Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 7: Chaos Theory
What a great end to that Lash plot! I honestly thought that Lash would be the big bad for... well, at least until the mid-season finale, sharing the 'season villain' spot with Grant Ward, one being the villain on the superpowered-metahuman side of things, and one being the villain on the spy organizations side of things. And I didn't expect to see the climax happen on episode seven as opposed to the mid-season. So having Lash taken down this episode as opposed to being captured or whatever was a bit of a surprise, but this episode really handled the tension and everything else pretty well.
We get to see the flashbacks as to just how Andrew Gardner went from happy psychiatrist to a psychotic hole-making serial killer, and unlike what some of us might have thought, Andrew wasn't an Inhuman from the very first get-go. He was transformed recently, thanks to investigating an ancient tome listing every Inhuman that was recovered from Afterlife, which was boobytrapped with Terrigen mist. Um, yeah, Coulson, real good job of you guys, sending all these potentially dangerous items into a civilian's house without checking for any contamination. It's a good thing Andrew was compatible, otherwise he would've died.
I do like the irony that Jiaying booby-trapped the book so that only Inhumans can read it, meaning that the book's list of identities of Inhumans will never be used by, well, humans... but Andrew, an Inhuman, ends up using said book and the changes caused by the boobytrap to hunt down and kill Inhumans far more effectively than Hydra or ACTU ever did.
And apparently Andrew's transformation into Lash happens periodically because, as Lincoln informs everyone, the change isn't stabilized yet. The one-power-per-person rule still applies... Andrew's power is making holes in people, and his physical changes is just, well, just that. The rage and the bloodlust that can only be satiated by killing other Inhumans is just a bad bonus.
And, again, both Lash and Dwight Frye from a couple episodes back does lend credence to Rosalind Price's argument that not everyone wants to be an Inhuman, not everyone loves their powers. We see that even as much as Andrew tries to control his bloodlust around Joey Gutierrez, it's still bubbles on the edge and there's really no doubt that Andrew would probably kill Joey if May hadn't shown up when she did. Again, while forcibly putting them into stasis for years or whatever might not be the most ethical thing, it is the best they could come up with at short notice, and I do like how both Price and Skye manage to see a little of each other's points of view, even if we had them confronting each other passive-aggressively earlier on. The conversations between Coulson, Price and Skye about how to handle powered people is definitely well done, even if, well, parts of it seem to be borrowed wholesale from X-Men comics. Not that it's a bad thing.
Price definitely comes off as the more mature one in their argument, noting that for every Skye there's likely to be a Lash, and indeed while people like Skye and Lincoln might have had great control over their powers, we've seen that, well, control needs practice, as well as, well, the person themselves having to be not a psychopath. There's a stark difference for both Skye and Joey back when they first had their powers and how they are now -- it's cool that Joey can very securely control his powers -- but at the same time, both of them can easily destroy, like, a city on their whim. And those really need to be controlled, lest someone with poor anger management issues or, well, other mental issues (like Lash) gets hold of a particularly powerful power.
Back to Lash! Or Andrew, if you'd prefer. All throughout the past six (well, five, since the big Simmons one didn't count) episodes, we've found out that May and Andrew split apart after their seeming romantic holiday at the end of season two, and apparently it's because, well, Andrew transformed into a monster. We get a pretty strong, emotional scene as May confronts Andrew, close to tears -- an expression and an emotion we have never seen on Melinda May other than Bahrain... and we have Andrew begging May to see his point of view, not realizing how twisted it was... and at the end, when May puts himself in Andrew's path, literally the only thing on the good guys' arsenal that gave Lash pause, before being forced to once more assume the emotionless role and shoot Andrew into the containment box. And as she herself admits, she doesn't know if the bullets wouldn't kill human-form Andrew. Man, poor May.
I honestly would've preferred that Andrew/Lash actually had some motivation like what was hinted at by Dwight Frye, some personal crusade, beyond, well, him being slightly bonkers and partially driven by a borderline-uncontrollable bloodlust.
But what he lacks in strong motivations, he definitely makes up for in the emotional moments he shares with May. And he definitely proves to be an absolute beast when the combined forces of SHIELD and ACTU ("this is Coulson's op, no one move until he says so!" is nice) fail to even put a scratch in him. ICERs? A full tac team shooting him with assault rifles? Mack charging him? Lincoln shooting lightning bolts at him? Skye doing some quaky stuff? Nope, nothing even gives Lash pause. Nothing but May. Well, granted, Lash doesn't get to kill or even maim any of the named characters. He did drop Price off the side of a building (but Skye caught her) and killed a bunch of ACTU nobodies, but for such an unstoppable force he doesn't kill anyone. Granted, he might be holding back against someone like Mack, who he actually knew, so it's justifiable on that end, at least.
Skye also saves Price, and we're as surprised as everyone present that she can use her shockwaves to break someone's fall. And I do like how both Price and Skye end up seeing a bit of the other's point of view, with Price admitting that good people with powers like Skye deserve a place in the world, while Skye realizing that not all Inhuman powers are gifts, and some people need to be put on ice, if not put down.
Speaking of good people with powers... I'm honestly quite happy with Joey getting a handle on his metal-controlling powers off-screen. The show was absolutely mean when it showed Lash suddenly killing Joey before revealing that it's just Andrew fantasizing, though. That was a bit of a dick move. But the idea of Joey possibly joining Skye and Mack (and Lincoln?) on the metahuman task squad is a welcome one. Maybe Mack can actually get that shotgun-axe to keep up with Skye and Joey?
Lincoln was pretty great this episode, too. He's absolutely enraged and doesn't really give two shits about Lash being, well, May's husband or whatever. "Who made you judge, jury and executioner?" Lincoln's absolutely pissed, rightfully so. Not only are his friends killed by Lash, not only did Lash's attack on him in episode one ruin his life and caused his life on the run, Lincoln also has absolutely no reason to obey Coulson's orders or any emotional attachment to Andrew that Skye, May or Coulson has. And seeing Lincoln rightfully enraged... poor dude's been gone through a fair amount of trauma, and seeing him pay back the pain is grand.
With the focus on hunting down Lash with the 'all hands on deck' level of threat that it is, as well as the relationship between Andrew and May, most of the sideplots are relatively shoved aside. The Hydra plot's basically sidelined and reduced to a couple short conversations, which is fine. We've got a strong Fitz-Simmons scene, with that very tearjerky moments of Fitz listening to the initial audio recordings of Simmons talking about what could have been, while Fitz himself probably acknowledges that she feels differently now that Will is in scene... and having to look for clues on his love competitor (apparently something something ancient runes NASA conspiracy?). And that hope when Simmons tells him that she meant every word of what she said... yeah, strong emotional scenes. We get at least that much from this love triangle, which is a good thing.
Also, apparently Werner is comatose instead of dead. Huh. Way to backpedal on that, but I like Werner. He can stick around. Just don't mess up your second chance.
The big cliffhanger at the end of this episode is Coulson being pretty literally in bed with Price (what about that cellist, what's her name?), whereas Price is apparently figuratively in bed with Gideon Malick, Mr. Hydra man. Now I think it's a bit of a silly move to build up Rosalind Price and the ACTU as 'shady, but different from the evil organizations before', and then to reveal that Price is actually Hydra all along, so my money's on her being an unwitting pawn working with... well, maybe Gideon's still posing as a high-ranking government man? I'm not sure.
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