TV Review No. 54 Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: No Regrets (S4, Ep18)

Strong Points:
Old characters are back
Some great acting ranges
Meaningful deaths
Tension
Radcliffe's reactions

Weak Points:
Simmon's constantly breaking the immersion with 'this isn't real' is starting to get annoying - let me get sucked in!
Fitz's father could've been even worse
Starting to get confusing again

In-depth Review:
We're drawing into the home stretch of season 4 of AoS and boy is this episode a doozy. We have meaningful deaths, old characters returning, that much-needed tension missing partly from the last episode and even some humour (Coulson saying he feels he is breaking out into Hives when Ward is near was cheesy but great).

First of all, I'm Tripping over in excitement to say who was back this episode (the best I could do, sorry). Yes, Tripp is back, the descendant of a Howling Commando, and an agent who was killed off mid-way through the second season when Terragenesis was still a danger to non-inhumans and it's great to see him. So first we had Ward, now Tripp. How about Bobbie and Hunter next? It's starting to get difficult to not care about the lives of the people in the Framework.

Someone who doesn't really care about other people's lives is Fitz's father, who finally makes his appearance in this episode. And he was... all right. I mean, you can see how he influences Fitz and the simple change of him being raised by his father instead of his mother changing Fitz so much is unnerving, but he could've been even meaner after how they hyped him up. I mean, his main attribute is that he doesn't feel sympathy, but he still seems to 'care' about Fitz enough to make his actions feel flimsy.

Aida and by extension Madame Hydra is one hell of a villain I've got to say. I mean, after her little talk with Daisy Skye this week I saw that most of her actions were at least partly justified - she actually just wanted everyone to be happy (much like Radcliffe) but went about it in a mildly destructive way. I mean, she removed one regret from everyone's lives and the algorithm just happened to take the course of Hydra, and besides Nathanson, she's never actually killed anyone (I'm guessing she's now programmed not too, hence why she can't just pull the plug on everyone here and now), so it's difficult to actually feel anger at her, at least not all the time. However, I've got to hand it to Radcliffe's reaction 'that's not what I meant you, sadistic witch!' as one of the best lines of the series, as it perfectly encapsulates most of the motives of Aida and Radcliffe by extension. Also, John Hannah pulled it out of the park this episode, his character finally cracking in solitary, no quips left.

I'm not crying, you're crying! So, Mace finally got to be the hero he always wanted to be - The Patriot truly shone this episode. Two major points stood out for me with him this episode: his counter-arguments to Jemma's (slightly incessant now) arguments that nothing in the Framework is real and his final, heroic sacrifice to save the kids and the rest of the team. Now, I'm sure some of you are saying 'but the kids aren't real! Why didn't the team just grab him before the building started to really fall?' Well, besides that he thought it was real and with his superhuman strength would be nearly impossible to get out, but can you honestly say, real or not, you'd leave those kids to their deaths? I think the after-effects of that would just be too horrific, to be honest.

Conclusion: overall, this episode was one of the best of the series, with plenty of rewards for long term fans and a surprising amount of range from all the actors, I can't wait to see what happens next week!

Rating: 93%

Thanks for reading, Satamer.