Happy new year, readers! We’ve got more S.H.I.E.L.D. to look at, and more spacefaring, time-hopping things to explore. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the latest episode.
1. Fitz the Fearsome
Let’s be real, Fitz was the best part of this episode. He wakes up in the future and is told that he is now a vicious and feared Marauder (not to be mistaken for a Ravager) named Boshtok. The man was rolling high on his bluff checks, playing the part convincingly no matter what he was trying to do.
Don’t want to eat space snail? He finds it distasteful, as he does all of them. Oh, snap! Needs to talk to Simmons? “Your servant is ignoring me.” Has to stop a fight to save May? “This bores me! Send her down to the surface instead.”
It seems like he was channeling a bit of his nasty Framework self to properly pull it off, but it worked. Well-played.
2. Flint Rocks It
There was no way they were going to introduce a character named Flint and not make him the Inhuman Flint from the comics. Just as predicted, this episode saw him undergoing terrigenesis. Sure, it happened a bit early, since Kasius was looking to gain an extra batch of Inhumans for his guests, but it still happened.
Given the time constraints of the episode, they still worked with the character well. His uncertainty after gaining powers and initial difficulty controlling them, and how he felt that being an Inhuman slave to the Kree would still provide better opportunities than he already had, they were all portrayed well. We got a nice story from Yo-Yo about her own powers as she helped talk him through it, and it looks like he’s going to be helping the team out for now. I look forward to seeing how his character grows.
3. Are You Not Entertained!?
Given Kasius’s death matches, we had two major fights this episode. The first was May versus Ben, and I must say, that had some great fight choreography. Even while wounded, May managed to pull off some nice moves, and with Ben dodging and blocking each with ease, you could tell a lot of time went into choreographing that fight. It showed, and the end result was well worth it.
Too bad we spent a lot of it watching Fitz and Kasius talk instead, but it still gave us important character information.
For the other fight, Daisy is set up against Sinara, Kasius’s bodyguard and enforcer. While it’s not necessarily a bad fight scene, it can’t really compare to the previous one, because while the first was an excellent show of timing and maneuvering from both parties, a lot of this one was jumping around and posing as the special effects added Quake’s shockwave effects and Sinara’s flying balls of death. There was one point where they got into melee, but that turned into each one punching the other in the face a few times, before they moved back.
Not the worst fight scene ever, but the first was so much cooler. Fancy effects just can’t compare to well-timed choreography and martial arts.
4. Death Toll
Man, this episode really built up that body count. Ben got summarily executed (probably because a mind reader would be too useful), Tess was killed offscreen for not turning in Flint (alas, poor Tess, we didn’t know you that well but you could have been a more developed character in due time and provided decent exposition), and Grill gets killed in the time-honored tradition of “rocks fall, everyone dies.” Even Kasius gets his throat slit, but it doesn’t seem like quite enough to kill him.
Now the question is: what purpose do these deaths serve? Do they show the nature of the world they live in, where human lives are expendable and taken without a second thought? Because we already knew that was the case. Do they serve an emotional purpose as we say goodbye to beloved characters, or shock us with their suddenness, like in Game of Thrones? Not really.
Do they take advantage of the show’s late timeslot and remove otherwise helpful characters to put the S.H.I.E.L.D. team in even more dire straits? Oh heck yes they do.
Continued belowI also have to wonder: if the team returns to their era and prevents the world from being destroyed, do these deaths even matter, since the resulting time paradox would prevent them from ever happening?
5. Still No Sinking the Fitz-Simmons Ship
I know the show loves tearing the couple apart only to bring them back together but you have to admire just what lengths Fitz goes through to reunite with Simmons (and vice-versa). The speech he gave about how time and space couldn’t keep them apart was nice and well-delivered, even if we as an audience know Simmons couldn’t hear any of it. And to have Fitz propose when she couldn’t hear, then Simmons propose when they were fleeing, well, even I have to admit that was adorable.
So, what world-shaking disaster do you predict will prevent their wedding from taking off next season?
