Week of November 20, 2022:

A Wanted (Inhu)Man (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. s3 e3) released October 13, 2015 (where to watch)
Devils You Know (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. s3 e4) released October 20, 2015
Scott Hardie | December 5, 2022

A Wanted (Inhu)Man: Most of this episode was as dull as a rusted spoon. The only real moment that stood out was Coulson's apparent willingness to sacrifice Johnson to appease Price when Lincoln got away, which felt so extremely out of character for him that in order to stomach this, I'm going to make up my own headcanon that he was merely engaging in deception and had no sincere intention of losing Johnson. Have I mentioned how much I dislike the dickish new Coulson? He seems to be acting out of attraction to Price rather than in his team's best interests, which is a variation on the story from season 2 where he seemed to be acting out of devotion to the alien symbols rather than to his team, and at this point I don't know if he's worth defending.

The rest of the episode felt like a daytime soap, as in, scene after endless scene had the characters talk about nothing while the plot made only tiny incremental progress; this hour ended with no real difference from where it started. I didn't care about any single thing that happened here. Spud's betrayal of Hunter was pointless, John's betrayal of Lincoln was way too convenient, and Lincoln's life on the run felt like a retread of stuff we've seen this show do before. (2/10)

Devils You Know: This is another hour of stretching out the thin story to meet ABC Television's episode order, but at least it brings closure (or a point of transition at least) to the Hunter-May-Garner storyline. I would very much not want to face the wrath of Melinda May after causing her husband's death! Otherwise the hour is mere wheel-spinning, with several scenes of Simmons withholding secrets until she abruptly decides to share them, and several scenes of Johnson trying to get access to Price's facility until the truck abruptly crashes en route, and so on. Is anything going to happen on this show? My advice to the writers would have been to stop overlapping all of these different stories and to focus on just one so that it can actually go somewhere. (3/10)


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