Strong points:
Hunter's disguise
Magnetism fight
Coulson's interrogation with mind games from both
Hydra is still involved
Nice humour
Well-choreographed fights
Convincing love triangle
Ward being Ward
New Inhuman
Weak points:
Lash's storyline is taking a back seat
Fitz can never win, can he?
Gideon could've been introduced a bit more before his whole Hydra speech
Spoilers ahead:
In-depth review:
You know that the pace was fast last episode? Well we're now entering light speed and it's great. After gaining the trust and affection of Rosalind, Coulson decides to find out if the trust can be mutual, in the form of sending out Hunter and Bobbie as acting FBI members in one of the best choreographed infiltration scenes I've seen. Firstly, Daisy hacks into the ATCU so as to alert the 'FBI', who go in and ask to take a look at their security. Now for some satire as Hunter dresses up as the stereotypical 'hacker' with a hoodie and 'I love the Yanks t-shirt' (he's British) who was recruited by the FBI after hacking the Pentagon. While Hunter is busy talking with the IT support by relaying everything Daisy says to him (very well done by the way), Bobbie walks through doors, which magically open when you say open sesame (and have a tech person on board). The scene ends with a certain plan being revealed. The plan is [redacted on order of Gideon Malick] and suddenly a wild fight appears!
Now this fight was epic on all fronts. From Bobbie's magnetic batons to Hunter's 'I'm coming love' while Bobbie was getting shot at and H. We also were witness to a new Inhuman, who if you could guess from the strong points is a magnet bender (#Avatar reference). The master criminal, he doesn't leave finger prints, just a lot of blood. Especially from the nosebleed Bobbie must have given him from their fight.
While all of this was happening we had a nice little scene with Coulson and Rosalind where Coulson interrogates her for her apparent dealings with Hydra. What makes this special though is firstly the acting quality and secondly the mind games. With experts in their field, we never know who's playing the game and who's telling the truth. From Rosalind telling Coulson he has no feelings and always trying to make him feel guilt for what he is doing and Coulson aggressively pointing the finger at Rosalind and her apparent plan with Gideon. Of course, Rosalind couldn't be evil so it turns out that she outsources all the Inhuman work to Gideon and is as clueless as Coulson as to what his plan is.
We, of course, know and while the plan and retcon of Hydra (it existed well before Red Skull) was well done and I like that all the side plots are now intertwined, I did think that Gideon should have had some sort of cameo in season 2 as it seems a bit weird to just have this character declare himself the leader of Hydra, especially when Ward had made his own version.
Talking about Ward, he's back to his twisted self after nearly blow-torching someone's face to see if they would tell him Gideon's plan, only to shoot the person who squealed for being disloyal (and then going on to kill all of them anyway). One scene of particular note was him on the airplane and the flight assistant's very sudden change in manner from flirtatious to downright terrified after a certain Grant Ward decided now was the time to jump out of the plane...
Last but by no means least was Fitz and Simmons, still trying to unlock the secrets of the portal and the origin of Will's mission. What was great was the chemistry between them and Fitz's actions. You see, Fitz was working harder than anyone to bring Will back (as long as it made Jemma happy) and, as he can't win, ends up being shouted at by Jemma to stop and get angry at Will. Now the love triangle comes into play with Fitz saying that he could find nothing wrong with Will (even though he really wanted to) and Simmon's retort of 'you jumped through a portal to save me'. They end up kissing (finally) but realise that they are cursed, at least for the moment (no-one can be happy in these shows). The scene ended with them spotting the similarity between the Ram's head logo (of Will's mission and the ancient sacrificial group that we saw earlier) and Hydra's logo. The pieces were fitting together.
Conclusion: an epic episode that brings together nearly all of the best bits about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Can't wait to see more
Rating: 86%
Thanks for reading, Satamer.
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