Week 71: Spacetime, Paradise Lost

Spacetime: Clever episode! This is reminiscent of "T.R.A.C.K.S." from season one, the Rashomon-style episode set on a train. Sometimes a simple narrative trick can really freshen things up. I appreciate the new energy that this episode brought to the series. That said, it was a little disappointing that the neat ideas about time didn't accomplish anything other than advance the plot; it would have been preferable for them to mean something, such as maybe one character having an existential crisis over discovering that predetermination is real or something. I guess it's not that kind of show.

The boardroom scene was horrific. The show is nailing that part, too, really driving home the true horror of what Hydra invited back to Earth. Gideon Malick in the power suit is a good idea, getting at a more literal definition of "power" in a superhero world and rewarding his service in an unexpected way. It feels like the TV character mirroring his comic-book counterpart, but as far as I know, Malick is native to the MCU.

It's too bad that the many other special effects in this episode didn't leave any money in the budget for Lash's final transformation, forcing Andrew Garner to duck out of view and then for Lash to pop up in his place. Honestly, I just think Blair Underwood deserved better; he's a great actor and a warm presence on a series that often feels cold and cynical, and the end of his run on this series shouldn't have been relegated to the C-plot of an otherwise unrelated episode. Speaking of good acting, here's praising Chloe Bennet for another great one-take fight sequence. Daisy Johnson is still a huge problem for the series, but it's not Bennet's fault; she's working damn hard to make the series as good as she can.

Other thoughts: Did Lincoln Campbell not experience any disciplinary action after threatening to kill Phil Coulson? Wait a minute, this is AOS; of course he didn't. Coulson is in the Playground, somewhere deep underground in a remote location, when he sees Grant Ward on the security feed after Johnson has already entered the Transia office building, so how did he travel to the building fast enough to intercept her mid-mission? I appreciate the musical choices in this episode, matching Erik Satie's "Gnossienne" with Tori Amos's "Battle of Trees" which is based on it. (7/10)

Paradise Lost: As uncharacteristic as it feels for Hive to fixate on the memories of any one previous host the way that he does on the emotions of Nathaniel Malick here (have we seen him do that before?), I still really like the Malick family backstory in this episode. I'm not going to dwell on it because I fear turning into a broken record, but let's just say that morality and consequences are way too often missing from this series, and here's a story about both. Gideon Malick's choice in 1970 meant something, in a way that Hydra's actions rarely do. Well done, AOS. Plus, it's neat to see Werner Reinhardt again, this time through the eyes of someone who can recognize what a creepy, weird Nazi he was.

Also neat is the fight scene between R. Giyera and Melinda May, since Mark Dacascos is an accomplished action star. (Go check out the ridiculous but kind of amazing Brotherhood of the Wolf, still probably his best movie, if you haven't seen it.) If you're going to hire an action star, you'd better make use of them in a good fight scene, something that AOS knows and Star Trek: Discovery didn't when it cast Michelle Yeoh. (7/10)

Spactime - Scott, I agree that this was a fun episode. I enjoy seeing how different shows try to work with "time travel" and the paradoxes that unfold from it. I saw the preview text for the episode mentioned Daisy seeing the future, so when the episode opened up, I was expecting the first scene to be in the future, then we'd flashback to the present to see how the team responded.

So with that idea already lodged into my brain, I had fully convinced myself that the homeless man was Phil Coulson 30 years into the future, when Hydra's army of Inhumans had taken over.

Basically, Days of Future Past.

Needless to say, I was a little disappointed that it didn't go that direction, but I was happy with the outcome we finally got to.

The "previously on AOS" bumps at the beginning of each episode keep saying that Malick is the last head of Hydra. Do... do they not know how Hydras work? Are they also completely unaware of the "inner circle"? Surely one of those people would step up as the new head when Malick is taken out, right?

Of course, we don't have to worry about that right now, what with Hive running around melting people.