Agents of SHIELD S05E16 Review: I Am Legion

Agents of SHIELD, Season 5, Episode 16: Inside Voices

An okay episode, although it's somewhat of an obvious "things happen" episode. We get to progress the whole preventing an apocalypse storyline forward, while at the same time things seem to spiral and lead towards that very apocalypse. The more interesting storyline for me is the sudden focus given to Carl "Absorbing Man" Creel, and I genuinely believed that this was going to be his exit from the show. It's a commonly used storytelling mechanic by serialized television -- a recurring character that hasn't quite gotten a lot of focus suddenly gets a whole ton of characterization before dying in a heroic blaze of glory. This episode, Coulson tries his best to convince Creel -- who is loyal to Talbot -- that Hale is actually the one responsible for harming Talbot. Creel is only working with Hale because he thinks that Coulson was the one who ordered Talbot's death, and his internal conflict as he tries to give Coulson the benefit of the doubt is very compelling.

Poor Creel ends up also becoming a test subject for the Gravitonium, using his powers to absorb its properties and accidentally getting far more than what he or Hale bargained for -- in addition to gravity powers, Creel also absorbs the psyche of not one, but two minds trapped within the substance, Franklin Hall and Ian Quinn, and it's driving poor Creel crazy. This ends up causing him to finally team up with Coulson and they free the brain-addled Talbot, who isn't in the best state of mind. Coulson, Creel and Talbot manage to break free from the Hydra robots, Talbot gets his sanity slowly back and tells Creel to help jump-start a dying Coulson back to life, but Creel stays behind to fight off Ruby and her crazy chakrams. It does seem that this is the end of the Absorbing Man, but Creel's powers ended up reaching his chest fast enough and he survives at the end of the day.

Coulson and Talbot manage to teleport away with the weird alien device to some snowy mountain and the two just stumble off into the distance, hoping to get away from Hale's Hydra as best as they can. It's interesting to note that Coulson technically did die for all of five seconds this episode. Does that count as fulfilling Robin's prophecy?

We get a bit of Ruby's characterization here too, although she's not a character I particularly care about, honestly. Her mother's attempts to keep her insane loose cannon-ness in check has been grating on her and she basically wants Werner von Strucker to finish up transcribing his father's journals as fast as possible so that she can become the Destroyer of Worlds.

The SHIELD storyline is a bit more problematic. Quake is in charge of SHIELD and is in full "save Coulson" mode, and ends up going to get Robin out from where SHIELD stashed her for her protection... and while everyone calls Quake out for not thinking straight, she at least stops short from actually forcing the little confused kid to cooperate. Robin also gets a neat little scene with May where her weird time-displaced perspective allows her to talk to May about the events in the future. While Quake is out, though, things go particularly crazy in the SHIELD base. Fitz is in jail, Mack is in charge, while Elena and Simmons conspire to basically make use of their time-ordained invincibility to do something about Hydra and crush them entirely. And Mack points out that just because they survive in the future doesn't mean that they should take unnecessary risks. As Mack puts it, "Maybe you survived because of the actions that I did to protect you!"


It ultimately ends up with Elena and Simmons confronting Mack in front of Fitz's cell, as Simmons does this whole 'water and poison' deal to completely unnerve Mack and Fitz, before causing Mack to finally relent and open Fitz's cell... and then get shoved in by Elena. Perhaps the most disturbing thing is that Simmons actually did put in a jar of acid, so it isn't just her completely fooling Mack, showing that at the very least Simmons and Elena really do buy into the whole "we can't be killed" theory. It's a storyline that could've been worse, I suppose, but it's starting to grate somewhat.

The best part of this episode has to be Elena's deadpan "I'm sorry" response to the revelation that Fitz and Simmons are Deke's grandparents. I feel you, Elena. (Deke still basically spends the entire episode alternating between mooning over Daisy or being the time-displaced outsider, and neither are particularly entertaining).


Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Hey, the sort-of return of Dr. Franklin "Graviton" Hall and Ian Quinn! Who are both disembodied mental voices within the Gravitonium. Also, while actor David Conrad has retired from acting, this episode makes use of a deleted scene from season one to have Raina and Ian Quinn show up in a flashback and confirm the fate of Ian Quinn. 
• We also get a straight-up flashback to Franklin Hall's fate from the season one episode.