Just another day at S.H.I.E.L.D
(This review contains
spoilers!)
With Ghost Rider’s story coming to an end (a little
prematurely in my opinion), S.H.I.E.L.D decided to tie up nearly all the loose
ends introduced at the beginning of the season. This led to a winter finale
that, while still good, did feel like more of a whimper than a bang.
Now that Coulson, Fitz and Robbie have
returned from the dimension between dimensions, the whole team has been
reassembled to take down Uncle Eli once and for all. But as Eli is preparing a
doomsday device, Fitz, Simmons and Aida have thrown together a combination of
science and magic in hopes they can teleport it away.
While it’s a good premise overall, it
doesn’t feel worthy of ending the entire arc. While Eli being the big bad was a
great surprise, he doesn’t quite feel like a villain worthy of the likes we’ve
seen before. In fact, his whole scheme almost feels like it came straight out
of Season 1. It’s a lot of science mumbo-jumbo that will apparently lead to him
becoming a god. Needless to say, Coulson and his crew save the day, but not
without having Robbie teleported with Eli to parts unknown.
As disappointing as it is that we’ve
lost Ghost Rider after only 8 episodes, I will say that he just might’ve been
my favourite thing S.H.I.E.L.D has ever done. Gabriel Luna was a fantastic Robbie Reyes, really making
the character his own and allowing him to stand out among the others. It’s
really saying something when you can make the audience care as much about your
character as the characters they’ve already spent 4 years with, but Luna pulled
it off. Plus, the CGI on Ghost Rider was very impressive, especially
considering the TV budget S.H.I.E.L.D is working with. Towards the end of the
episode Coulson made it a very real possibility that we haven’t seen the last
of Ghost Rider, and I hope he makes his return sooner rather than later.
Director Mace was another huge
presence in this episode, with he and Coulson’s clashing ideals finally coming
to blows. Now, with his secret ties with the Inhuman hating senator being clear
for all the agents to see, he feels even more untrustworthy than ever. So far I
thought Mace slowly becoming more and more of a suspicious character has been
excellent, but I do think that the show isn’t exercising his power over the
other agents enough. He’s their superior; why is he answering to Coulson? I
also liked that we finally saw him in the field finally, complete with a cool
new suit. It seemed vaguely Captain America inspired, surely as a reference to
the comic book Jeffrey Mace, who formerly carried the red, white and blue
shield.
Daisy has rejoined the team after
having her cover blown because…she wanted to get some fresh air. I’m sorry, I
know I’ve been really unforgiving to Daisy’s character arc all season, but it
ends in the stupidest way possible! After Eli is stopped, Daisy goes outside to
take a breather. Then she jumps way up in the air, has a glamour shot for some
reason, and lands right down in front of the press, giving her little choice
but to rejoin S.H.I.E.L.D. I really liked Daisy’s dynamic with Robbie, but that
was really the only highlight of her this season thus far. Other than that, she’s
just been complaining through everything, and if her jumping back onboard the
team is going to put an end to that, I’m all for it.
And I guess I can’t really finish this
review without talking about that ending. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but
I totally predicted this back in my review of the first episode of this season.
S.H.I.E.L.D is a show that prides
itself on breaking expectations and surprising the viewers at every turn. So
why did they decide the next arc would be this stupid cliché!? The whole evil
robot thing has been done so many times before, including in the exact same
universe S.H.I.E.L.D is set in. Hell, they’ve mentioned Ultron himself like 2 or
3 times already! This was an extremely predictable way to continue Aida’s
storyline, and I’m more than a little disappointed that this is where we’re
going next.
On the other hand, S.H.I.E.L.D did
have one big surprise up their sleeves. The one major difference Aida has over
Ultron is that Aida is an LMD, or a Life-Model Decoy. As we’ve heard mentioned
several times before, she is lifelike enough that she was able to fool
everybody (except Simmons). Knowing that, the final scene of the episode showed
Aida opening a door in Radcliffe’s laboratory to reveal…May’s unconscious body.
So that means the May hanging out with the rest of the crew is an LMD, just
like Aida. So when did this happen? That wasn’t revealed yet, but the show has
lots of explaining to do once they make their early return in January. I
imagine that there’ll be a lot of paranoia for the rest of the season as nobody
can be trusted anymore, since anyone could be an LMD.
As an episode, Laws of Inferno
Dynamics was fine, but as an arc ender, it was a little underwhelming. I wanted
to see more of Ghost Rider doing actual Ghost Rider things for the end of his
storyline (the skull man himself only got about a minute of screen time)
instead of a bog-standard mission with a disappointing final battle with the
villain. Despite this, the characters were excellent as always this week, and
while the setup for what’s next is an extremely clichéd and tired trope,
S.H.I.E.L.D pulled it off in a way that leaves me intrigued to see where they
go with it.
FINAL SCORE
6/10
Okay
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