Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 12: The Inside Man
It's another great episode for Agents of SHIELD. The plot of the episode seems to be a simple Scooby-Doo game of 'who is Gideon Malick's inside man among the international representatives?' The new world government or whatever they're called are trying to lobby for creating a Inhuman 'sanctuary' which is just another word for prison. Both Coulson and Talbot are forced to work together for wacky hijinks as they infiltrate the summit, with Coulson having to deal with Talbot's lack of tact and unsubtle racism... only for the traitor to be revealed to be Talbot. It's not him being a xenophobic twat, though, but rather because his son was captured by Hydra and used as leverage. It's most likely the reason why his wife left him last episode. As a jackass as Talbot is, he really delivers whenever he talks about his son in this episode.
Other than Talbot, we also get the return of Carl "Crusher" Creel, the Absorbing Man, who shows up as Talbot's bodyguard. It's cool, and like Hunter (who holds a grudge against Creel for killing Hunter's two buddies on the opening to season two) it's hard not to have an immediate distrust for Creel. It's interesting that despite being a metahuman brute, Creel's biggest impact to the main cast is psychological instead of physical in manner. After all, all we had was Talbot's words that Creel is working for the ATCU now. Creel's unorthodox origin and his awesome powers are on full display in this episode as in addition to being Talbot's secret weapon against Hydra -- Talbot's understandable position of distrust meant he had to bring in a third party -- Creel's unique state of being a metahuman without also being an Inhuman also ended up being the source of a possible cure against the Inhumans (welcome to comic book logic, folks!). At least those who haven't been exposed to terrigenesis, anyway.
There is definitely a mutant/X-Men vibe with Lincoln and Skye arguing against the viability of the cure. Lincoln is not opposed to terrigenesis being controlled, because after all that was the whole point of Afterlife, where candidates for transformation were carefully selected. Meanwhile, Skye is drunk on a 'Inhumans are cool and should be treated the same' and is incensed at the fact that they're thinking of curing Inhumans as if it's a disease. Ultimately, my stance on it is similar to the argument that Storm and Rogue had in X-Men 3... the lady that can create storms at her fingertips shouldn't talk about how mutation is a blessing to someone who can't have physical contact without killing the other fellow. I mean, Skye and Lincoln and Joey and Giyera have pretty awesome Inhuman powers, but what about Lash, who can't control his rage and is in danger of losing his humanity and original personality? What about that one dude whose Inhuman powers is 'get an allergic reaction if an Inhuman is nearby'? It's an interesting argument, and another reason to why we really should have an X-Men TV show. Fox, make it happen!
Speaking of Lincoln, I still find him bland, though to be fair beyond being a POV token-good character for the Afterlife Inhumans, Lincoln never really got that much to do character-wise. This little conflict with his beau might actually turn him into something interesting instead of just being Skye's love interest.
We get some great moments for Hunter, where his paranoia against Creel, and, well, his paranoia in general is highlighted. There's a bit of a conflict between May and Hunter, where the two badass agents are in argument about professionalism and selfishness, how Hunter lets his feelings go over the mission, or how May has a similar blind spot regarding Andrew. May and Hunter are both under-utilized characters, and despite them having some moments with May's conflict regarding Lash and Hunter's vendetta against Ward, we never really get to explore their character flaws like this.
Meanwhile, we get a name for Not-Ward, so I can stop calling him that. He's called Hive, and is apparently a villain from the comics! (Not to be confused with the organization called HIVE from DC's Arrow). He does have a power that shoots out a blast of dust-like substance that seemed to be implied to be parasitic alien insects, from his name... it's still ambiguous what his full powers are beyond possessing dead human bodies and stealing their memories. I'm not sure what he does to Giyera and Lucio when he does what he does to them, because while the two are obedient to Hive, they are still very visibly shocked when they listened to... whatever Hive did to those poor humans in that room. Whatever happened, though, he strips those poor folks into nothing but bone and blood and Grant Ward's body is fully rejuvenated.
There are a bit of plot holes here and there with what's going on, with why Malick would leave the hostage in a van near the summit, but other than that, despite being ultimately a filler episode it's extremely enjoyable to watch, and I think that's Agents of SHIELD's biggest strength in season three. The ability to deliver plot progression in otherwise solid episodes.
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