As opposed to The Flash this week, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. remains on form with an emotionally powerful episode with action, drama and emotional investment.

In the fallout of escaping the Framework, we see most of the cast in some form of emotional turmoil or another. Except Coulson and May, who are half-flirting, half-catching up on events while fighting Robo-Russians. Because Iain De Caestecker and Mallory Jansen can carry the traumatic emotions no problem. We also see Yo-Yo’s reaction to Mack staying in the Framework and she’s PISSED. So much so that the fiery latina fucks herself by diving into the Framework and awaking strapped to a gurney in a fiery room. Good job!

But yeah, the main focus of the episode is with Fitz and Ophelia/AIDA because they’re both fucked up! Fitz is struggling with dealing with all the bad stuff he did in the Framework as well as Ophelia being a super-creeper who can’t control her emotions and it’s just not his day when Simmons nails him with an Icer. Poor sod can’t catch a break but you feel for him every step of the way and that’s a testament to good writing and a good actor.

Ophelia/AIDA is also killing it; figuratively and literally. From playing an emotionless Life Model Decoy for most of the season, we get to see Mallory Jansen practically explode with emotion, running from delightfully happy, frightened beyond logic, a pretty cool Big-Damn-Hero moment and then seething with rage. It’s a fantastic showcase for her acting ability and for the freshly Inhuman Ophelia. She showcases teleportation, lightning generation and healing so I have to wonder what other tricks she has up her sleeves heading into next week’s finale.

With an enemy that powerful, as well as a possible army of Robo-Russians, the Team is on the backfoot with little to no back-up but miracles come from the most unexpected places and, within the demolished SHIELD base, the Darkhold portal ignites and Ghost Rider returns. Fuck. Yes.

Come back next week for what promises to be an explosive finale as magic, technology and superpowers collide in World’s End!

We’re racing toward the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season four finale and what better way to build up some momentum than to have our primary antagonist achieve her goals and lose some of our main cast along the way?

Farewell, Cruel World! sees the end of the Framework arc, and while it’s been immensely enjoyable to watch, we needed to get back to the real world eventually and we finally get going on that plan. Daisy, Coulson, May, Simmons and Mack head off in search of Radcliffe’s backdoor (phrasing) and have to deal with a lot of emotional turmoil along the way.

But first, since this may well be the last time we get BJ Britt, we have some hilarious moments with him that really drives home that we’re missing a hilarious and sincere character in the main cast. Trip has some fantastic scenes with Daisy and Mack and is taking the whole idea of the world being wrong in stride, though he is disappointed that his other-world counterpart apparently has no game whatsoever.

It’s good to see there’s still something between Coulson and May as he encourages her to take a leap of faith and is rewarded on the other side with May admitting he’s cute. Awwww!

Less cute is Mack’s… departure? Is that what you’d class this as? It’s certainly emotional and understandable and while Mack staying in the Framework with his daughter is unsurprising, it’s a little hokey from a logistical standpoint. I mean, how long does he expect them to just leave him in there? Does he really think Yo-Yo is just going to let him stay there? Who would look after him and keep the Framework going? I guess they’ll explain it in the following episodes but Henry Simmon’s supposed final appearance is bittersweet to say the least.

As usual, Iain De Caestecker is killing it as both a cold-hearted HYDRA head and as the repentant real-world Fitz. This guy can act rings around everyone! Without Simmons there to support him, and Coulson not being that effective, his fragile mental state is easy prey for the now human AIDA/Ophelia who tearful reunites with him and TELEPORTS AWAY. The fuck!? When? How? What? Is her new body Inhuman? Is that tech-based? WHAT.

Questions need answers and we can only hope we get them when we return next week with… The Return.

Oh boy, I don’t know how much of All The Madame’s Men subtext was conceived as a response to the current socio-political climate but it’s hard not to draw comparisons. We even have our own Bill O’Reilly (topical!) in the form of Sunil Bakshi! Simon Kassianides makes his first appearance in the show since his real-world death in The Dirty Half Dozen two seasons ago! If nothing else, this arc is great for bringing back long dead characters who have amazing screen presence.

