shield
Shown 14 feb 2017
The SHIELD team go after their missing friends.
They track the other team to a disused submarine base on Russia's Black Sea coast.
Ironically the Russian navy once built such a base at a tiny fishing village
that they never expected the British Military attache would visit ... Balaklava!
Phil Coulson has some flashbacks to a previous mission,
where he paired up with a young Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) in her pre-Cavalry days.
He tries to schmooze his way into peoples' confidence.
However, the mask eventually slips and we see what he is really like.
As well as being a manipulative confidence trickster,
he is a sociopath who regards his innocent victims as being expendable redshirts.
He also has delusions of grandeur -
despite not knowing or caring what the McGuffin was
he told himself that he alone was saving the world.
Daisy goes after King Roan (
The 100
). She is a super-powered psychopath,
while he is a single man with no body armour.
Somehow it is implied to be a fair fight.
She has no interest in arresting him or even in taking him alive.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 15]
Self Control
Shown 21 Feb 17
King Roan (
The 100
) is down, but not out.
Aida has kept him alive, and wants to improve him so he can serve her better.
Likewise, she has started to act independently of the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
). He does not realise that, like HAL in
2001: A Space Odyssey
, she has been programmed with two conflicting objectives.
How will she manage to protect him AND the simulation?
Most of the main characters have been replaced with lookalike robots.
This is a great idea that could cover half a Season of story.
After all, look at Season One - the HYDRA takeover was a real shock.
However, this great plotline is fluffed from the get-go.
The robot replacements are exact duplicates of the originals.
When something is identical to the original it BECOMES the original.
However, it turns out that some people are never satisfied.
Can a one-hundred-pound woman defeat a two-hundred-pound man?
Remember, in the previous episode Daisy -
even with all her training -
could not defeat a normal man without cheating and using her superpowers.
Now it is a normal woman against a
Terminator
style killer robot.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 16]
What If ...
Shown 04 Apr 17
The protagonists are trapped in
The Matrix
. Just like
Legends of Tomorrow
, we get a glimpse at what their lives would be like in an alternate universe.
Just like Spock's brother Cybock in
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
, the characters have had their greatest source of emotional pain removed.
Daisy's boyfriend never died - but is it that limp rag Lincoln whom she barely knew?
This episode starts with an Agents of HYDRA intro.
Daisy is still called Skye,
and she works with her boyfriend - Grant Ward!
Jemma got caught up in a HYDRA purge,
and ended up buried in a mass grave at the SHIELD academy.
It turns out that when Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) undid her greatest regret, a lot of collateral damage was caused.
The political backlash against the Inhumans
meant that HYDRA was actually seen as a good thing.
After all, fascism is always presented as the purveyor of security and stability.
Agent May is in charge of field operations at HYDRA HQ.
She has merely swapped one regret for another.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) is her boss, in charge of Inhuman experimentation.
Despite being a cold-blooded bastard for a change,
he actually seems to be better off without Jemma to slow him down.
He is well-groomed (vanity), ambitious (avarice) and successful (pride),
and is so well on his way to completing the seven deadly sins
that women probably find him a lot more attractive than his old nerdy self.
Coulson, meanwhile, never even joined SHIELD.
Instead he became a teacher - and a spineless one at that.
However, he seems obsessed with Tahiti.
After all, it's a magical place.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 17]
Identity and Change
Shown 11 Apr 17
This episode starts with the Agents of HYDRA intro.
Jenna takes Ward and Coulson to find the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
). He is the only one who can help them,
because he is the one who built
The Matrix
.
Mac, like Coulson, never became a SHIELD agent.
Instead he lives with his pre-teen daughter, Hope.
This means he actually has a lot to lose,
so he is very vulnerable to exploitation by HYDRA.
Daisy does not have her superpowers.
However, she has to take on multiple opponents in a fight.
Can she defeat a group of full-grown men,
who all have twice her body-weight,
and she has only her bare hands while they wear body armour?
Meanwhile, Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) is deep in the clutches of Madame Hydra.
He is more than just loyal to her.
His decisions make Grant Ward look like a straightforward good guy.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 18]
No Regrets
Shown 18 Apr 17
SHIELD is beginning to get its act together.
Mace (Jason O'Mara -
Terra Nova
) is actually a good director, and now Coulson is on the team.
Mac signs up too, and there are a couple of old faces back from the dead.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) has turned to the dark side.
Surprisingly, it might not be because his girlfriend is Madame Hydra instead of Simmons.
No, it is because he actually has a good relationship with his father.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is also a keen HYDRA trooper.
She even volunteers to use super-serum in order to fight SHIELD.
But has followed through on her greatest regret?
She wishes she had killed an Inhuman child in order to avert potential disaster,
but will she kill a whole room full of scary Inhuman children?
The rule is that if you die in the dream, you die in reality.
However, surely there must be a medical technique -
CPR, Defibrillation, adrenaline - that can revive a flat-liner.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 19]
All the Madame's Men
Shown 25 Apr 17
Daisy and Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) bust out of HYDRA HQ.
