The long road home
(This review contains
spoilers!)
Season 4 of S.H.I.E.L.D is coming to a close, and that means we’ve got quite a
few episodes coming up filled with action, suspense, and of course more
surprises than doctors consider healthy for stress management. That means this
episode had to do a lot of the heavy lifting in setting up for the next three
weeks, tying up the loose ends of the plot that need to be ready for when
everything goes down. A lot of this week was spent talking about how to escape
and what Aida’s master plan is, and it served a good job of getting us excited
for what the grand finale will entail.
I’ve always been amazed at what S.H.I.E.L.D can accomplish in such small
amounts of time. Remember when they killed off Rosalind in Season 3 in the
first two minutes of the episode, making jaws drop around the world? This
episode was no different, as Daisy (now with her powers back) literally pushed
Madam Hydra out of one of the top floors of the Triskelion before the cold open
was over. And this wasn’t an “oh, she’s going to get right back up because she
has special Framework powers” situation either. As we saw later her spine was
broken, which led Fitz even further down the path of the dark side.
We got a glimpse as to what the
mysterious Project: Looking Glass the two are working on was as well. While we’re
still not sure exactly what it was, it’s supposedly Darkhold-based technology
that will give Aida a human body in the real world, allowing her for free
thought and emotion. If this is the case, it does bring up an interesting
question: why not use that machine to bring other characters from the Framework
into the real world, like Tripp, Ward, Hope and Radcliffe? While I like all
four of those characters (and this is likely the route they’ll be taking), I
kind of want to see the reactions the characters get from having these people
back in their lives and then losing them again. We’re all excited to see how
Fitz reacts to what he did in the Framework, but how will Mack deal with losing
his daughter again after seeing what she could’ve been? Or how will Daisy
handle having a Ward who actually cared about her? It’s an interesting realm I’d
like to see explored, and I feel that having these characters get a Get Out of
Jail Free card back to the real world would be kind of a cheat. Conversely, it’d
be interesting to see how Framework Tripp, Ward and so on react to what the
real world is like, but I feel that’s a novelty that’d wear off fast,
especially if it’s multiple characters having the same story arc.
Anyways, back to the episode, this
week had a bunch of hidden goodies and easter eggs for long-time S.H.I.E.L.D fans. This entire storyline
has been filled with little winks at the audience about the show’s past (Fitz’s
dwarf drones and Daniel Whitehall being in the history books being some notable
ones), but this week had loads. Season 2 villain Bakshi played a fun role as a
HYDRA newscaster with some funny similarities to modern politics. There were
also a lot of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it easter eggs hidden on his show, such as
a mention of Gideon Malick on the ticker and a tribute to John Garret/Bill
Paxton.
The last really interesting thing about
this episode was Ward’s role in it. He had a really good scene with Daisy where
he acknowledged that he knows he can’t go back with her, but he wanted to know
if he could get Framework Daisy back when the real one left. Honestly, to me
this scene is just screaming “he’s coming with them at the end!”, especially
considering what Project Looking Glass is. Again, while I really like Framework
Ward, I worry that the novelty of him will wear off if he sticks around too
much. That’s just my opinion though, and I’m sure that whatever the writers
have planned will be fantastic.
This episode definitely served as
setup for the finale, but it was done in a way that made it still entertaining
and interesting. The character moments were good, and I liked seeing Framework
Ward grapple with the realization that his world isn’t real. Fitz also had a
lot of great moments this week too, as he continued to go darker and darker in
his pursuit of the ones who broke Madam Hydra’s spine. Coulson gave an awesome
speech at the end of the episode that was as empowering as it was culturally
relevant. All in all, while this episode was lighter on action than S.H.I.E.L.D’s usual fare, it was still
just a very stellar episode.
FINAL SCORE
7/10
Good
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