After last week’s rather big triumph, SHIELD is back for its penultimate episode, one that raises the stakes and meanders a bit at the same time. But hey, it wouldn’t be SHIELD if it didn’t! Let’s investigate below.
1. The Secret Origin of Grant Ward
Easily the best and worst part of the episode, “Ragtag” was intercut with scenes from Ward’s past: his escape from a juvenile facility and meeting Garrett, his unusual training and how he turned into the man we know him as. On the one hand, it was nice to see some of these things because, if nothing else, it actually gave us more of an insight into Garrett, the season’s Big Bad. That’s what I took away from it, really; Ward we already kind of a knew, traitorous twist aside, so this episode didn’t particularly establish anything ostensibly new about him. But Garrett? All his monologues, his war stories, everything — great insight into both what he’s trying to accomplish and where he comes from.
That said, man, the show needs to pick a stance. Ward is a villain! Hate him! Ward is maybe misunderstood! Forgive him! Maybe? The Ward narrative is balanced by Fitz insisting he’s a good guy and everyone telling him how wrong he is, but boy, that kind of got tiresome. The show is telegraphing a redemptive moment for Ward, and all things considered I’d be willing to say they could do it well, but they should just put their foot down one way or the other already.
2. The Monsters
A lot has been teased about Skye over the season, and one aspect in particular is her lineage. Who is she really? Where does she come from? You may remember her being described as a 0-8-4, an object of unknown origin, and it was always hinted at that this may not just be because she’s an orphan.
Well, Raina decides to drop a semi-bomb in this episode when she mentions a “legend” of monsters decimating a town in search of their young, and Skye sharing the DNA with those monsters. She doesn’t say what those monsters are and she seems to put emphasis on their DNA being different than ours, but while the scene cuts off before she can get any more specific it’s clear that Skye is perhaps dangerous.
So what are “the monsters”? My guess? Inhumans. I’ve talked about this before and groaned about synergy, but Marvel is making a big push for Inhumans in their comics and I would guess, with the inclusion of a Kree body on the show and the inclusion of the Kree in Guardians of the Galaxy, that SHIELD is about to get a dose of ‘Inhumanity.’ #ItsAllConnected, etc etc
3. Deathlok of the 90’s
Speaking of Garrett being the real star of the episode, this episode revealed the relationship that Cybertek has been playing the entire episode (in an almost Davies-esque reveal — kudos on that, writers!) and that Garrett himself is the original Deathlok. He was also created in the 90s, which is when the common iteration of Deathlok first appeared (though the character has been around since the mid-70s).
Garrett being a Deathlok certainly changes things, but not necessarily for the better. We only ever needed one, even though about 50 red eyes appear at the end of the episode. What’s interesting about this, though, is the way that SHIELD has decided to tie all of its threads together. After a whole season’s worth of content, I think this reveal actually kind of illustrated how dependent on Winter Soldier this show is; literally nothing they’re doing now could’ve happened without the events of that movie, and I honestly can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing?
It’s good because: the show has improved. The connections to the Marvel U have grown ten-fold, they can include Hydra now and they can get away with a lot of things that wouldn’t fit into the show’s canon on its own. Winter Soldier essentially allowed the show to reinvent itself in the last inning, and it has worked wonders for the content, turning this into a Marvel Comics Television Show finally.
Continued belowIt’s bad because: this is no way to make a television show. At least not one that can stand on its own two legs.
And for whatever reason, Garrett as Deathlok made me think about this.
Again, anyway.
4. Buddy
Ah, Buddy. We hardly knew ye.
I’ll just throw this out there as an aside, but honestly, I kind of hate the Buddy plot element. From the second you meet him you know you’ll never see him past the end of the episode and that he’ll be used as a metaphor for the events in the present timeline. The show telegraphs a lot of its punches, but this one was the worst. More to the point, though, is that it’s just a lazy trope; you don’t introduce a pup in the first act unless you plan to sacrifice it in the third, and other variations on Chekhov’s Gun.
It might be a minor thing to pick on for this episode, and I’ll admit to that. But I figured it stands worth noting that in terms of developing characters in this episode, this was a really lazy way to go about it.
5. Lost at Sea
So as the episode closes, we’re in all sorts of disarray. Ward has done his final betrayal (assumedly), leaving Fitz and Simmons lost at sea in a big metal box of death. The rest of the team is stuck underground with what appears to be an army of Deathloks. And Garrett? Garrett just got his super soldier serum synthesized from the blood of a dead alien, and he’s feeling better than ever.
In terms of a penultimate episode, this one checks all the right boxes: stakes have never been higher, the villain is now a supervillain, and the team has to pray for a deus ex machina to get them out of their predicaments. I can’t say that I’m particularly enthralled or nervous about what’s coming next, not in the same way that I am about last week’s penultimate Arrow episode (come on, that was insane!), but I will say that my interest in SHIELD was only higher right before the show aired its first episode. It was been a long, arduous walk uphill to get to this point, but I for one am looking forward to what happens in the finale: who makes it out, who doesn’t, and how the team will all be saved thanks to one of Triplett’s Howling Commando spy gear — of which I want to say way more of in the eventual Agent 47 TV Show.
And, fine, I hope Fitz and Simmons make it out OK too. Poor kids.
Also, how about that Emma Rios image for this week’s episode? They released it almost a week ago and you don’t really realize how spoiler-laden it is until now.
