Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 8: Many Heads, One Tale
I keep saying how poorly Agents of SHIELD did the whole 'it's all connected' thing while juggling all its plot points in the first two seasons. No more! Holy hell, this episode! It ties in everything from Hydra to the Inhumans to the monolith to the ancient conspiracy to the FitzSimmons plot to ATCU and does it in the most elegant of fashions.
And not only that, Agents of SHIELD does an absolutely bold move of soft-retconning something established from the movies, that Hydra isn't just the Nazi organization that was created by the Red Skull during World War II, but a conspiracy that extends so much more into the past, which ties in to the monolith... and also happens to be the same ancient conspiracy organization that Fitz and Simmons are searching into. It's brilliant, and an absolutely bold retcon to the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe canon. I've been told it's apparently something that happened in the comics as well -- albeit more recent comics than what most of the MCU is based upon -- but still.
Apparently Hydra, or the organization that eventually became Hydra, has the main goal of bringing back some ancient Inhuman king that was banished to planet hellhole, and up until the events of this season, no one's been able to return from there.
And it even honestly kind of makes sense, considering one of the earliest scenes in Captain America: The First Avenger is Red Skull waxing lyrical over that carving of Yggdrassil, and seeing how Grant Ward acted it isn't too much of a stretch to think that the subsequent leaders just kind of used Hydra's secondary goal of world domination as the main priority instead of the whole bringing the Inhuman King dude back. And even Hydra stockpiling alien weapons and artifacts all throughout The Avengers and Agents of SHIELD makes sense, too, to this end. Hell, the Inhuman King might either be Will or the mysterious "It" we saw on the planet, tying everything in even further.
Also, it's absolutely laughable when you think that Hydra has its roots in bringing back the Inhumans when Whitehall/Reinhardt's whole game plan in the second season was to figure out what the Inhumans are. Oh, Whitehall, you idiot, if only you had the sense to ask your bosses...
We've got a bit of a continuation of the Hydra Civil War, with Ward being revealed to be after the Von Strucker vault, something that Gideon Malick isn't willing to share. It's a bit of an excuse plot to have Ward beat up a bunch of mooks, and to leave the confrontation and revelation until the end. We get a bit more development on Malick and it's pretty cool. We get confirmation that he is indeed the World Security Council dude from way back in The Avengers, and as everyone guessed, Malick is indeed pulling the strings in ATCU without Rosalind Price knowing... namely trying to turn people into Inhumans to, well, stockpile an army, I guess?
And that was just me rambling about the last ten minutes of this episode! Even without the big revelations it's still a pretty decent episode. We've got some nice little spy stuff, and everyone has their moments. Skye, May and Lincoln don't do much, but the latter two get an emotionally powerful short scene as the emotionally-stunted May apologizes to Lincoln for all the shit that Andrew has put him through, whereas up until that point of vulnerability Lincoln just assumes the worst and thinking that May's trying to unnerve him. Mack has an absolutely hilarious moment where he pretends to be this service caller dude. I had this grin on my face that mirrors Lincoln's throughout the whole scene. Mack's starting to grow on me.
Hunter and Bobbi infiltrate the ATCU building with some crazy-fun little plan thanks to Skye, and Hunter is an absolute barrel of laughs, playing off that poor sod Steve really well. From him just repeating whatever Skye tells him and adding 'yeah mate' or somesuch near the end, to him trying to figure out what the front slash sign is, to him apologizing for knocking Steve away, to just his bored-smart-dude look that he pulls off so perfectly with that hoodie...
And Bobbi Morse, the Mockingbird, is definitely back in form this episode with a new gimmick -- batons that can be recalled back to her hands thanks to a pair of magnetized wrist-gauntlets. It's absolutely brilliant and honestly calls back to mind Captain America's new magnet glove from Age of Ultron. We get an absolutely awesome scene with Bobbi fighting Giyera, an Inhuman under the employ of Hydra-ATCU, who has the ability to use, well, either Magneto powers or Force pushes. Either way after an impressive bout of slinging metallic objects back and forth, Hunter just whacks the poor bastard in the head with a fire extinguisher.
And I do like the small moment for Luther Banks, who I've been complaining all season to be the obligatory jackass brutal man just to make the ATCU a red herring for being evil. Well, he shows up here... and then helps Bobbi and Hunter escape. Good job, Banks!
Perhaps the weakest (but by no means bad) part of the episode is the confrontation between Coulson and Price. It starts off pretty well with Coulson and Price continuing their 'who's the better spy with better spy countermeasures' flirty game, and it's pretty cool that they worked it into their plan of getting Hunter in as the IT guy. And Coulson locking Price in a prison room and then forcing her to try and admit her big game plan -- that the Inhumans aren't in the main building (a sensible countermeasure from Price herself, once she explains it) and all that... before delving into a bit of a pointless "I thought we had something" romance-y banter which wasn't handled elegantly, even if the exasperation is indeed realistic. And thankfully Price ends up figuring out that Gideon Malick is the one feeding her bad information and possibly spiriting away most of the Inhumans they've captured, and Coulson at least trusts her enough for that.
Other than the big ATCU/SHIELD conflict, we have a smaller yet no less important one between Fitz and Simmons as all the unresolved sexual tension and all the love triangle tension all explodes in one brilliant scene that's equal parts heartwarming and tearjerking. We get a big damn kiss between the two of them "you jumped through a hole in the world for me!" and it's cool that Simmons is honestly conflicted between the two men she loves instead of just being all Will Will Will and relegating Fitz into the friendzone once more, and the shouting match between the two is just brilliant, as Fitz confesses that he is not the 'why are you doing all the right things' man that Simmons thought he was being, and honestly tried to dig up dirt on Will, and... well, that scene was definitely satisfying. Yeah, as much as I hate the concept of randomly introducing Will like that, this confrontation was definitely well written.
And Andrew Garner, well, poor fucker's now at the hands of Grant Ward, the literal worst place he could be in right now. Poor May. It's not Fitz that is cursed by the universe, really, it's May. Not only does Ward harbour a personal grudge against May thanks to the whole Agent 33 thing, we also know that Grant Ward has a fetish on 'breaking' people and forcing them to embrace the monster within and all that.
Overall?
A pretty damn good episode. Good job, Agents of SHIELD.
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