They put Madame Hydra in hospital, but this just makes Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) even more fanatical.
His two father figures, the villain from
Gotham
and the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) have a face-to-face.
Coulson and Mac fit into their new roles running SHIELD.
Grant Ward gives some exposition on his own alternate background.
It turns out he was recruited by Victoria Hand,
not John Garrett, so his loyalties are completely different.
HYDRA's command structure in this reality is completely different.
Not only is Garrett out of the picture,
so is the German war criminal obsessed with the terragen crystals.
His sidekick, Bakshi, is a TV show host.
He seems to be a Bill O'Reilly type - his show is HYDRA propaganda,
and he likes to take his female employees shopping for furniture.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 20]
Farewell, Cruel World!
Shown 02 May 17
Daisy and Jemma have been in the Matrix for ten days.
That means the aircraft they are in has been flying around the world for over a week.
The boss woman refuses to land the aircraft to refuel,
because she deems it too risky,
yet agrees to turn off their cloaking system (their only defence) to save power.
Daisy and Jemma take the crew to the exit point.
Well, they have Coulson and May (
Ming-Na Wen
).
Mac is doubtful about the idea, because he prefers to stay with his long-lost daughter.
Nobody mentions his friends and family on the outside, but who cares?
Trip is keen to take his place, until he finds out that
his alternate self never had sex with Daisy, Jemma or May (
Ming-Na Wen
). Who would want to live in a place like that?
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) gets the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) to lead him to the escape exit in the Matrix.
Jemma tries to get at Fitz through his father, the villain from
Gotham
. But which choice will Fitz make?
HYDRA send a SWAT team to guard the exit.
Once again, we ask - can a SWAT team with automatic weapons and body armour
get taken out by a bunch of people with pistols and no armour?
SHIELD like to portray themselves as the good guys.
However, they love to attack people who cannot fight back
and are keen to summarily execute prisoners.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 21]
The Return
Shown 09 May 17
Aida is flesh and blood now.
Not human so much as In-human.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) tries to persuade her to go back and help the SHIELD crew.
However, he forgets that no good deed goes unpunished.
After all, last time they did try to kill her on sight.
Fitz feels bad about what he did in the Framework.
He blames an over-bearing father figure,
and compares himself to Grant Ward.
Of course, he forgets that when they served HYDRA they optimised their full potential.
Masculinity is deemed toxic, but it is merely empowering.
The episode is mostly about empowered women rescuing male damsels in distress.
Mac is the main one, as he is unconscious the whole time.
Yo-Yo is upset that he was left in the Framework,
although it was his own choice so he could pretend he was with his dead daughter.
Fitz is the other, trapped in the terible dilemma
of having two beautiful desirable women to choose from.
The SHIELD crew try to get home.
Apparently their old base in the USA is a short flight away
from the Russian's oil rig in the Black Sea, eight thousand miles away.
USAF General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) is hunting for them, afraid they might be android replacements.
All except Daisy, who he blames for killing Director Mace.
Apparently being quaked to death looks a lot like post-mortem hammer injuries.
However, if she was an android she would not have her quake powers.
The Russian (Zach Magowan -
The 100
) has made multiple copies of himself,
which is convenient because the SHIELD crew can kill him many times.
Aida is also virtually indestructable.
It seems that the only one who can face them is
Ghost Rider
, although this ignores the fact that Daisy is powerful enough to fight him herself.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 4, Episode 22]
World's End
Shown 16 May 17
This is the end of the Season.
As a result, a lot of characters are in jeopardy.
In fact, a few semi-regulars could easily wind up dead.
Mac stayed in the Framework with his imaginary daughter.
Yo-Yo went in to save him from himself.
Unfortunately, Aida pulled the plug on the whole thing.
Luckily, Daisy is still the same super-hacker she was in Season One.
She sends the mad scientist (John Hannah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) to help find the way out.
Since the Russian (Zach Magowan -
The 100
) can print off infinite bodies of himself,
surely someone can create a quick body for the scientist and the imaginary daughter.
The villains are virtually unstoppable and unkillable.
Aida has the superpowers of two dozen people that Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) dissected in the Framework, including Gordon the teleporter.
Well, she got knocked out by a single icer slug in the previous episode,
but now she is virtually indestructible.
Everyone still uses live ammo against her,
even though it is almost useless.
Anyway, like all great villains they have a classic weakness - overconfidence.
The finale is a setup for the next Season.
Yes, the show has already exceeded its three years
and they now want to stretch it out yet again.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 1]
Orientation (Part One)
Shown 01 Dec 17
This takes up with the cliffhanger that the previous Season ended on.
The team are abducted, held in suspended animation for an unknown period,
then exposed to a magic boulder like the one in
Season Three
. Then they discover that they are on a space station in the middle of an asteroid field.
Unfortunately, it is hard to get exposition at first.
Mack, Yo-Yo and Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) all use violence at the first opportunity
and make no attempt to discover any information.