Speaking of; Trip continues to be awesome and supportive and why did they kill him off again? Same with Brett Dalton, who is killing it as a kind and compassionate Grant Ward and despite how inherently wrong that feels, he makes me root for him. If only there was some kind of magical McGuffey that could make all these digital avatars of dead cool guys into flesh and blood…

Wait a minute! Project: Looking Glass! From what I can gleam from the explanation in the episode, the machine is designed to make machines human but I imagine it’s more along the lines of implanting archived memories and personalities into flesh and blood bodies. In a clever bit of  narrative sleight of hand, we discover that while Fitz has been finalising the design in the Framework, the Superior is constructing the actual one in the real world.

All of which could mean we’ll see not only Mace return but also Good-Ward and Trip! Hell, even Radcliffe and Agnes! Or even Hope, Mack’s fictional daughter! The possibilities are endless.

The episode opened with a cool gunfight, culminating in Madame Hydra getting quaked out of a window! That momentum carries us through the episode as the body cam footage May had is used to undermine the HYDRA regime and ends with Coulson declaring himself an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

This entire arc has been really interesting and very entertaining but all goof things must come to an end so join us next week when Madame Hydra’s plan goes into action, the team scramble to stop her and we say Farewell, Cruel World!

Seriously, after having gone through the threat establishment of the LMD’s we finally see how dangerous they can be as SHIELD is manipulated into hunting two of their own in an intense and gripping bottle episode.

For those that don’t know, bottle episodes are mainly set in one central location (SHIELD base), starring as few non-regular as they can get away with (most of the characters onscreen are regular cast) and using mostly dialogue. That part is up for debate because there is a ton of action and dialogue and both are incredibly strong!

The episode follows the same formula of paranoia, distrust and dread as John Carpenter’s The Thing but accelerates the timeline as the LMD’s go on the offensive and it’s up to Daisy and Simmons to undermine and ultimately triumph. Oh? Did I say Daisy isn’t an LMD? Well you know what that means!

Someone pick up that phone because I FUCKING CALLED IT! Fitz is revealed to be an LMD in one of the most powerful, emotionally-charged scenes of the episode, if not the season, because Iain De Caestecker is an acting demigod. His performance during the tense standoff between him and Simmons further highlights this guy’s acting chops. Elizabeth Henstridge also delivers a strong perfermance but she isn’t switching from terror, anger, love, and affectlessness on the fly like Iain. It’s brilliant.

Daisy gets to show more of her combat chops by going up against the Mace-LMD and doing a pretty effective job though just taking one out is enough to knacker her out and resort to quaking Mac to pieces. It’s a fun running fist fight through the lab with some great camera work.

AIDA also continues her descent into full-on villain by turning The Superior into a Frankestein’s Monster of an LMD and killing Radcliffe before stuffing him into the framework. She’s like Ultron but actually threatening.

Ming-Na Wen has a pretty badass display of character for the May LMD this episode too! She has more May in her than Radcliffe probably intended, selflessly stalling the other LMDs from hurting her team with a pile of explosive barrels! She might not be human, but she’s still May. Right ’til the end.

We end the episode with Daisy and Jemma sneaking into the Framework to free their friends and we get a glimpse of what that perfect world looks like and boy is it bleak. Coulson is a racist teacher, Simmons is dead, May works for HYDRA and, most chilling of all…

SON OF A BITCH! I know good villains don’t die but jaysus, lads… Still, it’ll be good to see Brett Dalton back to being an openly evil bastard because he and Daisy have to be working for HYDRA too, right?

Self Control is my favourite episode of the season so far but that may soon change as when we come back to Agents of SHIELD in April, we’ll be dipping our toes into the alternate universe of the Framework and asking What If…

You know that feeling when things can’t possibly get any worse? That’s where we are after The Man Behind the Shield. This is the worst case scenario but wasn’t it fun getting here?

Having a flashback to babby Coulson and May was a fun c-plot to the episode, showing the rarely seen playful side of May and a Coulson a little more akin to what we saw in the early days of the MCU. It’s a refreshing change of pace and something I wish we saw more of.

