Agents of SHIELD S03E13 Review: Mushroom Picking & Mockingbirds

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 13: Parting Shot

This episode really felt a bit way too focused on its weekly plot of focusing on Bobbi and Hunter, which is a far cry from Agents of SHIELD in season one where episodes have a lack of focus and are used to develop fifteen differing confusing plotlines at once. This episode had some good reason, though, with Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse and Lance "Not-Hawkeye" Hunter apparently being ordered to go off on a spinoff in the upcoming Marvel's Most Wanted, which... may or may not be a thing. We don't really have that much buildup for it, other than last episode where May told Hunter that his loyalty is to Bobbi and not SHIELD... but I honestly found out about the spinoff waaaay after I watched this episode, and I thought the two are just being written out for other reasons. Like actors being unavailable or something.

In any case, while there is a bit of a strange, disjointed feel as we keep moving back and forth from Bobbi and Hunter's disastrous espionage mission and them being interrogated by the Russian government, it's still a very good episode. Keeping the focus on the two agents as they try to infiltrate the Russian compound, finding out that Malick is conspiring with the Russian delegate Anton Petrov from last episode to create the sanctuary in Russia... only for both Malick and the SHIELD agents to be thrown in a bit of a domestic power-play, is great. Having Bobbi and Hunter (who took out the Inhuman General Androvich, who tries to assassinate the current prime minister) be caught up in the politics of it all, and be set up as the patsies to take the blame, is great writing, too.

(Also, Hunter continually talking shit about mushrooms and mushroom picking and mushroom cooking and calling himself Amadeus Ravenclaw Hunter is hilarious as all hell)

Being caught killing members of the Russian government, assassination plot notwithstanding, is a great way to have SHIELD forcibly disown Bobbi and Hunter. Though it's great that apparently Coulson has been pulling all sorts of strings offscreen, even bringing President Ellis in for his second cameo this season to broker a deal with the Prime Minister (whose hands are similarly tied to avoid too many questions). Hell, Coulson was fully ready to use his camera-disrupting watch to set up an escape at that very point if it wasn't Bobbi and Hunter who wants to take the fall so SHIELD can continue to operate is heartwarming.

The Spy's Goodbye at the bar, where every single main member of the season two team brought them drinks from a distance, offering them one last salute because they can't actually gather together due to government eyes watching them. It's a great, slow farewell to two members of the cast that have grown on me. Hell, I remembered when I hated Hunter when he first joined the cast, and now, well, he's a pretty integral member of the team!

The episode itself is satisfying, with the Tarantino fashion of nonlinear storytelling giving nice artsy style to it. The Inhuman threat was pretty cool, and Androvich's shadow demon things look awesome and enough of a threat for the non-meta Bobbi and Hunter that there really was no option to get out of there safely without killing Androvich. They are great physical fighters, but against shadow-demons that literally jump in and out of shadows and can't be hurt by any physical means? Living shadows might be cheesy and be weak D&D enemies, but here they are portrayed quite effectively, and serve as a decent episodic boss. There's also apparently some speculation going on that this might be connected to the Darkforce built up in Agent Carter's second season, but considering Androvich, y'know, died this episode, I don't really think that it's going to be explored all that much.

The stinger shows that Gideon Malick has... a hot daughter that can shoot clay pigeons. Yeah, she's probably going to be suckered by Hive into some twisted relationship.

Overall, it's a great episode and a great sendoff for Bobbi and Hunter. Thinning out the herd of the Agents of SHIELD cast will definitely be to the benefit of the show, what with newcomers like Joey and side-characters like Lincoln and Talbot getting more and more screentime. It'll allow us to give some of the characters that had been shafted in recent episodes (May, Skye, Mack) to shine more, and to allow Bobbi and Hunter themselves more room to breathe and grow as characters. Because honestly, Agents of SHIELD is loaded with way too many characters at this point and gently driving out Bobbi and Hunter (even if there isn't a spinoff in the works) is probably healthier for the show. Whatever the case, it's a great send-off, a great episode, and, well, we'll see if Marvel's Most Wanted will be any good if/when it comes out. Whatever the case, if Most Wanted didn't end up panning out, well, at least Bobbi and Hunter get a decent sendoff (unlike poor Triplett) and the writers leave enough of a backdoor for them to return.