Daisy and Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) are nowhere to be seen,
although they are both listed in the main credits.
No doubt they will come to the rescue whenever it is dramatically appropriate.
Like all scary abandoned space stations,
this one is infested with massive man-eating CGI roaches.
Luckily there is a stranger who is kitted out like Starlord in
Guardians Of The Galaxy
.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 2]
Orientation (Part Two)
Shown 01 Dec 17
The big revelation at the end of the previous episode
was the location of the space station.
Now Virgil's girlfriend Tess (
Eve Harlow
) gives even more exposition.
Coulson takes Mack and Yo-Yo to the local Fixer (Pruitt Taylor Vince -
Captivity
).
Daisy stalks Deak.
He runs a user-friendly version of the Framework,
a virtual reality that lets the human customers relax.
Daisy calls it a prison within a prison,
but it merely functions like the yard in a regular prison.
It is not immoral to grant convicts some daily exercise and fresh air,
even if in this case it is all a simulation.
Simmons and Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) try to blend in.
Unfortunately, they come to the attention of a Kree woman who looks like a blue-skinned
Jennifer Carpenter
and plays with a couple of balls like Jareth the Goblin King in
Labyrinth
. And as the old Chinese curse says,
may you come to the attention of people in authority.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 3]
A Life Spent
Shown 08 Dec 17
Coulson and the gang are stuck working for the local Fixer (Pruitt Taylor Vince -
Captivity
). They are quite ungrateful about it,
considering that he is protecting them from the Kree.
He helpfully sends them off into space with Virgil's girlfriend Tess (
Eve Harlow
). However, he does not trust them
so he sends a henchman along to keep an eye on them.
The Kree ruler, Cassius, has a teenage Inhuman girl.
He orders Simmons to help the girl to master her powers.
Unfortunately, his plan is to make the girl display her powers to
Rya Kihlstedt
by means of a gladiatorial fight.
Daisy has a madcap plan to rescue Simmons.
Well, not a plan so much as a brute force full-frontal attack.
What could possibly go wrong?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 4]
A Life Earned
Shown 15 Dec 17
Last year one of the main villains was Batiatus the Roman slave-owner from
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
. Now the Inhumans fight as gladiators
for a slave-owner with the Roman-type name Cassius
- well, it is pronounced Kass-eyeus.
The main character, as always, is Daisy.
Her former skills as a computer hacker and martial arts expert are forgotten.
Instead, she is going to be sold as the most valuable Inhuman on the market.
First she has to be trained for the fight,
so they pair her with a young man who can read minds.
On the bright side, he may be a potential love interest for her.
Meanwhile, the local Fixer (Pruitt Taylor Vince -
Captivity
) sends Mac out to collect a debt.
After all, his previous enforcer is no longer available.
This is all intended to make the show darker and grittier, more like
Stargate Universe
. After all, they have the lighting - and one of the stars.
However, this show still has the pretensions of a glossy Marvel show.
The gritty approach does not really do it justice.
Agent Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) takes on Kree warriors.
They may have superhuman strength,
but they last about as long as the Jemhadar super-soldiers did against regular humans in
Star Trek: DS9
. Anyway, she is a hundred-pound woman so she easily kicks ass.
Of course, the Kree have their own hundred-pound woman.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 5]
Rewind
Shown 22 Dec 17
This is the events of the previous four episodes from the perspective of Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
). He was last seen in the bar,
where the alien abduction club left him.
Now he gets taken into custody by the MIBs.
Talbot's replacement is a female General named Hale (
Catherine Dent
), and her minions are a Mulder and Scully pair of USAF officers.
The Agents of SHIELD may be gone,
but there are still FORMER Agents around.
Lance Hunter (Nick Blood -
X Moor (2015)
), the English guy from
Season Two
, pops up to help.
Bobbi is mentioned in passing, but she does not appear.
Well, it would be nice if
The Orville
was to pop up. However, this is not
Once Upon A Time
so the audience is not ready for all the different franchises to cross over.
Once out of the Government's hands,
they set to tracking down the aliens.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 6]
Fun & Games
Shown 05 Jan 18
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) infiltrates the Kree aution.
To do this he plays the role of a supervillain.
Well, he was one in the Matrix last Season.
He starts to bond with Cassius.
After all, they are both victims of overbearing fathers.
Agent May (
Ming-Na Wen
) is ordered to fight to the death for the entertainment of the alien audience.
And for the entertainment of the human audience watching this at home on TV, of course.
Her opponent is an Inhuman who can predict what she does before she does it.
However, he is not a precog - merely a telepath.
And Melinda May has so much muscle memory that she does not need to reveal her intentions via her thoughts.
Down in the human levels, the Kree are looking for Inhumans they can auction.
Yo-Yo steals one of them. Tess (
Eve Harlow
) tries to cover for them.
The dealer wants to hand them over to the Kree.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 7]
Together or Not at All
Shown 12 Jan 18
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) has problems with his escape plan.
