REVIEW: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Spacetime"
Episode fifteen of SHIELD tends to be a significant one. Season one was the last episode before the Hydra reveal. Season two was the last one before the “real” SHIELD appeared as Skye quite literally disappeared. Does season three continue the tradition? And can it do it without Mack? In short…yes. By the end of it all, this ends up being the last episode where the team’s in the dark.
To start off, if I’m going to be honest, I actually like the dynamics of the Inhumans in this season where they can be anybody from a Russian general to a Colombian freedom fighter to the homeless man in this episode. They may be going through an X-Men without the X-Men issue, but I like the range of characters. What I don’t really like is the pattern of opening an episode with strangers whom we don’t care about or are destined to die or both. Adding the guy giving visions of the future is a nice attempt, but nothing can save that trope they’ve been doing since episode one. It especially doesn’t help that the vision of the future happens less than two minutes later in the episode. That being said, at no point did I want that shop owner to die. I feel like I have to say that.
And the Not-Ward AKA the Hive returns in this episode looking more normal than before, which is pretty aggravating. Not as aggravating as still not knowing what his master plan is in the fifteenth episode, but the previous fangirls for Ward’s appearances are going to be unbearable from this point forward. And I should know aggravating. They spent one minute trying to explain fourth-dimensional travelling, and that was less aggravating.
Then again, this is an episode dealing with seeing the future and affecting time things. Those things are inherently aggravating. For example, there is the confusion of the fact that the only reason Daisy had come out in the field is because Edwin said her name in a vision, but she was only in the vision because she came out in the field. Then again, showing Daisy the vision is what ultimately motivates her into going out into the field in the first place. So wouldn’t she not even be in this situation if she never saw the vision? God, SHIELD was supposed to be the one place where I could avoid time travel. At least SHIELD works on some stable level by emphasizing that everything in the future is set in stone, destined to happen. Not very optimistic for a Marvel program, but it makes more sense than a given X-Men movie.
On the bright side, there is a bright side. In the midst of Daisy knowing the future, the team actually feel like a team and prepare with their own simulation of what will happen. Admittedly, I’d think May would do fine in any mission that was supposed to be done by Daisy, with or without powers, but it’s fun when SHIELD plays on mundane humor. It has to be when the episode's coupled with Hydra getting more technology companies on its side, Dr. Garner finally reappearing, and the network cutting nearly two minutes of the episode out just to tell you who won the primary in Wisconsin. Dammit, I doubt anyone who watches Agents of SHIELD knows or cares about who won the Wisconsin primary, not even people in Wisconsin.
Of course, the whole situation with Andrew sets the stage in motion for Daisy to go back to the field to the surprise of no one, not even the team. When the group finally see the Hive on the security feed and Daisy sees the vision of someone in space from the mid-season opener, everyone is now caught up on all of the plot twists. This is basically a good episode based on that fact alone considering how much SHIELD loves keeping its characters in the dark. Also, not wanting to be topped by Daredevil, the episode provides another long-take fight scene featuring Daisy fighting bad guys. Like Daredevil, nothing will top the first one, but I like times when the show tries its hardest.
Then again, this episode is still the middle of the second half (so would that be the quarter?), so there are still some downers to the episode. Charles obviously doesn’t make it, Andrew turns into Lash (apparently) permanently, and the space travel seems inevitable and involving someone’s death. However, these are the things you have to take when there are still seven episodes of material left to watch. Now that the basic angles are covered, we can get into more important things.
After a few drags through episodes, we’ve finally got a fantastic outing. I never call an episode the best unless we actually accomplish something, which usually limits episodes to the finale, but this was one of the closest examples. It was fun. It was funny. It revealed everything to the characters. I can only hope the next few can continue the momentum up until the finale. Past experiences say it probably won’t, but I at least have the confirmation that SHIELD can remember what’s part of a good episode.