I love the direction (pun intended) that they’ve taken Mace in. Jason O’Mara has been on form since his reveal and he’s become the team’s purest cinnamon roll. He’s out of power, deep in enemy territory and all but sure that he’ll die but he’s taken Coulson’s ‘fake it til you make it’ advice to heart and acts like a stone cold badass while simultaneously shitting himself every second he’s onscreen.

Daisy and the Superior get a pretty decent brawl going that isn’t purely Inhuman powers versus human resolve. Daisy fights relatively fair but like she says; the game ahs changed and leaves Ivanov buried under rubble.

The huge-ass shocker twist of the episode is the revelation that four of SHIELD’s most experienced operatives have been replaced with LMDs! Am I the only figuring this is a red herring?  I mean, yeah, there’s a noticeable amount of time missing where someone could have gotten got but Coulson, Mack, Daisy AND Mace?  Seems a bit of a stretch to me… Though Coulson bringing LMD-May back online seems to support it. Spoiler: the promo for the next episode confirms that at least Coulson and Mace are LMDs but there are FOUR active within SHIELD so… my money is still on Fitz being one of them.

With the hint of a John Carpenter’s The Thing-style bottle episode on the cards, next week should be a doozy but I really liked this episode too and I hope the LMD arc continues to be as interesting and intense when we come back next week with a little more Self Control.

I was all ready to write this off as kind of a filler episode but I genuinely enjoyed BOOM, mostly because of John Pyper-Ferguson, Mallory Jansen and Jason O’Mara.

Jeffrey Mace has gone from powerhouse to house cat and this episode really plays with that as he’s blocked at every avenue to be more of a player in SHIELD. Jason plays Mace as likeable at the best of times but playing him as a kicked puppy makes you really feel for him and he gets his shot to be the hero… Only to be captured by The Superior. Should make for an interesting conversation in the next episode.

Speaking of interesting, we meet AIDA’s inspiration; Agnes Kitsworth. Mallory Jansen gets to unclench and use her natural Aussie accent for a change. It’s subtle but distinct enough from AIDA’s monotone non-descript accent that makes Agnes feel unique. Her backstory is tragic and she doesn’t last the episode but it was cool to see Mallory emote for a change (like when Brent Spiner got to emote as Data on TNG).

We also see Senator Nadeer bow out after a cunning(?) plan by the Russians to see if she’s Inhuman which results in Head Watchdog, Terrance Shockley (I think this is the first time we’ve heard his name, right?), becoming an Inhuman bomb. Kind of reminds me of Nitro in a way, which is ironic since Nadeer’s office is within the Stamford Wing, thus alluding to the comic book Civil War. John Pyper-Ferguson gets to do something other than glower in the background. Hell, I think he’s pretty cool when he’s getting used to his powers.

We finish the episode as Agnes dies within Radcliffe’s new ‘Framework’ world as May is visibly distressed. Is she adapting to the new world already? I guess we’ll have to find out next time!

BOOM is a solid and entertaining episode that kept good pace and didn’t stick with one plot for too long, giving a lot of the supporting cast room to breath. Next week we go on a mission to rescue The Man Behind the Shield.

Sorry that I’m having to play catch-up again so soon after the last one but if you followed me on social media, you’d know I went to Toy Fair and the TV reviews kind of lapsed (the bane of being the only DOOMie watching these shows is that no one can cover when I’m gone) but we’re back and first up is Wake Up, an adventure in spy craft and mind palaces!

It’s great to see Natalia Cordova-Buckley return as Yo-Yo, she brings so much sass to the cast and it’s fun to see her play off Henry Simmons’ Mack. We get to see Yo-Yo engaged in a bog-standard SHIELD mission, infiltrating Senator Nadeer’s office while Quake is put before a tribunal, and we also see her relationship with Mack develop a little more but, naturally, this plays second fiddle to the A and B plots.

