Finally this week I got to trade my The Flash Zoom-In articles so that I can talk about Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which I have been following closely this third season. During the eight episode this week titled Many Heads, One Tale we got an abundance of new plot threads and revelations going on. With Hydra once again taking the focus as the overarching evil doers for the season, this episode’s story continues last season’s attempt to weed out hidden Hydra agents and figure out their mischievous plots.
Warning: SPOILERS will follow!
1. I’ve been increasingly growing tired of Grant Ward since the pilot episode of this show, and I can’t help but wish they would just kill him off and move on to a new bad guy. In a way they tried to do that this episode. While I don’t care for Ward as a character, there is no doubt that he is made out to be a James Bond level of bad ass super spy. I liked the opening fight scene, but laughed when a small drink tray was all that was needed to stop bullets from six highly trained Hydra goons. Unlike Stormtroopers, Hydra goons apparently always hit their targets, but only if the targets are protecting the person they’re trying to shoot. After Ward dispatched the goons, the following torture scene made me flash back to the movie Hostel (that remains the only movie I’ve ever walked out of the theater on) when he took the blowtorch to one of the goons’ face. Ward has taken a far darker turn this season than last ever since the loss of Agent 33. If they didn’t show Ward every episode I think I would start to like him more as a villain, because this new “Hydra Leader Ward” persona he’s adopted ever since starting his own off shoot is actually more interesting than his former self.
2. After last week’s scene with Rosalind Price getting a phone call from Hydra’s Gideon Malick, I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that she was actually Hydra; that feeling still hasn’t changed. Last week I felt the show was implying too much that “OMG Ros is Hydra you guys!” but this week I felt the writers were trying to give reasons why she wasn’t. While her reasons were absolutely the truth, I felt like her sudden understanding that she has been duped by Hydra this whole time was far too sudden and easy for her. I didn’t really buy the whole plan Coulson had for locking her in that room in the first place. Was he just going to leave her locked up until she talked? Because that room looked pretty swanky and I could have lasted a while in there. Although with all of that white lighting it would have been hard to sleep, but I digress. Allowing her to use her phone and everything else that was done to her seemed unnecessary. Couldn’t the agents that went into the ATCU base have done that anyway whether or not Ros was locked up or not? All that happened was the call that S.H.I.E.L.D. allowed anyways to tell Ros that they FBI were there. It almost seems like it would have been better if Coulson and Ros were in the ATCU base instead so that she could go see for herself all of the uncovering of truths the S.H.I.E.L.D. team did. I’m still not sure, but I think she will turn out to be Hydra and is just saving her own skin.
3. The infiltration scenes themselves are really the reason people watch this show in the first place. Most people want to see the spies to spy stuff on a spy centric TV show. I loved Agent Hunter’s Mr. Robot-like persona he adopted while undercover with Bobby (I call her Mockingbird). Although it would have probably been smarter using Daisy as the undercover hacking genius instead of having her just stand around on the flying base relaying lines to Hunter. I get that she probably had hacking to do off-screen, but they definitely didn’t let us know that. The fight scene between the super lame telekinetic Inhuman and Mockingbird was pretty substandard for me. While yes, the bouncy magnetic clubs were cool and very much like the comics, the way the fight was shot and choreographed was poorly done. They didn’t need to make a big deal and use CGI to slow mo how the clubs worked, they should have just made it go quick, showing the clubs rebounding back into her hand like Thor’s hammer. That being said… I hope this club tech isn’t a one-time thing.
4. So apparently it’s Hydra that is breeding Inhumans and also apparently the first Inhuman recorded was Hydras founder? These revelations were pretty big and confusing at this early in the season. Mockingbird finding all of the fish oil capsules and the freezer full of post cocooned Inhuman rejects was interesting. Hydra is obviously wanting to turn their people into weapons and they’ll sacrifice a ton of people just to get their hands on one Inhuman. I like that this is what’s happening though because it follows exactly what Hydra would be doing. Why they’re keeping frozen remains of the rejects… I have no clue. The huge bomb that dropped at the end of the episode though was Malick’s tale to Ward about Hydra’s Inhuman founder being on the other side of the monolith’s portal (where Gemma was) on… you know… Ego the living planet. He told of an Inhuman that was so powerful that got banished to the other planet and it makes me wonder if that person is Gemma’s boyfriend Will, or if that Inhuman is the death-like figure we saw? While I still think that planet is Ego and the deathlike figure was a mental projection, the question is… if Will is an Inhuman… what are his powers? And why didn’t he use them when Gemma was around? I’ll be a bit disappointed if that planet turns out to have not been Ego and only was inhabited by some Hydra founder with a pinch of the crazies.
5. The best part of this season and of the whole show for me is Fitz and Gemma’s relationship. Iain De Caestecker who plays Fitz has proven himself to be an insanely good actor and the best actor currently cast on this show. I’m really loving Fitz this season, as he fights against his wanting to be with Gemma and his need to make her happy by saving Will. During this episode this specific plotline boils over as Gemma and Fitz unravel the mysterious logo that Will’s NASA uniform had on it. Turns out it’s a Hydra symbol… ugh. So either Will is a member of this Hydra Illuminati, or he’s just an innocent casualty of this Hydra branch of NASA. I’m going to guess he’s Hydra, because honestly Gemma has to end up with Fitz for me to ever be happy with this show. I loved Fitz’s outburst after Gemma’s meltdown. While I found it strange to have the two kiss after this scene, I really loved the dialog and the idea that Fitz thinks they’re both cursed to never be together. The idea that they’ll be trying to overcome this cosmic force that wants them apart is what really has me excited and keeps me watching this show.
Overall this was a pretty good episode that held a lot of new information. The short scenes with Lincoln and May were very fun to watch as we start to see May place blame on herself for not seeing that Andrew was Lash earlier. While I haven’t begun to warm up to the character of Lincoln yet, I hope that he will finally join Daisy’s group of Secret Warriors with discount Magneto. I just want episodes with the team of Inhumans doing cool stuff. Mack’s also a character who I’ve been very down on ever since the revelation of his working for the other S.H.I.E.L.D. last season. I found his conversation with Coulson way out of order and someone needs to teach Mack the order of authority within S.H.I.E.L.D., because Coulson shouldn’t have taken that crap for him. Lastly, the final scene with Ward and Andrew didn’t really do a whole lot for me. It seems like Hydra is going to torture Andrew and observe his powers. If they’re wanting to use Inhumans as personal weapons, I don’t think this is the way to get them on their side. So the questions for this episodes are: Is Rosalind Price Hydra? Is Will a Hydra Inhuman from the olden days? How will S.H.I.E.L.D. go after such a high profile person such as Gideon Malick? What does Hydra have planned for Lash and is he the only Inhuman they’ve taken from ATCU? And finally, how will the small piece of the monolith come into play? We saw that the monolith had several holes in it, so I’m guessing there are several of these mini-portals lying around somewhere. While this show can be very hit or miss for some people, there is a lot of fun things going on this season and I have to admit that I’m enjoying the ride. I look forward to watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D each week just as much as The Flash and Arrow which definitely hasn’t always been the case. Let me know your theories on what’s going on in this show in the comments below!