SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3, EPISODE 14 FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
This week’s episode of Agents of SHIELD was a great one that put Malick’s story on the back burner in favor of focusing more on Mack and introducing the newest threat to our team: the Watchdogs.
It started off with Mack working on a motorcycle with his brother Ruben at their childhood home. Mack’s taken some time off from SHIELD after last week’s events and chosen to spend it with his brother, but good things never last for our characters. While they’re working they see a news report about an attack on an ATCU facility by a group called the Watchdogs. These guys immediately make it known that they’re dangerous with this weapon they have that is able to cause whatever it hits implode. Ruben and Mack have some different views on them though, with Ruben looking up to them whereas Mack knows these guys are bad news.
Due to his job, Mack has to go help Daisy and Fitz at the ATCU facility and find out what he can about the Watchdogs. Fitz and Mack nerd out and figure out what is used in the guns that the Watchdogs had, which Daisy reports to Coulson. He reveals that it was connected to old Stark tech and that the leader of the Watchdogs is Felix Blake, someone we haven’t seen since Deathlok broke his back in season one.
Once they’re back on their plane, the three of them talk about how to find Blake. Daisy suggests interrogating a member of the Watchdogs with her powers, and Mack disapproves of the idea since he believes that doing so would be responding the wrong way and SHIELD is about how they respond, not how they act. Mack heads back home to his brother, and Daisy decides to go through with the interrogation anyway and brings Fitz with her.
Back at SHIELD HQ, Simmons is practicing at the firing range because she feels guilty about everyone that’s risked her life to save her, and because of the fact that she let Andrew free in the midseason finale which caused the deaths of multiple Inhumans. May tries to comfort her by telling her it’s not her fault, but that doesn’t help much. Shortly afterwards though, she finds May and decides to help her find Andrew. After some digging, Simmons realizes that Lash is being driven by his base instincts, so trying to find him like a spy won’t get them anywhere; they have to track him like an animal. It’s then when she suggests using the cure they have from Creel’s blood on him, but May refuses since she doesn’t want hope that it’ll work, just for it to fail.
Meanwhile, Daisy (along with Fitz) stops a member of the Watchdogs and interrogates him about the location of their safe house. He gives it up and they contact Mack about it as they head over there. Once they get there, Fitz tosses out his trusty drone and they hear Blake’s voice over the speaker. Daisy contacts Coulson to let him know that they’re waiting on a visual of Blake, and he tells them not to take any action other than that. With the worst timing possible, Ruben shows up and causes their cover to be blown. Mack goes after Ruben who heads home while Daisy takes out some guards and stays to try and spot Blake, with Fitz waiting in the wings.
While Daisy’s crew is at the Watchdog safe house, Coulson and Lincoln are going to Blake’s different safe houses to try and find him as well. He brought Lincoln along as a way to test him since he wasn’t impressed with Lincoln’s evaluation at all. Lo and behold Blake is there and was waiting for them. The three of them chat for a bit, but Coulson knows that he’s stalling for something. He tells Lincoln to kill Blake, and surprisingly Lincoln doesn’t follow this order right away. After some push from Coulson though, he attacks and SURPRISE! They were talking to a hologram the whole time. Coulson is proud of Lincoln for how he handled the situation, and the two of them dig through his safe house to find information.
Back at the Watchdog’s place, Fitz gets hit with one of the Watchdogs weapons. Thankfully Daisy was able to slow down the implosion with a sedative, giving them time to stop it. They head back to the plane and get in an Inhuman containment chamber with a Watchdog captive, who doesn’t tell them much. He does say enough though to allow Fitz to realize that they can freeze it and get if off of him, which Daisy does thanks to some handy liquid nitrogen. The captive keeps talking though and reveals that the others are going after Mack because they believe that he’s an Inhuman.
Mack catches back up with Ruben at their house and they start to have an argument when the Watchdogs get there, forcing them to fight their way out. It’s also the perfect time for Mack to make a shotgun axe!
Mack takes a hit to the arm, but finishes off the Watchdogs and passes out. Sometime later, Daisy gets there and reassures Ruben that Mack will be just fine. Then we get to our final scene of the episode, where we see that Malick was at the ATCU facility an hour before the Watchdogs blew it up. This leads Coulson to believe that he’s feeding them intel, but the reason is unknown. What was in the van though that Malick had when he went to the ATCU facility? A missile/nuke of some sort that will surely be used for nefarious purposes. Oh, and Blake is actually crippled in a wheelchair and looking nowhere near as good as his hologram. Just some side effects of a Deathlok encounter.
Other thoughts:
- Ruben and Mack definitely have some awesome chemistry together and I loved watching them together. At times it made me think about how me and my brother are with each other.
- At the same time, Ruben came off a bit whiney which I didn’t like
- SHOTGUN. AXE.
- More little seeds of civil war are being planted in this episode, with Daisy and Mack’s little argument about how SHIELD should and shouldn’t act when it comes to threats. I can see Daisy leaving the team if things flare up (which they inevitably will) when the show crosses over with Captain America: Civil War.
- Lincoln is starting to earn his spot in SHIELD, but will he actually keep it? He’s a nice guy, but I can see him screwing things up badly or leaving with Daisy if she decides to leave in the future.
- The Watchdogs are a pretty interesting threat thanks to how weaponized they are. I wonder how much more they’ll interact with the team.
- We got a Daredevil reference in this episode through the news ticker!
All in all this was a pretty good episode. Aside from Ruben’s whining, nothing was too bad about this episode. We got a new threat that seems pretty formidable, and although the Inhuman side of things took a bit of a backseat this episode it seems like everything is going to be ramping up BIG TIME next week. Bring on Hive!
TheComfySpot 