Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 3 'Review'

Are You Inhuman?

(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So as I stated a few months ago in my ‘review’ of Season 2 of Agent Carter, this review of Season 3 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be done in the same style that I used for the former. Instead of a full-length review, this post will instead be a series of bullet points regarding my thoughts on the season. The main reason why I’m doing it this way is because I realize that as I go through more and more seasons of this show (it’s already been renewed for a fourth season), I’m running the risk of repeating what I said before in my previous reviews of Season 1 and Season 2. So with that said, here are my thoughts on Season 3 of Marvel Studios’ first TV series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Synopsis: At the end of Season 2, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team; Agents Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), Daisy ‘Skye’ Johnson (Chloe Bennet), who was revealed to be a member of the race known as Inhumans midway through the season, Leo Fitz (Iain de Caestecker), Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), Lance Hunter (Nick Blood), Bobbi Morse (Adrianne Palicki), and Alphonso ‘Mack’ Mackenzie (Henry Simmons), were successful in preventing Skye’s mother and Inhuman leader Jiaying from unleashing the Inhuman-changing substance known as the Terrigen Mist upon the world. However, unbeknownst to them, a small dose of the substance did end up getting leaked into the ocean and was subsequently ‘transferred’ into fish oil supplement pills. As more and more Inhumans are revealed all over the world, Coulson and Daisy begin to form a team of these ‘Secret Warriors’ to help S.H.I.E.L.D. deal with future threats. However early on Coulson and co. find themselves somewhat in conflict with the Advanced Threat Containment Unit (ATCU), led by Rosalind Price (Constance Zimmer), in regards to how the two groups are handling the Inhuman situation. While this is going on, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent revealed to be HYDRA mole Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) begins to rebuild HYDRA following its collapse (as partially seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier) in order to take on Coulson’s team. He soon teams up with fellow HYDRA agent Gideon Malick (Powers Boothe), a former member of the World Security Council that oversaw S.H.I.E.L.D. prior to its dismantling, in order to find a way to bring back an ancient Inhuman known as Hive that is capable of controlling the minds of Inhumans. This obviously causes a lot of problems for Coulson and his team once Hive returns to Earth intent on turning all humans into primitive Inhumans.

*Once again the biggest strength of this show has been how it explores the sometimes morally gray actions of its characters, including the emotionally-driven efforts of characters like Coulson and Hunter to take down Ward for hurting their loved ones. But at the same time, this season in particular really delivered on its emotional moments. From the tragic revelation that May’s ex-husband Andrew (Blair Underwood) had been turned into the savage Inhuman Lash (culminating in a particularly devastating scene where Andrew is transformed into Lash permanently right in front of her) to the departure of Bobbi and Hunter to the big ‘sacrifice’ at the end of the season finale, this season really tugged at fans’ heartstrings and put them through the emotional wringer.

*Of course the cast has been excellent as they have always been but starting with this season I finally realized one thing; Iain de Caestecker has continually been the ‘unsung hero’ of this show as Fitz has had some of the show’s most emotional moments to date. Of course most of them came starting in Season 2, after he had ‘sacrificed’ himself to save him and Jemma from their underwater prison at the end of Season 1. As a result, the early episodes of Season 2 saw him struggling as a result of his brain trauma, even to the point where he imagined Simmons was there with him when in reality she was working undercover at a HYDRA facility. This definitely led to some very emotional moments, like when Fitz angrily confronted Ward (when he was a S.H.I.E.L.D. prisoner) to the point where he causes Ward to suffocate from oxygen loss so that he would experience what he put Fitz through. And while Fitz managed to overcome his injuries as the season went on, then there came the developing relationship between him and Simmons… which was initially complicated when Simmons was taken by the Kree monolith at the end of Season 2. This season’s first episode definitely ended on an emotional note as Fitz furiously starts banging on the monolith demanding it bring her back. Thankfully he and the team manage to rescue Simmons and as the season goes on the two start to become more than just friends. So my hats off to Fitz, who over the course of this show has become one of my favorite characters.

Plus, he also had one of the best moments of the entire season when he impersonated a military official via motion capture in the first half of the season finale.