We see inside May’s head to the new program that Radcliffe established in the last episode and it really does play into her character. Once confronted with the bizarreness of her situation, she immediately goes into fight mode and runs a gauntlet against AIDA in her mind. But the real heartbreak comes from the reveal of the final scenario, one Radcliffe rips right out of May’s past and abuses wholesale; rescuing the Inhuman girl she tragically killed in Bahrain. That bastard is going to get his shit pushed in so hard…

Whoa! Not a bullet to the head, Fitz! Luckily, it’s revealed that the Radcliffe in custody is also an LMD but less lucky is that Radcliffe is actually in cahoots with Senator Nadeer… Hoo-boy, things look pretty bad for the team but don’t worry…

Because the Koenigs baaaaack! We haven’t seen Patton Oswalt since, like, Season 2! Billy and Sam are part of Coulson’s plan to deal with the Darkhold. This also involves the FOURTH Koenig brother, the conspiracy nut Thurston, and the Koenig sister, JT, who is an unadulterated badass!

We also get the Philinda kiss we’ve been waiting for that is immediately undercut but LMD-May’s betrayal when she gets her hands on the Darkhold. Fair play to the writers for not having LMD-May become more like AIDA once she had her objective but was May but with no control of her actions. She might not be “real” to everyone else but she’s May through and through, visibly hurt that she has no control over her actions or the implication that she’s nothing more than a shadow of the real thing.

These two episodes, especially Hot Potato Soup, were thoroughly entertaining and with LMD-May revealed and the Darkhold in the hands of the enemy, the team is going to have their hands full next week when they come face-to-face with AIDA’s inspiration as well as dealing with an explosive Inhuman in BOOM.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility, right? I’m seriously questioning his motives right now, more-so than RoboMay and she’s a confirmed LMD.

The Patriot, naturally, focuses on Jeffrey Mace and his secret origins but before I talk about that, let’s check in with the other plot lines…

Isn’t it a bit cliché that May’s mind rejects the tranquil simulation because “she’s a warrior” and she craves battle? Didn’t they use this exact excuse in The Matrix? Ah well, at least she got a few good hits in before being put under again. Meanwhile, her LMD has discovered her nature and is visibly perturbed. Are we going to see RoboMay rebel against her programming and we’ll have a May/May team-up? I’m guessing yesssssss!

The dynamic between Radcliffe and AIDA is also worth noting because if he keeps being snippy with her, she’s liable to murder his dopey arse. She’s killed for less!

We also get a fair amount of time with a returning Talbot (always a pleasure to see Adrian Pasdar) and FitzSimmons as they try to break an ex-Hydra assassin. It’s good to see Elizabeth Henstridge to play a little darker than sheer white every now and then. Simmons needs to challenge authority more.

Now, the meat and potatoes of the episode is the reveal that Jeffrey Mace is a fraud. After a carefully choreographed attack on Mace — including the first AoS appearance of the Judas Bullets from Luke Cage — Mace, Coulson, and Mack find themselves outnumbered and outgunned by a platoon of Watchdogs. As a result, Mace is revealed not to be an Inhuman at all, instead an enhanced human using a modified version of the Hyde Formula. I was kind of pulling for the same drug that IGH was using in Jessica Jones but I guess this works as a continuity nod too.

So yeah, Mace literally tripped into the role of a hero and has been playing it at the behest of Talbot and the Government. Credit to Jason O’Mara for a few more comical expressions and an incredibly earnest performance near the end as we see a more vulnerable version of Mace. With his secret out, Coulson naturally steps up to run ops from now on but only if Mace remains the face of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I really enjoyed this episode. It had a nice balance between all the plot lines, had a few decent gags and some cool action. Be sure to come back next week when we see AIDA’s plan expand further and May’s need to Wake Up.

Oh! Hello! Didn’t see you there and apparently I didn’t see that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. came back 3 days ago either! This is probably due a combination of my general indifference to life, anxiety of trying (and failing) to get money together to go to Toy Fair and looking after a family member who went through major surgery. So what’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. midseason premiere got to distract me from that?

Ooooooooh, robot uprising! It’s about damn time! I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords and that snazzy new title card for the LMD arc. Real nice, that.

