REVIEW: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Option Two"
Everybody ready for the end of the world again? Whether it’s on the big screen or the small, Marvel is hyping up a doomsday scenario for our heroes to somehow overcome. Strangely enough, I feel like Infinity War has the easier job since I doubt the characters will be constantly at each other’s throats for half the time. At least there is plenty of time for punching.
Hey, we’re starting on a plan for once. That’s good. Then we jump from planning to fighting. That’s awful. This infighting is starting to get on my last nerves since it hinges on the characters acting erratic and then pausing the action just to have stupid people yell at each other for being stupid. That in turn leads them to take part in increasingly stupid decisions to lead to worse situations that require more plans to be the background as they all yell at each other again. I have already forgotten what the new plan was in the time typing this out.
But to give credit where credit is due, not all of the incredible stupid decisions are outright terrible. Even though the reason for the lockdown is terribly dense, it got a hearty laugh out of me and a pleasant Patrick Warburton cameo. Perhaps it’s because we actually have to confront the consequences of acting ridiculous. Or maybe it’s because we have all been guilty of clicking “yes” without reading the whole warning list. Definitely that, plus the fact that they treat it like a serious plot point later. It’s hilarious.
Okay, time for our third bad guy of the season, maybe even fourth if you count Hale and Ruby as different plot points. No matter the number, so far this guy has probably the most basic motivation to be a bad guy out of anyone in the past five years. Normally, that would be the perfect time to develop our heroes since stealing the gravitonium is about as common as you get. Unfortunately, that means dealing with more of the nonsensical drama because that’s what the writers thought was interesting. At least this guy is drop-dead gorgeous I guess.
Another slightly not-so-terrible development is Daisy, one of the only characters besides Mack not terribly ruined by these drama moments, looking into methods to keep Coulson alive because we completely forgot about this plot until now. It’s almost intriguing how at this crossroad she’s forced to consider methods used by John Garrett and Hydra to save someone she cares about to the point of digging up her own mother’s grave. Something like this totally opens the question over the grey morality of whether the ends justify the means even if it means stooping to the lows of your enemies. If we could have spent even one more minute on this rather than FitzSimmons and Elena losing their minds, this season could have been interesting. Alas, it’s what could have been I suppose.
The thing that does save this from hitting the lows of the previous week is easily the directing. Kevin Tancheroen has been behind the helm of some duds of episodes as well as some of the best, but he has yet to deliver a dull one. Even when the fight out includes a handful of redshirts against some of the most cliched faceless henchmen, we can still feel some tension that forces us to care. In addition to that, the pacing keeps us moving even if we don’t necessarily like what we’re seeing. I guess the point is even if the episode isn’t the best, it can still be dressed as one.
And then there’s Talbot. I am still not one hundred percent sure what happened, but it was so absurdly successful that I think I might have loved it. I might not enjoy where it seems to be going, but for the moment it is just so crazy it has to be in this show. Plus, I’m a sucker for the heroes ultimately decimating the bad guys as it doesn’t happen a lot lately, so I’ll take what I can get.
I’m a little surprised that in the context of this potential end of the world scenario, no one is referencing the other end of the world scenario that looks like it’ll have a lot more consequences (but more on that later). It’s for the best and just proves that no one even cares about continuity anymore, so we can finally put that to rest. Still, I enjoyed that news about something happening in New York. Apparently, word spreads fast.
So things are still generally terrible, but things are still generally terrible in a faster way. The plans are moving, the antagonists are moving, and even the camera is moving. I still enjoy how they manage to connect the series as a whole together, and if they nail an ending, it could easily beat out the previous season. I just hope the characters last that long.