*Ultimately though, it was Daisy who had arguably the biggest arc of the entire season. As the season begins, she has now accepted her identity as the earthquake-powered superhero that she is as she helps Coulson and co. find other Inhumans to form a new team. But when the ATCU comes onto the scene and Coulson starts to work directly with Price, obviously Daisy isn’t too pleased by this turn of events due to the ATCU’s more extreme method in dealing with Inhumans. Even after it’s shown that Price is genuinely one of the ‘good guys’, she and Rosalind get into a compelling debate over how they’ve been dealing with Inhumans. But then in the second half of the season, Daisy’s character development really starts to shine when, in the episode ‘Spacetime’, she gets a vision of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent dying in space, which leaves her distressed as to who this agent may be for the rest of the season. And as revealed in ‘The Team’, Hive ended up taking control of her at one point, resulting in her siding with him for a few episodes. And while she does thankfully get freed from his control as a result of Lash sacrificing himself to save her, her time under Hive’s control is shown to have had quite a heavy effect on her mentally. It’s going to be interesting to see how she’ll recover from this next season (I’ll delve into that a bit more at the end).

*Brett Dalton really got the chance to shine this season in what would ultimately become a dual role as both Grant Ward and Hive, the latter of whom ends up taking control of the former’s body after Coulson finally kills him in ‘Maveth’. Prior to that, Dalton continued to be a great villain that we loved to hate as Ward thanks to his strong charisma. Ever since the reveal that he was a HYDRA agent, it’s been great to see Ward grow as a character after he was initially deemed one of the show’s blandest leads in its early days which, if you recall my previous season reviews, I didn’t necessarily agree with. But once Hive takes over, Dalton goes a much different route with his performance. Compared to Ward, Hive has a much more relaxed and methodical attitude while still managing to be a very intimidating adversary for Coulson’s team. And while Hive’s defeat at the end of the season sadly meant the end for Brett Dalton’s tenure with the series, it also served as a fitting send-off for one of the series’ original leads.

*Each season of this show has done a really great job at bringing in a big guest star for a major supporting role. In Season 1, it was Bill Paxton as John Garrett, the former SHIELD agent who was revealed to be ‘the Clairvoyant’. In Season 2, it was Kyle MacLachlan as Daisy’s crazy father Cal. And for this season, there were actually a few major guest stars. Early on there was Constance Zimmer as Rosalind Price. Keeping in line with the show’s morally grey proceedings, it was unclear at first as to whether Price was to be a friend or foe to Coulson and co. Either way, scenes between her and Coulson were some of the best moments of the first half of the season and Zimmer and Gregg had great camaraderie with one another. Ultimately, Price was revealed to be a genuine ally and had even started to form a bit of a romantic relationship with Coulson. Sadly, she was killed by Ward in Episode 9, ‘Closure’, which subsequently led to Coulson vengefully pursuing Ward for revenge.

*This season also brought in Powers Boothe as Gideon Malick, who had previously appeared in the MCU as a member of the World Security Council in the first Avengers… and as you probably guessed, he too was secretly a HYDRA agent. Malick was a pretty entertaining antagonist for a good chunk of the season. He even had an interesting backstory in which it was shown that he basically screwed over his brother Nathaniel when they were younger, with the latter being chosen to be a sacrificial lamb for Hive prior to his return to Earth. This later comes back to haunt him in Episode 16, ‘Paradise Lost’, the episode in which his backstory is shown, as Hive reveals to Malick that he gained Nathaniel’s memories and punishes him by killing his daughter, Stephanie, so that he can truly ‘understand sacrifice’. Admittedly though, his death in Episode 17, ‘The Team’, was a bit anti-climactic, as he is killed by Daisy, now under Hive’s control, showing that he is no longer needed by the ancient Inhuman.

*The final major guest star of the season was John Hannah (aka Jonathan from the Mummy films) as Dr. Holden Radcliffe, a noted transhumanist who S.H.I.E.L.D. seeks out for help in dealing with Hive. However, he ends up getting taken by Hive’s team instead and is forced to help Hive in his plan to turn the human race into Inhumans. But as a result of what was his most ‘successful’ experiment, his test subjects are irreversibly transformed into primitive Inhumans. While Hive is successfully able to use his mind control on them, Radcliffe ends up working with S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to prevent Hive from unleashing the primitive Inhuman pathogen upon the world. In the final scene of the season, he’s shown to be transferring his A.I. system, AIDA, into a Life Model Decoy; in other words, a ‘robotic double’. So now the question is this; how will this impact the show going forward? Will Radcliffe become a friend or foe to S.H.I.E.L.D.? At this point it’s currently unclear but at the very least I’m predicting that Hannah will become a series regular next season. Either that or he’ll have a major recurring role.

