REVIEW: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Self-Control"
And right on cue, SHIELD knocks it out of the park with an exciting, thoughtful, and slightly infuriating mid-season finale right when I was done with the plot. You’ve seen me go on about how these are usually the best, so I’ll leave it at that. Does it fix the seasonal story? Of course it never will. But it does kick off an interesting new prospect for what could be a fitting final season.
For starters, I’ll admit that the twist of Fitz being an LMD and not Daisy does somewhat salvage the issue I had with the last episode. Granted, it still doesn’t explain the non-existent time lapse Simmons mentioned, but it closed a lot of plot holes I was about to open for this review. Maybe instead I should criticize it for being too lazy to come up with a way to go around an LMD having problems. That’s for another day, I guess. It was still a twist I didn’t really expect, and I’m glad the show was willing to go that far again.
I’m sorry though, every scene that they cut away from the base was just a waste of watching. Even now, I can’t care for the Superior as a villain no matter how much they model him after MODOK. He is dull, his motivation is all over the place, and even AIDA just sees him as eye-candy. I even liked fake-May talking to fake-Coulson more, and those scenes literally add up to nothing since they’re both gone. Fortunately, there are other things to watch.
While I didn’t get the Invasion of the Body Snatchers plot with FitzSimmons I expected, I did get a pseudo-Matrix with Daisy and Simmons which was almost better, though it’s hard to come out of their scenes not almost shipping them together. I mean, they weren’t even trying to hide it with a sweaty tank-top hug and quake. I would call the episode itself sensual, but this is the episode that also gives a room filled with half-dressed Daisy models and Chloe Bennett finally doing her version of the Black Widow take-down move. Wait, maybe that is the right word to use.
I guess I should also give a shout-out to series co-creator Jed Whedon who steps into his brother’s role as director of this episode as well as the writer. The fact of him writing this episode automatically gave its chances a boost, but he also gave a smooth trial as a first-time director with probably one of the more complex fight sequences of the series and palpable tension that somehow works despite us knowing everything. That’s a miracle work in itself, and the show often has that problem, like with last week.
However, the episode can’t escape the fact that going through The Matrix plot opens a whole new level of plot holes and contrivances. Like, if the others are in the Framework, are they completely unaware of their situation or will something stop that? If the Framework mostly works on fixing a person’s regret, how does that transfer into the entire world being different? Wouldn’t this fake world fall apart with that logic? Do they really expect us to buy combining magic and science to create the Marvel “What-If” series because they just say yeah?
Before this veers out into a mess of complaints, let me just clarify one thing: this plot is probably the most interesting it has been in a while (aside from some details, but I’ll get to that later). “What-Ifs” to me are great opportunities to have decent character moments and fun references, and SHIELD has never felt more like a comic-book with the title “Agents of Hydra” as an option. Plus, it’s a great excuse to focus on an episode with about 70% exposition, and how hard could that be to mess up?
Okay, now time for the mad part. Dang it, Ward is back. The fact that he’s in the Framework certainly confirms his death, but that won’t stop the insane backlash and bending over that comes from bringing back really the only character who takes the whole season down with him. This is somehow even worse than the concept of Simmons being dead or Hydra taking charge since at least there’s some dignity in that story. I can’t think of any situation with Ward that would lead to a good story for SHIELD, this Framework, or Daisy (or would she be Skye? She has long hair). The only thing I can hope from that is that they keep Ward’s appearance to hopefully less than six episodes and remember that there would be plenty of other guest stars whom I would gladly watch again.
And that episode draws season 4b to a close, but that apparently means we have a 4c to watch, which is the biggest plot twist of this season. “Self-Control” proves to be a satisfying conclusion to an otherwise lackluster third of a season, and that doesn’t necessarily take away from the episode. Of course, that will lead to a decline until the next finale which is blissfully closer than we think. And now I’m experiencing even more mixed feelings than this ending gave me.
