REVIEW: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Maveth"
We’re back to the midseason finale of Agents of SHIELD which, if memory serves from the last two seasons, always has some of the bigger moments. Ranging from Coulson’s kidnapping to Skye getting superpowers, there’s nothing too big for a cliffhanger that will require three months of waiting. The real question isn’t if “Maveth” will have these big things, but how it measures up to the rest, not to mention if it explains anything that happened last week.
We jump right to the action with Hydra and Fitz on the planet looking for the new portal spot. The team plans to rescue Fitz. And rescue Coulson. And blow up Hydra. And rescue the packaged Inhumans. Sounds like a lot even for the team, especially the reasonable Joey, but I would follow anything under Mack. He’s just that good. He sends May and the Secret Warriors (it’s easier to call them that now) underground a water system to sneak into the base. I can tell this is a midseason thing because all that happened in seven minutes.
On the alien planet, Fitz takes Ward and the Hydra group to a different location…one that finds Will! Yes, despite the limited “Previously On,” this episode seems to remember all of the other season’s plots, even with a Rosalind Price cameo in a Coulson Dream as he wakes up on Tatooine (nothing like a little cross-promotion to break the tension). Fitz convinces Hydra to bring an injured Will along to help find the Inhuman, and the two finally have a short talk while walking to their inevitable deaths. SHIELD has some better moments with the team sneaking onto the base. May tackles some guards, Simmons sneaks away, and even Lincoln’s useful by shutting off the power. Of course, the real highlight is Joey melting both the metal bars and bullets despite being freaked out on a mission. His survival is not guaranteed, so I’m treasuring every minute of it.
Not everything’s that great with Simmons being forced to release Andrew to save herself. He changes once again, but surprisingly there are worse things to worry about right now. The team reconfigures at the portal where they barricade themselves in attempt to figure out what’s happening. Of course, none of the options are good with Hydra on the outside and the monster on the inside. What makes things worse is Lash already murdering some of the guards and Inhumans as May discovers. Mack being a leader plans to stay behind for whatever comes out, friend or foe. Daisy, being a superhero, stays behind to help her partner. If you can’t tell by now, this is the part in a SHIELD episode where everything gets really intense and goes by really, really quickly AKA the best part.
In an incoming sandstorm, Will kills the rest of the Hydra platoon (more on that later), and Coulson finds Ward. Ward can’t help but waste his time going full-blown SHIELD villain by mentioning his destiny to be here in the midst of also moaning about being shot twice. Daisy shot him four times, I don’t see him complaining about that. Of course, with the whole portal opening thing being down to the second, there’s no time to worry about that. There is time to worry about the other thing which deserves its own paragraph being among the SHIELD twists.
Yeah, I’m talking about Will being the death creature. I can’t say I saw it coming, but there is that whole him not being a main character. Then again, WILL IS THE DEATH CREATURE, I CAN’T SAY I SAW THAT COMING. Having Ward cornered, Coulson spots Fitz fighting Will and shoots the guy. Unfortunately, being a death creature, he keeps getting up until Fitz shoots him with a flare gun. Within seconds of the portal being opened, Coulson uses this time to finally murder Ward by crushing his chest. Don’t worry, it’s all in slow motion, so the infuriating slow pace that he does this in doesn’t matter, even though it’s pretty annoying.
May and the team then follow orders to blow up the castle from the ship once the portal finally closes. After an agonizing second, everyone (yes, everyone) makes it out through Andrew’s containment unit. You can tell this is important because of the use of slow motion yet again. Mack, Daisy, Coulson, and Fitz emerge from the pod, leaving a devastated Jemma and a pretty misplaced kiss between Daisy and Lincoln. In hindsight, we should have seen it coming, but that’s what the show keeps doing. That and occasionally sidelining characters. Even though Will is dead, Lash is loose, and the team’s pretty much back to square one in their problems, this is probably one of the happier finales with the entire team making it out alive with no real life-altering changes.
No, I don’t count the whole Ward being possessed by the death creature. That was something I actually did expect…or at least expected once the Will twist happened. It’s still an exciting development, especially if that means we can have Ward without having his character. Granted, he’ll still be able to talk, so we can’t all win. It looks like Ward will be the season baddie after all with his still yet to be determined identity and powers.
I didn’t expect this to top the season two winter finale with the whole superhero reveal, but this was still way above the previous episode and definitely one of the better ones. Like any finale, it still has plenty of open ends with what Not-Ward will do, what happened to Lash, and what the team will do now, but there is a lot less urgency to these things now. There’s nothing life-changing to it, and history probably will not remember this episode in the long run. For now, however, I’m enjoying their small win and will wait impatiently until March for them to fill in the rest of the plotlines. Everything’s on schedule.