*The big focus this season was the introduction of the ‘Secret Warriors’, a band of Inhumans led by Daisy in order to help S.H.I.E.L.D. deal with enemy threats. Admittedly the team, consisting of Skye, electricity manipulator Lincoln (Luke Mitchell), metal-melting Joey Gutierrez (Juan Pablo Raba), and speedster Elena ‘Yo-Yo’ (nickname courtesy of Mack) Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley), wasn’t focused on as much as some might have expected but they definitely shined when they were given the greenlight, namely in the episode ‘The Team’ which saw them called into action to save Coulson and the rest of the crew from HYDRA. I have the feeling that Joey and Elena are going to join the main cast next season but it’ll be interesting to see what happens to the team considering where we leave everything at the end of the season.

*Recently on the film side of the MCU, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and his team managed to finally break ties with Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter and the studio’s controversial ‘creative committee’ as it was made very clear that both Perlmutter and the committee were responsible for some of the franchise’s most ‘infamous’ developments (e.g. the departure of Edgar Wright from Ant-Man and, in the case of Ike, the lack of Black Widow merchandise during the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron). However, now this means that Perlmutter and the committee still have control over the studio’s TV series. So as a result, this has now put into question how much shows like S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Netflix series will be connected to the films. For now, it’s starting to look like the films are starting to distance themselves from the shows, to the point where Chloe Bennet recently claimed that it’s almost like “they [Marvel Studios’ film division] don’t seem to care”. And to be perfectly frank, you can definitely see where she’s coming from and it’s sad because it was because of the MCU films that AoS managed to rebound from its initial mixed reception thanks to the HYDRA reveal in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. However, I don’t think this connection between the films and TV shows is completely severed at the moment. While obviously not playing a major part in the main plotline of the season, the events of Captain America: Civil War were briefly alluded to in Episode 20, ‘Emancipation’, namely the signing of the Sokovia Accords to regulate superhero activity. And I have the feeling that this will have some sort of impact on the show once Season 4 starts, even if it’s only a minor one.

*As noted earlier, one of the big plotlines for the second half of the season revolved around Daisy getting a vision of an agent’s death in space. And as the final episode of the season rolled around, this moment was shown to be inevitable as one member had to fly a quinjet up into space in order to prevent a warhead stolen by Hive from being used to spread his pathogen all over the world. Heck, the show even started to toy with us by having almost every main member of the team wear the kind of S.H.I.E.L.D. jacket that was seen in Daisy’s vision. At first it seemed like Daisy would be the ‘fallen agent’ of her own vision due to her being unable to deal with the emotional duress of having been under Hive’s control. But ultimately it is Lincoln who sacrifices himself, not only saving the world from Hive but also the woman that he loves; Daisy, as a relationship between the two had been in play pretty much since he first appeared in Season 2. Admittedly this ‘sacrifice’ might have been a bit predictable but I think it still garnered as much emotional depth as it would’ve had it been anyone else on the team. R.I.P. Lincoln, you will be missed.

*So now we’re left to wonder what’s going to happen next for Coulson and co. in Season 4. At this point in the MCU’s chronology, the Sokovia Accords from Captain America: Civil War have been put into effect, which definitely means that powered beings are going to face a lot more opposition in the future. In the case of this show, the one that will no doubt be affected the most by this will be Daisy. As shown in the final moments of the season finale, her brainwashing courtesy of Hive and Lincoln’s sacrifice has led her to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. and become a rogue vigilante, ‘Quake’. So now Coulson and his team are now going to be forced to hunt one of their own and needless to say it’s looking like it’ll be a very emotional storyline given everything these characters have been through, especially Coulson given the ‘father-daughter’ like relationship that had developed between him and Daisy over the years. It should also be noted that apparently Coulson is no longer the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. So who’s director now? Is Nick Fury back in command of S.H.I.E.L.D.? He didn’t appear in Civil War so who knows?

In conclusion, what more can I say that I haven’t said already in previous reviews of the show? Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. may not have the same amount of attention/recognition that other comic book shows like The Flash or even Marvel Studios’ Netflix shows have but ever since the big Winter Soldier ‘S.H.I.E.L.D. is HYDRA twist’ came into play all the way back in Season 1, this show has managed to stand amongst those other shows as another great entry in the superhero TV genre. This season in particular really stood out thanks to the fact that it was arguably the most emotional season of the series to date. There were tons of heartbreaking moments throughout the entire season and thanks to the continually great writing as well as the series’ terrific cast of characters, they very much succeeded in putting the show’s fans through all sorts of feels. As I’ve said time and time again, this is one of my favorite shows on TV right now, even back in the show’s early days when it wasn’t doing as well with audiences. I can’t wait to see what will happen next for Coulson and co. in the next season of this great show, which of course will return next Fall for its fourth season.

