SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3, EPISODE 20 FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
It’s that time of year again where Agents of SHIELD crosses over with the film side of the MCU (at least story wise), and just like when the show crossed over wth Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the show is definitely feeling the side effects of Civil War.
This is clear right from the jump as we see Coulson in a bar reading a newspaper about the events of the movie while a news broadcast talks about it as well. May comes in and the two of them briefly talk about the Accords, with Coulson telling her to continue going after Hive at all costs while he deals with the government. She leaves as General Talbot comes in on behalf of the President, informing Coulson that due to the Accords he has to register the Inhumans that work for SHIELD, something that Coulson refuses to do. He does however agree to finally show Talbot the SHIELD base and the two of them head on down through a James Bond-esque secret bar entrance.
Coulson proceeds to walk him throughout the base so he can see everything that SHIELD has. Along the way they come as Elena who’s returned to help fight Hive and save Daisy. She demonstrates her powers for Talbot and goes on her way as Coulson tries to convince him that registering the Inhumans would only put them (and their families) in harm’s way as opposed to protecting them and others. As for the others in the base, Lincoln is continuing to be Mr. Mopey since he’s not being let out of his containment room due to safety reasons and no one is letting him help save Daisy. At the same time, Fitz and Simmons are trying to Daisy-proof the computer systems so that she can’t get inside of them. May takes them off of this job though so that they can figure out what Hive’s endgame is.
As for Daisy, she’s busy hacking into the cameras at SHIELD so that she can keep on tabs on what’s going on there while also being a source of Kree blood ripe for draining so that Hive and Radcliffe can try another experiment out. All that he needs are volunteers that he says he’s already going after. Shortly after, she makes contact with Lincoln and the two of them chat for a bit before Talbot and Coulson come into the room to talk with him themselves. Talbot wants Lincoln to sign the Accords and Lincoln wants to as well so that he can be free, but Coulson doesn’t think that’s a good idea at all.
He then escorts Talbot to see Lash so that nothing is hidden between them. Of course Talbot isn’t okay with this and reveals that he knows Daisy is with Hive, although he doesn’t know what Hive is. Coulson then decides to fully inform Talbot on Hive and what he is with the help of Fitz and Simmons. The science duo then reveal that they believe Hive plans to create Inhumans that are already under his control, further worrying Talbot and Coulson. Since he’s alone in his room again, Daisy contacts Lincoln and proposes the possibility of getting him out of SHIELD and to her so that the two of them can be together and away from everything that’s going on.
Elsewhere, we see the Watch Dogs training and getting ready to go after an Inhuman that they tracked down. They get their stuff together and head after him, eventually trapping him in an alley. Sucks for them though because the Inhuman they were following was James and he didn’t come alone, as Hive is with him and is going to use the Watch Dogs as test subjects for his experiment. Once they get back to their secret hideout, they perform the experiment and the result is a handful of nasty looking, primitive Inhumans that are fully under Hive’s sway. Hive is perfectly fine with them and requests that Radcliffe make more of them.
After the experiment is done, Daisy contacts Lincoln once more and proceeds to help him escape the base. It doesn’t take too long for the others to discover that he’s gone, causing the base to go on alert and make things more difficult. Daisy then guides Lincoln to a Quinjet so that he can escape on it, but he gets into a fight with Mack on the way there. He wins and makes it onto the Quinjet and heads off to meet Daisy. The rest of the team gets to the hangar and discovers that Lincoln wasn’t on the Quinjet at all. May and Lincoln reveal that they worked together on this and didn’t inform anyone because they needed to make it seem real. In addition, the person on the Quinjet was Lash. The reason they sent him is because Lincoln believes his purpose is to kill Hive.
When the Quinjet arrives at Hive’s place, he’s standing in the hangar waiting for it. Of course Lash steps on out and the two of them duke it out. Lash even surprises Hive by stopping his parasites from entering him and making a huge hole in his chest. He fights off all of the Inhumans that Radcliffe made and right when Lash is about to kill Hive, Daisy jumps in to stop him. She passes out though because she has no energy after giving up a bunch of blood earlier. Instead of killing her though, Lash actually removes the parasites from her and brings her onto the Quinjet to get her out of there. James comes out of nowhere though and kills him before they can leave, causing us to say goodbye to Lash/Dr. Garner.
Once she makes it back it SHIELD, Simmons runs some tests on her that reveal that Daisy is 100% free of Hive’s parasites and her sway. Unfortunately, her and Fitz also have some bad news: they believe that Hive is going to try and disperse his parasites across the planet by using something to get in the atmosphere. What’s he going to use to do this? The warhead he got a couple episodes back from the ATCU. Finally, the episode ended with Mack and Elena talking in his room before she gave him her crucifix and left. Is it for good? Most likely not.
Other thoughts:
- Talbot calling Lash “Rasta Hulk” was a highlight of the episode that got a good laugh out of me.
- James using his powers with the chain when he was cornered in the alley just makes me wish we had a good Ghost Rider series or movie. I’ll just continue to cry until we do..
- It’s a shame that Lash died the way he did, but at least he went out doing something good. I totally expected Lash to die fighting Hive, so I was partially right in the way that it happened.
- The way that Civil War affected the show was pretty interesting, since it became more about registration like in the comic story as opposed to being about accountability. It worked pretty well though and I can see it coming back around to the show at some point in the future.
- Daisy’s back!!!!
- I was starting to get tired of Lincoln’s continued complaining about not being able to do anything, on top of his lovestruck attitude when it came to Daisy. Thankfully we got that twist where he didn’t do something stupid and go to Daisy because he thought she was telling the truth. See buddy? Everything worked out in the end.
This was yet again another good episode for the show, that was also a bit more entertaining than usual thanks to Talbot’s presence and interactions with the other members of the team. Everything’s going to be coming to a head though next week in the 2-hour season finale, so let’s get our tissues ready because I predict many tears will be shed.
TheComfySpot 