There’s many things I expect in a usual Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D episode: Coulson cracking wise, a lovely or angsty FitzSimmons scene, and May giving the “look.” You know the one that can cut through a person in milliseconds. “Rise and Shine” gave us all this but added a little something different that I didn’t expect but should have.
Degrassi…..I mean Hydra: The Next Generation. The worst part however is how boring it was.
Now, I’m all for backstories in their own due time. But spending a good chunk of the episode revisiting General Hale’s youth and then the homeschooling of Ruby was not as interesting as I’d have liked. Don’t get me wrong, seeing young Sitwell and Young Baron Von Strucker was nice but meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
We know she was recruited by HYDRA last week as she let out those two magic words : “Hail Hydra”. All these flashback did here was show us that besides being in jail for a long-ass time, old Daniel Whitehall had enough time to somehow teach a bunch of high-schoolers on how to be the best evil lackeys for HYDRA they could be.
Math isn’t being taught in this class though as the discussion of how to create a new super-soldier program leads to a gym class fight between Baron and Hale that naturally Hale wins because Baron is one of the lamest characters in Marvel history. Seriously, think about it for one second. Can you name one thing that Baron Von Strucker did?………..I’ll wait while we finish this review.
So in honor of winning this fight, Hale gets a special assignment : get yourself knocked up so she can give birth to a special Hydra champion super-soldier. CONGRATS? No, this isn’t what Hale wants. But when it comes to Hydra, it isn’t about what you want. After all it’s “Hail Hydra” not ”Hale Hydra”.
While it’s good to understand your villains , we could have lived with this being a little shorter. I didn’t need to see that Hale and Sitwell were buddies. Who cares about Sitwell?
Flash forward a little (okay 26 years) to 2 years ago as Ruby is in her mom’s place of having a Professor trying to tell her what to be. Instead this time, Hale takes matters into her own hands by shooting the professor. While this is all happening, a old friend makes a reappearance into our lives.
Yep General Talbot shows up to get General Hale’s boss, General Fischer (who is also Hydra because it felt like everyone was a few years ago). Fischer decides to take a suicide pill and Hale escapes capture…….which leads us to our last flashback thankfully of “Rise and Shine” as it’s now Six Months Ago and Talbot’s in rough shape. Having been shot by LMD Daisy, his career is over and he’s snapping at his family. Hale takes him from the hospital to show him something very important : Whitehall’s Particle Infusion Chamber.
Now thanks to this chamber, she has communicated with a group of aliens known as “The Confederacy”. They offer Hale protection for the Earth from a upcoming war on the horizon. Now I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed but any group with the word “Confederacy” in their name is not to be trusted.
Talbot, even in his condition, is still of sound enough mind to know this is wrong and screams that he’ll never work with a Hydra traitor like Hale. The last we see of Talbot is being dragged away screaming that Coulson and SHIELD will find him.
DO YOU WANNA MAKE A MERGER?
Coulson wakes up at the HYDRA bed and breakfast and after a little classic Coulson snark at Ruby about the food, we get down to the business at hand. Hale shows Coulson the chamber and talks about the deal she’s made with the Confederacy. The Deal : Give the aliens all the inhumans and gravitonium they want in exchange for protection in the upcoming war. So basically, “The Confederacy” is making the same deal with Hale that I did with one of the tough kids in my fourth grade class. Except exchange inhumans with lunch money and it’s the same basic deal.
Coulson points out how stupid this is and Hale agrees. This is why she wants to do a merger – What’s left of SHIELD with what’s left of Hydra. That’s why she wants to use Whitehall’s super-soldier plan which somehow is now called “Destroyer of Worlds”. NOW THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR.
The discussion then becomes who should wield the power. Ruby would be the first choice of her mom’s….well that’s what you’d think but she wants to use Daisy instead. See Ruby’s a bit of a immature psycho. No tea just truth is Hale’s thinking here. Coulson, on the other hand, flat-out refuses and points out why. He’s been to the future, he’s seen what happens when Daisy gets the power and that ends with a cracked Earth. The one thing Phil doesn’t want for his Daisy and Hale’s suggesting it at this very moment. So you’d think that Hale would be understanding with all the things she has seen and at least listen, right?
HAHA no. Immediately, she refuses to believe Phil because aliens and powers are normal things but time-travel?? F*ck off with that. So she orders Phil away and to be tortured till he becomes more willing to help bring Daisy to them. Thing about this is Ruby finds out from Coulson this isn’t her destiny and she’s a little mad about it. To her, it’s become DAISY, DAISY, DAISY and she’s ready to become what she was born to be
Now this was basically a set-up episode pure and simple. The biggest thing is it looks like we are building up to big fight of the season : Ruby vs. Quake. Normally I would pick our girl Daisy but something about this fight feels off. Phil feels it, I feel it and it could be the end of the Earth if we are right.
QUICK THOUGHTS
- We get to see what the rest of the team is up to in the last few minutes. Fitz is still in his jail cell and Daisy is super-pissed off at him. May wants to use his “super-villain” mind to find Coulson but they hit a dead-end. The biggest part of this was Fitz pointing out how many times Daisy betrayed the team. While being a bit dickish about it, Fitz is right. Heck, when they first met Daisy she was working for the Rising Tide!
- The dead-end is hit because Fitz isn’t allowed to use the computers. While I understand they’re thinking, it’s not like Fitz is a actual supervillain! Right?….Right??
- Yo-Yo gets to test her special new arms and they have a lot of power to them. She feels almost invincible now since she knows she lives on well into the future. This has Mack really concerned though as the future is never a straight line. Things can change in a heartbeat and that future is one they are trying to avoid at all cost.
- The last scene of the episode is also my favorite as Jemma goes to see Fitz and does something I love. She doesn’t keep the “Deke is our grandson” information a secret from Fitz. Actually the way she reveals it is pretty clever as she shows him a tool that Fitz has now that Deke also has.
- This leads to the best lines of the series from Fitz : “DEKE? But he’s the worst!” and “Our daughter is going to marry some space goon and give birth to a Deke!”
- Jemma doesn’t see this as anything but a positive. She see this as they are invincible and that their love…FitzSimmons is invincible for all time. Girl, you took the words right out of my mouth. Jemma Simmons : Truth-teller and Ass-kicker.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D airs on Fridays at 9 pm on ABC.