Season 3 Rating: 5/5!

And now of course, as is tradition given the previous times I reviewed seasons of this show, here are my Top 5 personal favorite episodes from this season. First off, as always, I’ll start with my Honorable Mentions…

4,722 HOURS (EPISODE 5)

As revealed in the first episode, ‘Laws of Nature’, Simmons ended up trapped on a strange alien planet after being ‘taken’ by the Kree monolith at the end of last season. Thankfully, Fitz and the team manage to bring her back in Episode 2, ‘Purpose in the Machine’, but it is in this episode, ‘4,722 Hours’, where we learn of what really happened to Simmons while she was stuck on that planet. I’ve seen a lot of people list this as not only one of this season’s best episodes but one of the best episodes of the show to date. And I can see why as this episode is very much reminiscent of classic survival stories like Cast Away and The Martian. Simmons is the only major character for most of the episode and Elizabeth Henstridge very much shines here, more than holding her own considering that she spends most of the episode by herself. But during her time spent on the planet, Simmons meets another ‘cast away’ in astronaut Will Daniels and the two even start to form a relationship, which I can assure you was a rather controversial turn of events for ‘FitzSimmons’ fans based on the reactions I saw on Twitter when this episode aired. However, this relationship didn’t last too long once it was revealed in Episode 10 that Will had been killed by Hive. But before that, I think Fitz actually deserves a lot of credit for apparently being totally okay with Simmons being in love with Will to the point where he wants to help her when she reveals that she intends to return to the planet to rescue him. The only reason why this isn’t in my Top 5 is because I felt that the episode dragged a bit at times though I guess you could say it made sense considering how long Simmons was trapped on that planet. Regardless, this is still a really great episode nevertheless and features Henstridge’s best performance as Simmons to date.

AMONG US HIDE… (EPISODE 6)

Episode 4, ‘Devils You Know’, left us on one hell of a cliffhanger as it was suggested that Andrew was killed as a result of Hunter trying to kill Ward for nearly killing Bobbi at the end of last season. However, it is shown that Andrew did survive his supposed death as the result of a gas station explosion caused by HYDRA recruit Werner von Strucker (Spencer Treat Clark), son of former HYDRA leader Wolfgang von Strucker (who appeared in The Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron played by Thomas Kretschmann). The reason why, though, is an unfortunate one because when May questions the young Strucker, who was mortally wounded as a result of Ward ordering him to be killed, it is revealed that Andrew is none other than the mysterious Lash that Coulson and his team have been hunting the last few episodes. It is also during this episode where Coulson and co. finally learn of how Price and the ATCU have been keeping track of the Inhumans that they capture; by putting them into suspended animation. While this upsets Daisy for obvious reasons, it ends up being enough evidence for Coulson that Price is at least trying to help Inhumans by keeping them like this until a cure can be found for their condition. So at the very least, this episode proved that Price, despite all of the previous times in which she opposed Coulson’s team, is one of the good guys.  

CHAOS THEORY (EPISODE 7)

So now the cat is out of the bag. After being exposed to the Terrigen Mist courtesy of a ledger that Jiaying had containing the names of the Inhumans residing in their secret home of Afterlife, Andrew was turned into the vicious Inhuman Lash. As a result, this episode sees Coulson and his team, which now includes his new allies in Price and the ATCU, being forced to hunt down their ‘friend’ before he can do any more harm. But while the previous episode made it clear that Price was ‘one of the good guys’, there was still some skepticism about her working with S.H.I.E.L.D., namely from Daisy after learning about how the ATCU treats the Inhumans that they capture. This leads to a pretty great debate between the two, in which Price basically argues that ‘not all Inhumans are like her [Daisy]’. By the end of the episode, it seems as if the two are starting to be on good terms with one another, as shown when Daisy saves Price from being killed by Lash. While the episode ends with the team subduing Andrew/Lash, Lincoln reveals that he’ll eventually turn into Lash permanently as a result of the Inhuman transitioning effect. As a result, May decides to have him put in stasis so that the team can hopefully find a cure before that happens. The episode also suggested that perhaps Price wasn’t to be trusted after all as she is shown to be an associate of Malick. However, the next episode makes it clear that Price had no idea of Malick’s true intentions.   

