Strong Points:
Twists and turns (and then some more)
Great pacing
The start of a villain's backstory
Aida
Daisy's happy again
Yo-yo's slo-mo fight
Ghost Rider's ...
Hints to more Ghost Riders
Nice explanation of Eli's powers
Weak Points:
Some more character development would be nice
In dangerous territory of becoming clichéd
Mace's uniform when on the field was a bit at ends with everyone else
Some spoilers ahead:
In-depth Review:
Wow. I wasn't expecting that at all. This season of Marvel seems to have made a habit of making a villain and removing them quickly, but only to replace them with a slightly more developed villain. And while it's a shame we lose the awesome powers of Eli, I am looking forward to some robot villain action next week - although it's a bit cliché (especially with Marvel), that Aida has been turned due to the Darkhold is at least a bit more original than just she is more intelligent than humans.
This team that trusts idea seems to not be working too well at the moment. 'Ah, if only to go back to Season 3's in the shadows technique and not have to play to the press all the time', I can imagine Coulson thinking. However, all this politics has given us some great verbal battles over the episodes, including this week when Mace questioned Coulson about what game he's really playing and why he gave up The Director's job.
Ah, Eli. Banished to the realms of Marvel villains, who have just enough backstory and motive for their actions to feel plausible but not quite enough to give them another dimension. Villains are DC's territory after all. But at least we got some backstory to him, of how he has worked and succeeded all his life but still never taken seriously due to his background. It's a shame they weren't able to expand on that by the way of flashbacks throughout the episodes instead of just a reveal now but they needed the twists I guess. Also, you've got to give it to Ghost Rider for hanging on in there after having two carbon spikes thrust through him and being bombarded with particles. Not bad. Will he return? I think so, but we'll have to wait and see.
Blossoming romances abound this week with Yo-Yo and Mack finally getting together after a season of 'flirting' and getting annoyed at each other. May and Coulson also seem to be getting close, and the running theme of the bottle of alcohol they were going to share was a nice and realistic theme to get them close. Shame about May, though.
What just happened? Has Aida just become self-aware a la Ultron and is now intent on world domination? Hopefully, not that clichéd but it was certainly a twist. Another thing that was twisted (small link there) was Radcliffe programming Aida to feel pain. I mean, I get that it made her more human-like but come on! Now the actual May is hidden away (for some reason) and robot May is in S.H.I.E.L.D.
Action wise we had a couple of great sequences including Yo-Yo versus fire, which I have to say, was very tension filled and Yo-Yo versus all the guards which was just plain awesome (and very Quick-Silver-esque). Something slightly less cool was Mace's costume, however, as it just felt so at ends with the spy look of the other characters. Also, more shotgun-axe!
Conclusion: overall, this was an awesome episode with quite twist, setting up for the next half of the season very, very well. I can't wait.
Rating: 90%
P.S. sorry for the late reviews, while UK AoS isn't taking a mid-season break it seems I did!
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