Week 102: The Return, World's End

The Return: Did anyone else get Lost flashbacks whenever the camera zoomed underwater to show us the offshore oil rig?

When LMD Anton Ivanov stepped in a puddle, Phil Coulson dropped the electrified cable in it to fry him. That would be a neat moment if Antonov wasn't wearing rubber-soled shoes. Still, Coulson slicing through another LMD Ivanov's head with a literal shield was a nice touch. The symbolism of that holographic shield continues to pay off.

I love love love the scene of Leo Fitz accepting the horror of his personal choices while Jemma Simmons listens on the tablet. I've been waiting through four seasons of this show for him to show that kind of emotional self-awareness, and it took becoming a literal Nazi for him to realize he's the baddie. He even remarks on how similar he is to Grant Ward, which has been apparent for a long time. I applaud the writers and Iain Caestecker for making that beautiful scene happen, as well as the wonderful follow-up scene where Simmons silently sits with him and embraces him and they cry over everything. The true test will be whether the lesson sticks or Fitz is back to his old bad habits in season 5.

Unfortunately, that excellent scene is abruptly followed by three dumb moments in a row: Glenn Talbot trying to arrest the "robots" in S.H.I.E.L.D. because his sole purpose in the series is to be wrong at all times, which is an annoying trope, then Ophelia shrieking with rage at Fitz's rejection and furiously declaring that she'll force him to be with her, which is a misogynistic trope, then Ophelia shooting beams of energy from her hands, just like us real flesh-and-blood human beings do all the time. Is the show trying to imply that as an AI, she lacked imagination when designing her powers, because she copied Iron Man's arc reactors and Gordon's teleportation and Aldrich Killian's Extremis-based healing? Regardless, it undermines the whole "she's human now so maybe we should give her a chance to redeem herself" moral quandary if she's very clearly not human, which is frustrating because the writers had a potential gem of a quandary to explore there.

I wonder how Henry Simmons felt getting paid for this episode while Alphonso Mackenzie is unconscious in every scene. Also, are we really supposed to buy that everything in the S.H.I.E.L.D. base was blown apart with blackened debris laying all over the place, and yet the portal to Hell is still perfectly functional? (7/10)

World's End: A lot of this episode was very satisfying, from the team's successfully faking out Ophelia, to the thrilling action photography in Ghost Rider's battle scenes (especially the falling-and-teleporting montage). I wish it wasn't undercut by team's dumb choice to be arrested together, which I don't buy as anything other than a plot contrivance, or by the team letting Fitz off the hook near the end for his horrible, horrible choices that caused all of the bad things to happen, which this show has regrettably done before with other characters like Daisy Johnson. When the team reassured Fitz that it wasn't his fault and that they all share the responsibility for what happened, I so wanted Simmons to say, "Just so we're clear, I told him several times that what he was doing was dangerous and stupid. You all remember that, right?"

Speaking of the team getting arrested together, I'm surprised that they went to a diner instead of Coulson's favorite burger joint, but I'm even more surprised that they went to a well-populated place where civilians might be in harm's way from the heavily-armed strike force there to take them down for Talbot's attempted murder. That poor waitress was just trying to offer them pie!

As much as I wish that the scene of Hope Mackenzie's disappearance involved Mack making the choice to leave voluntarily on his own -- the choice doesn't mean anything if his daughter's already gone -- it was still a very difficult and emotional scene, and I couldn't help but feel so much for Mack and Elena Rodriguez in that moment. I understand that Hope cannot be manifested in reality because she'd be made of the same unnatural material as Ophelia and thus be doomed by Ghost Rider, but Ghosty's all about innocent life, and perhaps a compromise could have been struck for an innocent kid. As for the Mackenzie-Rodriguez love story, I have found it revolting since Slingshot, and the actors have no chemistry besides, but I do at least like Rodriguez's choice to stay and die as a declaration of love; it seems for a moment like the gesture gets through to Mack what he's really choosing.

Wouldn't the footage of the LMD Johnson shooting Talbot also include the real Johnson walking through the room a minute later? The whole subplot with the security meeting (ahem, "International Intelligence Inquiry Committee," which is not even close to being a thing) happened kind of fast, so maybe I missed something, but that sounds like the kind of meeting that would require extensive background clearance for anyone in attendance. How in the hell could one of the world's foremost terrorist leaders simply attend? And how as a "plus one," which is not the kind of thing that high-level security meetings have? And if Talbot is so paranoid about robots, why wouldn't he have robot-sensing metal detectors set up outside the meeting room? Arrgh, this subplot is so idiotic. (To be clear, I understand the intention, that the guy beside Ivanov is a Russian security expert who belonged at the meeting, and he vouched for Ivanov as a guest. I'm saying that's not how any of this works.)

I swear, if I ever hear one more word about Coulson's bottle of Haig, I'm going to scream. (5/10)

season rating: 6/10 (It was ok.)
best of season: "No Regrets"
worst of season: "Broken Promises"

I watched these two episodes unfortunately out of order and then went back and watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and now I'm a little lost and befuddled as to what exactly I've seen. Instead of trying to piece these two episodes as separate commentaries, I'm just going to go ahead and ramble on in one incoherent train of thought about them both.

I greatly appreciate Fitz finally getting his comeuppance and understanding that he really fucked up when it came to all the Nazi shit that he pulled in the Framework. I do not understand how in the hell everybody could just say, "Oh Fitz, it's not your fault.” I'm sorry? Like hell it's not! It is 100% his fault. He did all this shit. He caused it to happen and Ophelia is here wrecking shop in the real world because of all the stupid shit he did.

I can give him a pass, potentially, for the idea that his father, who he looked up to, would have had a different influence on him had he been in his life. This explains why he went the direction he went in the framework, with his father there to influence him. I still don't buy that his father alone would be the one thing that triggered him. He did some pretty horrific shit in the framework and I can't quite get past the idea that somewhere deep down he was okay with it. You can explain away the idea of German civilians getting wrapped up in the Nazi regime and everything that happened then. You can't really get around the idea that, "Oh if only Goebbels' father had loved him more, he wouldn't have done all the shit he did."

But onto not necessarily lighter but less war crime stuff that was quite touching and I did feel for Mack when he had to make the decision to leave his daughter in the framework. It was a heart-wrenching moment and I feel it was well-acted by him. You really felt the pain that he was feeling.

Also I really hate Talbot. Not the actor. I can't think of his name now but I like him. He's decent enough. I really liked him in Heroes several years ago.

I don't understand how somebody with such little situational awareness and common sense and such an overwhelming track record of completely fucking things up has still managed to somehow stay in power and in his position to where he can still have an influence over this group of people. It's mind-boggling.

Agreed completely. As I wrote above, the team letting Fitz off the hook with a "stop beating yourself up, it's not your fault" is as big of a load of bullshit now as it was when they said the same about Johnson in the past, such as the time she got Triplett killed and the time she dumped terrigen crystals in the world's oceans. The show needs to stop forgiving its characters because we viewers want to like them, and instead start having them earn forgiveness in order to make us like them.

The influence of Fitz's father is ok as a nudge to push him further along in one direction, but blaming Fitz's evil choices entirely on Dad renders this story meaningless. The whole point of Fitz's sub-plot here has been the show confronting the fact that he's always been an evil jerk and it's just a matter of perspective that he's a "good guy" and that this needs to be addressed in order to fix him. Thus, putting it all on Dad's survival in this alternate universe undermines that important work on the character.

I don't understand how somebody with such little situational awareness and common sense and such an overwhelming track record of completely fucking things up has still managed to somehow stay in power and in his position to where he can still have an influence