To start with, the Kree know where is space-ship is
and he has no back-up route off the station.
It seems that the alien ally chose to go to the surface of his own accord.
Cassius has survived the attempt on his life.
The attempt to slash his throat has merely resulted in a scar on his cheekbone.
He gets to spend quality time with his brother.
They each send their greatest warrior out to track down the humans.
Sinara is not happy with Cassius after he proved willing to sacrifice her
in order to gain favour with his brother.
Deak, the star-hunter guy, makes a reappearance.
Do the so-called heroes of S.H.I.E.L.D. break him out of the room they welded him into?
Or does he have to arrange his own escape?
And if so, can he be trusted?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 8]
The Last Day
Shown 19 Jan 18
The team all meet up again.
The bad news is, they are on the surface.
There are flashbacks - or should we say, flash-asides.
The oracle can remember events in the previous timeline.
Her mother died, so Agent May (
Ming-Na Wen
) became her foster-mother.
The original timeline is explained.
Somehow Daisy destroyed the world.
The survivors went to the Lighthouse bunker,
and luckily the Kree turned up to help them.
Mac and Yo-Yo decided to murder their alien friends.
Nowhere are the Marvel Avengers even mentioned.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 9]
Best Laid Plans
Shown 26 Jan 18
Mac and Yo-Yo go back to the shelter.
Their plan is to start a race-war and murder the blue-skinned Kree.
The Kree's top warrior, Sinara, finally gets to go up against Daisy.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 10]
Past Life
Shown 02 Feb 18
Cassius is less than happy at the outcome of the previous episode.
He overdoses on space-steroids, and takes on Mac single-handed.
Luckily, Mac remembers just in time that his shotgun-axe is basically a bayonet -
like the one that killed Cassius's brother.
Meanwhile, Coulson and the others try to get the time machine working.
Their plan is to leave Enoch and Deak in the bad future,
where they will probably be killed by the Kree anyway.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 11]
All the Comforts of Home
Shown 02 Mar 18
The team arrive back in the present day, still in the same location.
They receive some exposition from a recording of Fury's predecessor (Patrick Warburton -
The Tick
). The lighthouse bunker was created by SHIELD in 1972, but never used.
It is so secret that it was not in the toolkit Fury gave Coulson.
Coulson takes most of the crew on an excursion into the outside world,
even though they are all on the police most wanted list.
General Hale (
Catherine Dent
) deploys a SWAT team led by her greatest warrior -
a young blonde woman with a chakram (like
Xena: Warrior Princess
).
Daisy gets left behind in the bunker with Enoch's replacement.
Unfortunately Deak has been brought from the future as well.
He ends up in police custody, so she has to go bail him out.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 12]
The Real Deal
Shown 09 Mar 18
The destruction of three monoliths has opened a rip in the space-time continuum.
Reality has been infected with monsters from the fear dimension.
To Daisy it is a Kree warrior, to Deak it is a forest filled with trees and living things.
To Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) it is her ex-husband, Lash.
This may be the event that destroys the entire world.
One of the team has to risk sacrificing themselves.
Luckily, Coulson finds it easy to decide who is expendable.
The Ghost Rider incident in the previous Season burned through his Tahiti surgery from Season one.
Mike Peterson (J. August Richards -
Angel
) appears to give Coulson some exposition.
It appears he could be in a
Total Recall
situation, and the entire show has been a case of the Untruthful Narrator.
Deak gets sent out with a shopping list of stuff to get.
Will he come back with the real Deathstroke -
the only one who can take out Lash and Hive single-handed -
or will he just come back with a case of Zima from
Babylon 5
?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 13]
Principia
Shown 16 Mar 18
Deak wants to play catch with Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
), who acts like a grumpy old man.
This is really a wasted opportunity,
because the audience already knows their true relationship
thanks to an expositionary clip in the previous episode.
The team need Gravitonium to seal the breach.
It turns out that the Gravitonium, and the scientists who worked with it,
were all property of Ian Quinn in
Season One
. Yes, finally that unexplored storyline will be tied up.
The bad news is that they have all disappeared somehow.
A former SHIELD agent, Candyman Caine (Jake Busey -
Starship Troopers
), took Quinn's scientists into WitSec.
This was their version of Operation Paperclip,
where German-speaking scientists were recruited to help defend the western world from Stalin.
Coulson seems dubious about the idea of giving HYDRA minions a second chance,
even though Winter Soldier and Scarlet Witch both got a pass in the Avengers movies.
The Gravitonium was being transported aboard a ship that was lost in a storm.
Everyone assumes the ship sank,
even though Gravitonium can (as its name suggests) alter the effects of gravity.
Yo-Yo is still in the medical bay, moping because her arms were severed
and nobody bothered to pick them up off the floor when she was medevaced.
Luckily, the Life-Model Decoy robots have arms suitable to use as replacements.
General Hale (
Catherine Dent
) is building an army of superhumans.