AIDA’s descent into sapience and murder is so rote that most of this plot point is dedicated to Mack and Yo-Yo taking the piss and mentioning movies this kind of thing happened in. Which is actually my favourite part of the episode because those two being snarky fucks is hilarious.

What else have we got… We’ve got Daisy and Mace (feat. Simmons) going on a mission to find Senator Nadeer and it’s nice to see Jeff trying with Daisy. Naturally she’s suspicious of him but running a few missions should build some trust so that they can triumph. God, he’s got me doing it now…

Speaking of trust and the titular Broken Promises, we get a look at the family dynamic of the Nadeers and holy fuck is Ellen an evil bitch! Seriously, Parminder Nagra’s come a long way from the earnestness of Bend It Like Beckham and become Cruella De Vil! Her poor brother, seemingly unaffected by terrigenesis, is ambushed and almost ganked by the Watchdog hired goons Nadeer has on the payroll but surprise!

After revealing some super-speed and getting a shot in his gut for his troubles, his body crusts over as it sinks into the ocean. Now, this secondary terrigenesis isn’t without precedent. Many of the more famous Inhuman characters (ie, the ones we’ll be seeing in ABC’s upcoming Inhumans series) have undergone this and, much like secondary mutation, it can be a crapshoot so who knows what poor Vijay will look like when he emerges again.

Oh and Radcliffe turned heel and built a SECOND AIDA off-screen between season halves. And seems to be trying to get the Philinda ship sailing for nefarious purposes. I didn’t care much for this reveal but then, in retrospect, they jumped to AIDA’s evil reveal pretty damn quickly and we need to pad out this half of the season somehow sooooo…

Not a bad kick-off but I was expecting a little more oomph since we’re dealing with the loss of a major Marvel hero but hopefully Mace will be showing his true colours in four days time with the patriotically titled The Patriot.

Okay, so here’s the thing… Last week was a bit hectic for me. My mum went into heart surgery so I was looking after my family, and I had two extra TV shows to cover for Invasion Week sooooo… Deals With Our Devils slipped by me entirely and honestly… Kinda glad it did.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an interesting premise for an episode but seeing things play out twice from two perspectives, which could have been done in an interesting fashion, kind of feels like padding while parts that I was genuinely interested in were barely expounded upon.

AIDA’s reading of the Darkhold is of particular interest because instead of what I expected ie; she couldn’t read it, she not only could but it was in binary as well. The line Thor said about science and magic not being as distinct as we perceive them to be clearly has some merit when it comes to the Darkhold.

Another segment was the conversation between Reyes and the Rider (is it too much of a stretch to call him Zarathos since Eli is flesh and blood?). It could have been a fascinating look at their relationship but was boiled down to it’s barest element; the deal.

The deal we finally see sealed in The Laws of Inferno Dynamics, which is a fantastic title. Again, the most interesting parts are from AIDA and Reyes, the former finally revealed as an LMD and the latter making sure his uncle can’t hurt anyone else.

It’s safe to say that Reyes was never going to be in the show for long so bowing out at the mid-season finale makes sense. Might as well take the opportunity to say that I’ve enjoyed Gabriel Luna in this role and it’s a shame to see him go. Hopefully he’ll be back in the future and maybe this will lead to a solo series in the future but for the short time we had him, Luna was a brilliant Ghost Rider.

I really liked this continuity nod toward the end of the episode. Very cute moment to cement Daisy’s return as a rostered Agent. Good thing Mac and Yo-Yo got together too because holy fuck, that was getting tedious. But this is the mid-season finale so we need a cliff-hanger right? Something to get people interested in the next arc. Something like…

Yeah, May being revealed as an LMD’ll do it! I can only presume she was replaced when she was still having visions. Could Radcliffe also been an LMD? Could Fitz? Anyone who has interacted with AIDA in the house is immediately suspect! Shame about whatsisname. Guy. Snappy.

Not a bad winter finale overall but I can’t wait to see how the show progresses with this rogue AI plotline. I guess I’ll see you guys in January!