MAVETH (EPISODE 10)

In yet another intense mid-season finale, following in the footsteps of Season 2’s mid-season finale, ‘What They Become’, Ward, Fitz, and Coulson end up on the alien planet Maveth. As Ward forces Fitz to lead him to Hive (which, as it turns out, has taken over the body of Simmons’ friend Will), Coulson pursues Ward fueled by rage following the death of Price in the previous episode. Though he does get to pull a ‘Star Wars’ reference (“I’ll be damned… Tatooine!”) just in time for the release of The Force Awakens. Ultimately, the episode ends on a very emotionally cathartic note as Coulson finally kills Ward by crushing his chest with his prosthetic hand. However, unbeknownst to Coulson and Fitz, although it seemed as if they stopped Hive from returning to Earth by destroying Will’s body, it turns out that Hive did manage to return to Earth after all… now inhabiting the body of Grant Ward.

EMANCIPATON (EPISODE 20)

The final episode before the two-part season finale ended on a very emotional note. But it was also the first episode of the show that came after the release of Captain America: Civil War and even though the show’s connection with the films has weakened in recent months, it still addressed the events of the film at the beginning of the episode, including the signing of the Sokovia Accords and even the death of Peggy Carter. In this episode, Coulson and General Glenn Talbot (Adrian Pasdar) begin to work together to deal with Hive, who has already started to gain new followers in the form of primitive Inhumans that came from Dr. Radcliffe’s experiments. While all of this is going on, Lincoln begins to secretly converse with Daisy, who at the time was in the midst of having her blood drained for use in Hive’s experiment due to the fact that it contains Kree blood as a result of her being saved by the drug used to revive Coulson all the way back in Season 1, telling her that he wants to be with her. So as a result, she helps him escape from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s base. However, as it turns out, this was all a part of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s plan and instead of Lincoln, Lash arrives at Hive’s base, freeing Daisy from his sway before being killed by fire-channeling Inhuman James (Axle Whitehead) AKA ‘Hellfire’. It was a tragic end for Andrew/Lash but at least he died a ‘hero’s death’ in order to save Daisy just like in Quicksilver in Age of Ultron when he died saving Hawkeye and a young boy from a slew of gunfire.   

5. CLOSURE (EPISODE 9)

Episode 9 started off with a bang, both figuratively and literally, with the death of Price at the hands of Ward while she is having dinner with Coulson. This of course is what drives Coulson to take down Ward for good, as Ward and Malick are about to reopen the portal to Maveth in order to bring Hive back to Earth. At one point, HYDRA abducts Fitz and Simmons and Ward tortures Simmons until Fitz offers to help him find Hive. Though in reality, Fitz plans to leave Ward and his team of HYDRA agents on Maveth and instead rescue Will. As Fitz, Ward, and the latter’s team go through the portal, Coulson skydives into the portal as well just before it closes, setting the stage for an epic mid-season finale.  

4. THE TEAM (EPISODE 17)

At long last, the Secret Warriors were unleashed in full this episode as Daisy and Lincoln bring in Joey and Elena to help them rescue Coulson and the rest of the team when they are captured by Malick’s forces. However, that only ends up being the first part of a very suspenseful episode. Although the team captures Malick, he then suggests to Coulson that one of his Inhuman agents might have been ‘infected’ by Hive… and then Malick is killed by an unknown assailant during a power outage. This leads Coulson to forcefully keep the Secret Warriors on lockdown in order to find out which one of them is the mole. And as you might have guessed, Daisy and the other Inhumans don’t take this news very well. At first it seems as if Lincoln is the ‘traitor’ as the team finds a Kree artifact containing Terrigen Mist in his possession that they had collected from James. After that, Elena and Joey decide to leave the compound having grown very distrustful of S.H.I.E.L.D. However, in a shocking twist, it’s revealed that Daisy was actually the one who was ‘infected’ by Hive and was also the one who killed Malick and tried to frame Lincoln. The episode ends with her leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, wrecking most of it in the process, to join with Hive.

3. SPACETIME (EPISODE 15)

Just like last season, some of the absolute best episodes of this season were directed by co-creator Maurissa Tancharoen’s brother Kevin Tancharoen. His ‘first’ episode of the season, ‘Spacetime’, was most definitely a big one plot-wise as it introduced the major plotline that would dominate the rest of the season. When the team comes across an Inhuman that is able to project visions of the future, Daisy is given a vision of the Inhuman’s future death. What follows is the team’s, mostly Daisy’s, efforts to prevent said future from happening. A lot went down in this episode. In a very tragic moment, Andrew fully succumbs to his Lash persona despite the team’s best efforts to cure him, as he transforms into Lash permanently right in front of May. It is also in this episode where Coulson and the team finally realize that, in a way, ‘Grant Ward’ has returned. But ultimately the episode ends with Daisy, who sadly is unable to save the vision-giving Inhuman, getting another vision; that of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s impending death aboard a spaceship.