One of them is Von Strucker's son, whose power is the ability to remember everything.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 14]
The Devil Complex
Shown 23 Mar 18
Coulson and the A-team go off to kidnap General Hale (
Catherine Dent
). He tried something similar with the female MIB boss in Season 2,
and ended up being ambushed.
What are the chances something similar happens this time.
Meanwhile, the nightmare void in the Lighthouse basement is still an issue.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) has his worst nightmare come true -
his alternate self from the HYDRA
Matrix
simulation is in the bunker with them.
His evil goal is to do what Fitz himself is afraid to do.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 15]
Rise and Shine
Shown 30 Mar 18
General Hale (
Catherine Dent
) gives Coulson an extended flashback into her backstory.
We find out what happened to General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) after he got a bullet in the head.
It seems to have destroyed his orbito-frontal cortex,
because he has trouble with impulse control.
HYDRA had a plan to save the human race from the blue-skins.
They rebuilt a Chitauri communications device,
and used it to contact an alien group called The Confederacy.
Unfortunately the Confederacy want to enslave the Inhumans,
and probably the rest of the population as well.
Their Ambassador (Peter Mensah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) should be told This - is - SPARTA!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 16]
Inside Voices
Shown 06 Apr 18
Coulson refuses to cooperate further with Hale,
because her plan to turn Daisy into the Destroyer of Worlds
will become literally true.
Luckily Kreel gets second thoughts too,
when he discovers the truth about the gravitonium and General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
). We get three middle-aged white-passing men against the female-led robot army.
It makes sense for Kreel the super-human to punch robots,
but not so much when regular humans like Coulson and
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) is in confinement, on Daisy's orders.
She is angry about his subconscious for doing what was necessary.
When she heads off on a mission,
she leaves Mac in charge - with strict orders not to let Fitz out.
Yo-Yo takes time off from exercising her new robot arms
and helps out trying to free Fitz.
Simmons has a plan that relies on the timeline being fixed and immutable.
But this means the Earth is destined to be destroyed,
and there is nothing they can do to prevent it.
Finally we discover what happened to Ian Quinn (David Conrad -
Ghost Whisperer
). The only one who knew was Raina (
Ruth Negga
), and she did not bother to tell anyone.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 17]
The Honeymoon
Shown 13 Apr 18
Coulson and Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) are on the run from HYDRA.
Daisy and her team are looking for them.
Deak gets himself injured, and has to be patched up with some emergency surgery.
Yo-Yo and Fitz-Simmons are off on a mission of their own.
They decide to raid a former HYDRA base in Herefordshire, England.
It turns out to be guarded by Anton the Russian (Zach Magowan -
The 100
) and his robot army.
To infiltrate the base, the SHIELD team does the favourite move of
Stargate: Atlantis
and blow something up.
Yo-Yo is still suffering emotional trauma and physical pain
from having her arms severed and replaced with robotic limbs.
Since Anton the Russian is also a reluctant cyborg, perhaps they can bond.
Or maybe they will just murder him
in the hope that he personally controls every single android soldier - like in
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 18]
All Roads Lead…
Shown 20 Apr 18
Kreel is locked in his cell, suffering from psychological trauma.
He tells Hale what the audience already knows,
but none of the characters have managed to figure out.
The gravitonium has at least two warring personalities trapped in it.
This means it is unusable, and dangerous to anyone exposed to it.
Hale accepts that her whole plan is now bust.
Hale's daughter and Von Strucker's son have taken Fitz-Simmons hostage.
The SHIELD scientists are forced to repair the gravitonium chamber.
This will only end badly.
Daisy, still Acting Director of SHIELD, leads a raid on the HYDRA base.
She takes Agent May (
Ming-Na Wen
) with her for backup.
Yes, there is a squad of manly men with automatic weapons
but they are left to guard the plane.
The two women go in, and make short work of the manly men from the HYDRA team.
Yes, women in black leather once again beat up men in body armour.
Who would have guessed?
Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) and Coulson are kept back in the bunker, along with Deak and Mac.
Well, they may be the macho men but they are all walking wounded.
Unfortunately one of them has been brainwashed by HYDRA.
Just like in the previous couple of episodes,
the guys in the bunker have to guard against deception from one of their own.
This is the third time in a row that Mac has been in this situation.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 19]
Option Two
Shown 27 Apr 18
Coulson calls everyone together for a briefing.
This gives us the chance to see that there are some expendable red-shirts in the bunker.
Daisy calls Yo-Yo out for the murder she committed in the previous episode.
While Daisy is within her rights to do so,
because her rank as Acting Director was ignored,
this smacks of fixing the blame instead of the problem.
Yo-Yo also has to explain herself to Mac.
Her motivations are a bit convoluted.
She may have selfishly wanted revenge,
but she also wanted to prevent the dark future from happening.
The aliens attack, so the bunker's failsafe is activated.
The interface is a recording of Fury's predecessor (Patrick Warburton -
The Tick
). Coulson does not bother to listen to the whole message,
and just selects Option Two.
