SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3, EPISODE 16 FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
Last night’s episode of Agents of SHIELD was another solid one for the series. Hive got a bit more focus this episode after a lot of nothing, while the SHIELD team tried to get an idea of who Hive is and what he wants to do. With all of that happening though, the person who got the most interesting plot line this episode was Gideon Malick.
Gideon being the main focus of the episode is clear right from the start as things kicked off with a flashback to 1970 when Gideon and his brother Nathaniel were teenagers mourning the death of their father. They’ve known all about Hydra and what their dad was involved with (including sending people to Maveth), so these aren’t good kids. After some guests leave, Nathaniel tells Gideon that Daniel Whitehall (returning from season 2) wants to talk to them, something that Gideon is firmly against, but they go anyway since they have no choice.
We flash back to the present and Gideon has returned home to his daughter who informs him that Hive is there waiting for him, and he’s summoned the inner circle to the house that night. Gideon is clearly on edge because of the end of last week’s episode where he saw a vision of the future that freaked him out, so he’s not too pleased about Hive being there.
Our SHIELD team is at HQ checking out one of Hive’s gruesome victims and starting to try and figure out what he is when Coulson calls them all to his office. He informs them that Ward is not really Ward, but something else entirely that they’ve yet to figure out. They then get their missions: Daisy and Lincoln are going to find a guy that was banished from Afterlife, while the rest of the team goes to an Agrochem facility that has connections to Hive and Malick in the hopes of finding out some kind of useful information.
Jumping back to Malick, he tells his daughter that he saw a vision of his own death; and Hive was the one to kill him. She doesn’t believe that it was Hive who did the killing, as Malick was the one who brought him back which makes him to valuable to kill. This still doesn’t reassure him, with him believing that his vision will come true that night. Cue another flashback and we see Gideon at a prison with his brother where they meet Whitehall. Whitehall reveals that he has knowledge of the ceremony that the Malick family does and hints that their father was not the man they seem, telling them to look at the book “Paradise Lost” that’s at their home.
Daisy and Lincoln find the guy that they’re looking for named James, and he has a small little trailer that he lives in. He was banished by Jiaying from Afterlife because he wanted to be an Inhuman and was stealing stuff from her. In addition, he was also ranting and raving about some sort of higher power that would return to Earth. James is clever though and has his home surrounded by landmines, and Daisy steps on one. She’s more clever though and uses her powers to destroy it and all the other ones, while Lincoln knocks out James.
After he wakes up, Daisy and Lincoln try to get some answers out of him but he refuses to answer and keeps dodging the questions. As a bit of incentive, Lincoln brought a Terrigen crystal for James in order to get him to talk since he’s always wanted to be an Inhuman. It works as incentive, and James gets to talking. He shows them an orb of some sort that he got from Afterlife that has connections to Hive and reveals that Hive was one of the first Inhumans, with his purpose being to lead an Inhuman army for the Kree. The Inhumans were afraid of him and worked together with humans to banish him to Maveth. With this information, Daisy and Lincoln take the sphere but don’t give James the crystal which pisses him off and causes him to start talking about how Lincoln almost killed his ex-girlfriend while the two of them leave.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team is at the Agrochem facility where it turns out that all the files and equipment have been taken or destroyed for some reason. It’s at this moment that Giyera appears and chases after Coulson who leads him into a trap: a closed room with nothing but May in it. The two fight and Giyera definitely holds his own, giving May a run for her money. For a moment I thought she was going to lose, but then she gained the upper hand and knocked him out. He’s then taken to the plane and put in the containment chamber for the time being.
Back with the bad guys, we get another flashback to another selection ceremony and we see that Whitehall was telling the truth. The brothers realize that their father played the ceremony so that he wasn’t picked since he was afraid of it. This leads them to decide to do it right and be together until the end. With our flashback over, the inner circle has arrived at Malick’s house and Hive finally reveals his true self! Well, just to them… We only see the back of his head and can tell that his face involves a lot of tentacles.
Later that night Malick and his daughter chat about everything that happened that night, and she continues to reassure him that he’ll be fine. She shows him that Hive got her “Paradise Lost,” and Malick is even more worried. He goes to his father’s study and looks at the version of the book his father had when Hive comes into the room with his daughter. Hive then reveals that he still has the memory of Nathaniel and is upset with Gideon for how he betrayed him when they were younger by doing the same thing their father did, and playing the selection ceremony to avoid being picked. Because of this Gideon has to learn true sacrifice, and it appears as if Hive is going to kill him after kissing his daughter. Things go left though and Hive kills her instead, leaving Gideon distraught.
With our SHIELD agents, Lincoln reveals the truth about what James was talking about to Daisy. He was an alcoholic before because he needed to fill a void in his life, and this led to him and his ex getting in a car accident that almost killed her. Daisy then reveals to Lincoln that she had a vision that someone from the team was on a Quinjet in space and that they died. As for our other team members, Coulson realizes that Hive is a parasite that changes hosts and retains the memories of all his past hosts. This causes him to remember how he killed Ward and acknowledge that he crossed the line, something that Fitz doesn’t agree with.
Shortly afterwards, Giyera escapes his containment chamber and takes out everyone on the plane while causing it to land in a hanger down on the ground. May manages to get a message out to Daisy before being knocked unconscious, who with the support of Lincoln decides to get the Secret Warriors together again to save the team. For our final scene this week, it was nothing too special aside form Hive informing Malick about how Giyera captured the SHIELD team.
Other Thoughts:
- That fight between May and Giyera was pretty damn good. I’m willing to bet money that they end up fighting again before the season’s over and it’ll be even better.
- Why couldn’t they show us Hive’s face?! They finally reveal it, only to hide it from us! Damn the show runners!
- I wonder what they orb that Daisy and Lincoln have can do and how integral it’ll be to defeating Hive.
- Secret Warriors return next week!! I’m excited to see how things go, especially with the prospect that one of the team members is a mole.
- I wonder if Malick will die trying to stop Hive? The death of his daughter may push him to the good side for a bit.
This was another good week for Agents of SHIELD. We got some nice background on Malick that took his character to another level and Hive got some good development as well. The SHIELD team didn’t get to do much this week, but their stuff was still good nonetheless. Next week is looking to be even more intense and action packed than this week was, and I can’t wait.
TheComfySpot 