So the world is safe and the future changed thanks to the SHIELD team, right? … Right? Okay, let’s take a look and see.
1. When Life Gives You Lemons, it Probably Has a Crush
So let’s start by saying that I still don’t think making Deke crush on Daisy is a good idea. At all. But at least the other characters acknowledge the same, and I did enjoy seeing Mack and Coulson casually state how they’re the last people he should turn to for relationship advice. It was amusing.
But what’s more interesting is Deke explaining how people from his time would express their feelings: via the gift of lemons.
While it does sound humorous, the fact is that they lived on a space station slum where actual fruits would be exceedingly rare, and therefore expensive. Even a lemon would take no small amount of effort to save up for, and more than just showing affection, it can actually serve a purpose, like being made into lemonade.
Why a lemon, though? Why not an apple, or strawberries, or any fruit that isn’t used as a metaphor for sourness? My guess is: it sounds funny. But there may be a symbolic meaning, which we can discuss in the comics.
2. Compromised
Last episode ended with the revelation that Talbot has been programmed with the “compliance” command, itself a callback to earlier seasons. The SHIELD team probably should have seen that coming, as Coulson is quick to acknowledge, but it did lead to a good tense scene.
I was half expecting Talbot to actually kill Polly when he was choking her out, but that would be too dark even for this show. Though it was frustrating to see Robin just stand there as her mother was calling for her to run and putting her life at risk to do so, even if Robin probably already saw from her future knowledge that running was no good.
Similarly, while it was clear that Talbot was going to turn his gun on himself while trying to break the programming, I half expected him to pull the trigger before anyone could react. Instead, we get Coulson making another suicidal gamble and commanding Talbot to point it at him instead, building up the tension in the scene to a pretty gripping point.
Then Mack shoots Talbot anyways, but there’s always a Night-Night gun at the ready for moments like this.
3. The Cavalry’s Here
One of the first moments in this show where we see just how badass Agent Melinda May is came when she went into battle without a gun, saying “If I need one, I’ll take one.” And she did. We get a callback to that scene this episode, with her using the same line before they charge into Hale’s base.
May also mentioned she needed to work out some pent-up frustration, and she wasn’t kidding with the beatdown she put on some agents. It was cool to see May and Daisy working as a two-woman team to quickly tear through the Hydra agents, even if it ended with a sudden surrender.
Mostly it’s just nice to see Ming-Na Wen kicking butt.
4. Don’t Say They Didn’t Warn You
So after practically everyone tells Ruby that using the infusion machine is a bad idea, and seeing how the gravitonium messed up Creel, she goes through with it anyways.
Surprise surprise, it’s a bad idea.
So her new powers crush Strucker Jr.’s head (which I suppose takes him out of the picture now) and she’s freaking out not only because she can’t control her own powers, but because she has two guys arguing incessantly inside her head too.
Nothing against Dove Cameron, who did a great job showcasing Ruby’s pain and panic, but I could not feel any sympathy for her plight. After all she’d done to the rest of the team, and how she ignored every single warning sign, there was no reason to think anything other than “Well, she brought that upon herself.”
And yes, I know that Ruby got some humanizing moments, and I still approve of her refusal to kill her dog as part of the Hydra final exam, but it takes more than that to redeem a character. Instead, I was just wondering “How long are they going to drag this out before someone just ends it?”
Continued belowThen someone did.
5. Just Saved the World, Huh?
So Yo-Yo gets her revenge, in a nice parallel to the scene where Ruby slices her arms off. Ruby dies, Hale is sad (but she’s evil too), and Daisy is upset.
“I had it under control! She was coming around!” is insisted. But let’s be real: she didn’t and she wasn’t.
Ruby was in no way coming around, and with all signs pointing to her being the true “destroyer of worlds,” it’s not surprising that Yo-Yo would make that call. Except she might be a little premature in declaring that she saved the world.
After all, the idea that Ruby is the true destroyer was just based off the idea that Whitehall’s super soldier would be called as such, and that gravitonium probably could tear the world apart. But that could easily be a red herring, since the future footage we saw of Daisy’s last known whereabouts before the world went boom still haven’t happened.
It’s too early to call it a victory, at least.
With that said, I’m glad that Ruby at least got something of a character arc and things to do before she was killed. We’ve had too many potentially good female villains fridged in the past, and others who just served as tools for the male villains, so a little equal representation in the evil department is nice.