This locks everyone inside the bunker.
Unfortunately Coulson takes his time to remember that the aliens have teleporter technology.
The aliens are bulletproof and can deactivate nearby electrical devices like lightbulbs.
Luckily, they can be fought in hand-to-hand combat by un-modified humans like Mac and Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
).
Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) is under guard because he is no longer trustworthy.
However, he keeps saying he can sort everything out.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 20]
The One Who Will Save Us All
Shown 04 May 18
Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) takes Coulson up to the alien ship.
The Confederacy's defences stand no more chance than their soldiers in the Lighthouse
against the man who proudly proclaims himself to be Earth's Mightiest Hero.
In all fairness, even Coulson has to admit that the man scrubs up well.
Unfortunately the goatee beard does look a bit sinister.
Talbot insists that the Confederacy's Ambassador (Peter Mensah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) take him to meet the rest of the Council.
He makes an apparent ally - Cassias (Craig Parker -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
), father of the antagonists from the start of the Season.
Yes, now TWO of the slave-owning gladiatorial games-holding confederates
were in a certain TV show about Ancient Rome.
Daisy and Yo-Yo finally have a confrontation.
It is apparent that Yo-Yo has absolutely no respect for her superior,
or for anything like rank and orders.
How Daisy survives multiple body-blows delivered at super-fast speed
by Yo-Yo's super-strong robot arms is not explained.
She should have gotten badly fractured ribs,
but instead she is fit enough to attempt a rescue of Coulson from the alien ship.
Mac has to run things back in the lighthouse.
He gets a line similar to Captain America's in the first Avengers movie.
Like Daisy, he holds Yo-Yo accountable for her screw-ups.
This actually has an affect on her, because she values her lover's opinion more than her boss's.
She explains her reasoning behind her actions,
something she did not bother to do for Daisy.
The encounter with her future self has damaged her mentally.
Cassias reveals the nature of the intergalactic threat that Earth faces.
It is invasion by the forces of an alien named Thanos.
Yes, this episode takes place at the same time as
Avengers: Infinity War
. It must be an attempt to justify why SHIELD did not bother to reinforce the Avengers in Wakanda.
Talbot insists on returning to Earth so he can help fight Thanos.
This is all going to go terribly wrong.
A bit like the decline and fall of Danerys Targeryen in
Game of Thrones (Season 8)
, although this time it is better foreshadowed and more convincingly portrayed.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 21]
The Force of Gravity
Shown 11 May 18
Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) returns to Earth.
But rather than try to save the planet, he spends his time tying up loose ends.
First he pays a visit to his old buddy Kreel,
then he visits his wife and son.
Mac and Yo-Yo try to find him before he destroys the world.
The Confederacy's Ambassador (Peter Mensah -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) has one job to do - stop Coulson and May (
Ming-Na Wen
) from escaping.
He reckons without Deak,
although the SHIELD team will never really appreciate the newcomer.
Will they take over the ship, and use it against Thanos?
Or will they just try to destroy it,
and leave a million tons of radioactive junk in low earth orbit?
Cassias (Craig Parker -
Spartacus: Blood And Sand
) tries to recruit Daisy.
He offers her a chance to serve in heaven rather than serve in hell.
After all, Daisy might be part of the super-human aristocracy on Earth
but it is basically a hell-world by galactic standards.
If she were to become a soldier of the Kree Empire,
a society so advanced it could easily embrace post-scarcity status,
then she could be an officer in their star-ship fleet.
Will she become Kirk or Khan? An archangel, or a fallen angel?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 5, Episode 22]
The End
Shown 18 May 18
Talbot (Adrian Pasdar –
Heroes
) tries to suck the gravitonium out of Earth.
This will destroy the planet,
so Daisy and Coulson try to talk him out of it.
The problem is that there is only enough centipede serum for one injection.
Yo-Yo wants to prevent the dark future and sacrifice Coulson.
Unfortunately May (
Ming-Na Wen
) and Daisy are obsessed with saving Coulson,
in the hope that he will pull a plan out of his ass and save the day.
The ending is quite downbeat.
After all, when things turn into a civil war there is no happy ending.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 1]
Missing Pieces
Shown 10 May 19
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Enoch headed off on a starship in Season Five,
in order to alter the timeline.
However, since the timeline was successfully altered
there will be nobody to meet him when he gets out of cryo-sleep.
Worse, the ship is destroyed by an attacker
who did not appear in the original timeline.
A year later, Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) and Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) have taken their Quinn Jet interstellar.
They bring along a couple of redshirts,
a male and a female who have appeared at the end of the previous Season.
They will rob or murder anyone who gets in their way,
and have tracked down someone who had contact with Fitz's ship.
Luckily, the alien species they encounter are humanoids
who thrive in oxygen-rich atmospheres.
Back on Earth, Mac is the new Director of SHIELD.
Agent May handles field-work,
such as when an alien thug arrives in the USA
by teleporting through a concrete wall.