2. PARTING SHOT (EPISODE 13)

At the end of the previous episode, ‘The Inside Man’, Hunter and Morse were shown to be pursuing Malick having stowed away on his private jet. Ultimately, though, their mission does not end well for them. ‘Parting Shot’ immediately opens with the two of them shown to be Russian prisoners, as their interrogations are intercut with flashbacks of what happened when the two of them, as well as the rest of Coulson’s team, traveled to an abandoned facility in Russia that HYDRA intended to use as an Inhuman sanctuary. But while the team does manage to keep HYDRA from using the facility, the mission does not end well as Hunter and Morse are arrested by Russian police for the deaths of three government officials, one of which was murdered by the corrupt Minister of Defense, who was revealed to be an Inhuman, who was killed along with a Russian delegate (who was allied with Malick) by Hunter and Morse. Although Coulson offers to ‘extract’ them from their current situation, the two voluntarily take the fall for the team, denying their involvement with S.H.I.E.L.D. and becoming fugitives of both the U.S. and Russian governments as a result. The episode ends on a sad note with the two silently bidding farewell to their friends from afar as they wonder about what will happen to them now.

This episode was meant to serve as the ‘send-off’ for Hunter and Morse, who were set to star in a brand new series titled Marvel’s Most Wanted, in which the two of them would go on the run. And with that in mind, this episode very much succeeded in giving the two an emotional send-off, exemplified by the tear-jerker of a finale in which the gang bids farewell to the two from afar while they are all at a bar. However, it is now unclear what will happen next for the two because just last month, the pilot was ultimately passed on, meaning that it won’t go to a series. And to be honest, I kind of expected that to happen because while I’m sure that I would have watched the new show, primarily because Bobbi and Hunter were great parts of this show’s cast, I have the feeling that it wasn’t going to find as big of an audience as S.H.I.E.L.D. So now we’re left to wonder… does this mean Hunter and Morse might come back in the future? Or does this mean that ‘Parting Shot’ truly is the last we’ll ever see of the ex-spies/spouses.

1. ABSOLUTION/ASCENSION

As with last season, my favorite episode of Season 3 ultimately ended up being the two-part season finale. Part 1, ‘Absolution’, started on an excellent note as Coulson and co. frantically worked to stop Hive from detonating a warhead that he stole from the ATCU to unleash Dr. Radcliffe’s pathogen upon the world that would transform the human race into primitive Inhumans. It was a very tense and exciting opening, as May, Mack, Lincoln, and a few other agents infiltrated Hive’s base and Fitz rushed to input the warhead’s kill code before it could be launched (after the aforementioned hilarious scene in which he impersonates a government official with motion-capture technology). The first half of the episode then ended on one hell of a lead-in as Daisy, who was shown to be in heavy withdrawal after her time spent under Hive’s control, confronts Hive begging him to ‘infect’ her again. This leads to Part 2, ‘Ascension’, and wouldn’t you know it was directed by Kevin Tancharoen. Anyway, Hive learns that, because of Lash’s interference, Daisy is now impervious to his mind-control powers, leading to a badass fight between the two. But of course the big moment from this episode was the reveal as to who would be the agent that dies in space to keep Hive’s warhead from being used on Earth. Heck, the episode sort of toyed with us a lot by having multiple characters wear the S.H.I.E.L.D. jacket that was seen in Daisy’s vision and carry the cross necklace that was also seen in the vision, revealed to have belonged to Elena, who gave it to Mack at the end of ‘Emancipation’. Ultimately it was Lincoln who made the big sacrifice and as noted earlier, it may have been a bit obvious but was still a very effective and emotional death. Heck, the scene where Lincoln and Hive reflect on the human race before the warhead detonates reminded me of the scene in Age of Ultron where Vision and Ultron discussed pretty much the same thing. And while part of me felt that the jump to ‘six months later’ was a bit abrupt, it did set the stage for what is going to happen in Season 4, with Daisy now a rogue vigilante pursued by S.H.I.E.L.D. All in all, this was one of the best ‘season finales’ that I have ever seen; it was intense, epic, and emotional, once again reaffirming the show’s status as a premier entry in the genre.