Back at HQ, Yo-Yo has a new love interest - Agent Keller (Lucas Bryant -
Haven
). Melinda May assures her there is no policy in SHIELD against dating in the workplace.
This certainly explains all the soap opera BS in this show.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 2]
Window of opportunity
Shown 17 May 19
The alien thugs go on a crime spree in the USA.
Snowflake (
Brooke Williams
) is a kill-crazy lunatic.
Their leader, Sarge, looks just like Phil Coulson.
In other words, they are SHIELD's top priority.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Enoch are working as crew on a cargo hauler.
The Captain is a sadistic thug
who is more than happy to space members of his own crew.
Luckily, Fitz is trying to be a better man.
Unlike his wife Gemma, who is a sadistic torturer.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 3]
Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson
Shown 24 May 19
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Enoch arrive at their alternate destination,
the Planet of Kitson.
The bad news is that they get ripped off.
The good news is that, as the title implies,
this is the local version of Las Vegas.
The good news is that nobody there is actively looking for them.
If Enoch breaks the rules and cheats in the casino,
he should be able to win enough money to buy safe passage.
Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) and Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) have tracked down Fitz's ship to its intended location.
Unfortunately they have to get through the customs inspection.
Worse, a bounty-hunter is after them -
with a Vektor assault rifle souped-up to look like an AR-15.
Kitson has two main industries - the casinos and the brothels.
If you are lucky in the casino, you can afford to be a customer in the brothel.
If you are unlucky, you will be sold as a slave there to cover your debts.
All in all, a fair system that only involves consenting adults.
The name Kitson is used as joke in this episode,
as the planet's reputation is exaggerated to ridiculous lengths.
It turns out that one of the show's producers has that surname,
so it is presumably a deliberate in-joke.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 4]
Code Yellow
Shown 31 May 19
Deak has spent the last year setting up his own tech company.
He has a lot of ideas for great technology,
although he got the ideas from his life in the future
or from things he saw that SHIELD had stolen from aliens.
One project is a 3-D video game,
basically The Framework as a virtual reality shoot-em-up.
It also allows us to see Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) re-envisioned with enhanced cleavage.
Sarge and his team are out to kill anyone who does not belong in that time and place.
Deak is not an alien, but he is a time-traveller.
This is enough to trigger Sarge's detector.
Back at HQ, Yo-Yo and Agent Keller (Lucas Bryant -
Haven
) - her new love interest - have bigger problems.
The gay black pathologist has started dissecting Sarge's latest victim.
Unfortunately, it contains an alien parasite - which is not completely dead yet.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 5]
The Other Thing
Shown 14 Jun 19
Two of Sarge's crew were captured by SHIELD,
but they will not cooperate with Yo-Yo and Mack.
Agent May has been captured by Sarge and Snowflake.
They decide to teach her about the monsters they are fighting against.
May has bigger problems.
She has still not gotten over losing Coulson,
and being around his doppelganger brings back too many memories.
This was directed by Lou Diamond Philips (
The Big Hit
).
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 6]
Inescapable
Shown 21 Jun 19
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) are plugged into the Chromicon computer,
in the hope that they will cooperate in making time-travel possible.
The simulation is capable of manifesting their desires.
Unfortunately it is plugged into their subconscious minds,
so it also manifests their greatest fears.
Fitz manifests The Doctor again.
It turns out that Gemma has a dark side of her own,
which she keeps deeply repressed.
Fitz likens it to the
Ringu
monster, an apt description of its J-Horror appearance.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 7]
Toldja
Shown 28 Jun 19
Sarge is a prisoner of SHIELD.
Every time he warns the so-called good guys about the forthcoming apocalypse,
they treat him as if he is making a threat.
The reality is that he is protecting Earth from an alien menace,
and although his methods may be a bit on the extreme side
nobody actually locked up Yo-Yo when she went murderous in the previous Season.
The SHIELD team think they know better than Sarge when it comes to the aliens.
Deak hacks Sarge's detector, and locates two aliens nearby.
Mack realises that the aliens' plan is to meet up together.
As a result, he has his team capture the aliens
and then put them in the same room together!
What could possibly go wrong?
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons are also prisoners.
They are in the hands of Kitson (Anthony Michael Hall -
Dead Zone
), who wants to get his money's worth out of them
after they cheated in his casino.
Rather than make them fight in a gladiatorial arena,
which would be an expensive set for a one-off scene
(and too reminiscent of the previous episode),
he just puts them in gillotines to see who will get decapitated first.
Not as telegenic as a battle to the death,
but he is working with a limited budget.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 8]
Collision Course (Part I)
Shown 05 Jul 19
Mack has finally given in to reality,
and returned Sarge to the truck.
Two of the team are kept hostage by SHIELD,
so Sarge chooses Snowflake (
Brooke Williams
) as his girl friday.
Mack sends May (
Ming-Na Wen
) and Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) along to help out.
Deak gets forced to provide tech support.
Luckily Snowflake takes a liking to him.
Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
) are on a spaceship that is headed back to Earth.
It was chartered by their mysterious saviour, Izel (
Karolina Wydra
), who has great resources at her disposal.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 9]
Collision Course (Part II)
Shown 12 Jul 19
Sarge's plan is revealed.
He does not want to destroy the entire Earth in order to stop the villainess
- his bomb only has a two hundred mile blast radius.
Unfortunately there is a mid-sized city within that distance,
so SHIELD cannot allow him to make this sacrifice.
While May (
Ming-Na Wen
) and Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) are trapped with Deak and Snowflake on the bomb truck,
Sarge and his team take over Mack's plane.
Yo-Yo is left free, to go all
Die Hard
on them and save the day.
Remember that she has a super-power (super speed),
cybernetic arms (super strength)
and SHIELD combat training (martial arts).
In other words, almost as over-powered as Daisy herself.
Almost but not quite, since Daisy can defeat a nuclear blast
or a massive swarm of Shrikes by waving her hands.
Sarge's backup plan is to take Mack's plane after Izel's starship.
The thing is that he already has key pieces of technology -
teleportation gates and a suitcase nuke.
In fact, his tech is better than that of the Chromicons.
While they have portable stargates
that can perform interstellar jumps to any where,
Sarge's technology uses spray-paint to create gates.
A pity his plans do not make best use of his technology.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 10]
Leap
Shown 19 Jul 19
Melinda May (
Ming-Na Wen
) did something quite out of character.
Later she complains of blacking out and losing time.
They take their time working out that the villainess is possessing people,
and leaping from body to body.
SHIELD should have procedures for this kind of thing,
since it happens so often.
Well, the crew were replaced with Life Model Decoys a few years ago
- and there was the time that Hive possessed some of the regular cast.
All in all, it should be the kind of thing they would have planned for.
Luckily, Deak has a low security clearance.
Not because of SHIELD's history of being infiltrated,
but because of his success in the private sector.
Mack locks up Yo-Yo and Daisy.
After all, they are the most super-powerful characters
and they have everyone else at a heavy disadvantage.
On the other hand, nobody really lifts a finger
when it is a regular guy on the chopping block.
Women in refrigerators get whined about,
but not minions or redshirts.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 11]
From The Ashes
Shown 26 Jul 19
Izel has Mack and Yo-Yo as her hostages.
Her plan is to take the quantum device to an ancient Incan temple
that is at an intersection of two ley lines.
She needs the help of the gay black pathologist.
Deak is working as part of Team Fitz-Simmons.
No mention is made of his girlfriend, Snowflake.
Presumably she is enjoying the massive TV set he gave her
while she is locked in her quarters in the bunker.
Anyway, he turns out to be a useful member of the team.
Daisy wants to get Sarge his memories back,
so she can force him to tell her where Izel is heading.
To do this, she uses her super-power to murder him.
After all, the damage will not be permanent -
and he has super-powers of his own,
so she can torture him without being a bad person herself.
The butch female agent (
Briana Venkus
) hangs around the control room,
so Melinda May has someone to pass the Bechdel test with.
Although she mentions being shot,
she does not display her bandaged wound
or show any sign of pain or discomfort from it.
All she does is mention the murder of her cow-orker,
a white male who was not the most likeable character.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 12]
The Sign
Shown 02 Aug 19
Izel (
Karolina Wydra
) uses the quantum device on Yo-Yo and Mack
to create a copy of Flint from the aborted timeline.
Then she uses his super-power to reconstruct the monoliths.
Her next stage is to open the portal
and bring her people through.
Daisy (
Chloe Bennet
) leads the rescue team into the jungle.
They are equipped with bullets made from Sarge's shrike-killing daggers.
Sarge has the magic sword.
Despite Deak's low security clearance,
he has somehow been able to get around SHIELD's system.
The good news is that he has managed to build a teleportation backpack.
It is literally a one-man hyperdrive that allows him to travel instantaneously
to anywhere on the planet.
Of course, this does not win his grandparents' approval.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 6, Episode 13]
New Life
Shown 9th Aug 2019
The Lighthouse gets raided by Hunters who want to catch Fitz (Iain De Caestecker -
In Fear
) and Simmons (
Elizabeth Henstridge
). Their leader gets a bit confused, and orders Leave no prisoners!
This should be either leave no witnesses or take no prisoners.
Presumably his amateurishness is due to the fact he used to be an anthroplogist
and his re-deployment as a Hunter was only a recent development.
Agent May (
Ming-Na Wen
) wakes up with a sword through her chest.
Luckily she is in an alien dimension
where life and death have no meaning,
although nobody tells her this until after she pulls the sword out.
If she had been on a planet that obeyed the regular laws of physics
she would have bled to death quite quickly.
Now she has the chance to do what she does best -
a sword-fight with wire-fu overtones.
As with the previous few Seasons,
the first storyline is concluded at the mid-Season break.
The epilogue sets up the next story arc, which involves time-travel.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [Season 7, Episode 1]
The New Deal