Agents of SHIELD S2E16 Review: Inhumans and DEATHLOK

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 16: Afterlife

Finally, after a bit of dilly-dallying, we’ve finally started touching on the Inhumans and their society and whatnot. And really, writing this review after watching the two episodes after this, well, it’s been a really solid set of episodes that both builds up the SHIELD Civil War and the Inhumans… and freaking Deathlok shows up as a surprise guest star. Who the hell expected Deathlok to show up?

This episode was more setup, but it really comes off last episode’s backstory regarding Real-SHIELD’s creation quite well. And with so many factions in play – Coulson’s SHIELD, Real-SHIELD, Hydra, the Inhumans, and the individual characters’ own loyalties brought up into question, it’s setting up to be really good if handled properly.

And the characters whose loyalties are bought into conflict this time around are Fitz and Simmons. The two of them are tasked to crack open Fury’s Toolbox, and initially we seem to be bringing up the Simmons-is-an-extremist line and how she’s going to fully join up with Gonzalez and the against-Coulson team. And Fitz, well, he’s just making a stand and that little fight with Simmons is a bit hard to see… except it wasn’t a fight, but rather both Fitz and Simmons are still united and are actually putting up a pretty awesome show to fool the rest of SHIELD to smuggle the Toolbox to Fitz as he gets discharged, only to be on a mission to deliver the Toolbox to Coulson. It’s nice to see that their relationship isn’t irreparably destroyed. It was a pretty nice fake-out, though, one of the more well done ones in this show. I totally bought that Fitz was actually just done with SHIELD and Simmons and everyone and is going off to rejoin Coulson. Simmons… is a pretty damn great actress, that’s for sure.

Oh and he gets a sandwich from Simmons! The same one from way back in season one, I believe. That was cute.

We also get Fitz telling Mack just what he thinks of him, while both Mack and Bobbi, well, they actually do believe in Real-SHIELD’s intentions about how Coulson might be stockpiling metahumans and creating an army. Bobbi is being a lot nicer about it than that jackass Mack, though. Though Gonzalez is a different matter entirely. The old man has some great points in his argument. A united front, the fact that Coulson is hiding things, and all sorts of other things… and at the same time, he’s ignoring all the counter-arguments regarding Skye that Bobbi is giving him, calling Skye ‘Coulson’s powered pet’ or something along those lines. He’s just being a big cockhole of a racist. Or xenophobe. Or whatever. Gonzalez’s big fear-induced prejudice is a nice contrast to how mostly-harmonic the Inhumans society was and how really accepting of any kind of powers that Lincoln and the rest of the Inhumans society did.

I thought they handled Gonzalez quite well as an anti-villain or anti-hero or whatever group he falls into. He’s got really, really valid points – both Bobbi and Mack to a lesser extent embody what Gonzalez’s views of a united SHIELD and a SHIELD without secrets should be. And Gonzalez has shown to be reasonable and a decent person when his little blind spot of powered people isn’t touched upon. Also ignoring the whole Hydra threat thing. And ignoring the fact that Coulson wants to work together with him. And ignoring the fact that the agent wounded by Skye disobeyed orders and used live rounds. The fact that he’s such a dick makes us safely root for our heroes. Granted, with Coulson throwing Deathlok into the field, he’s not really helping to ease Gonzalez’s fear about powered people.

Also, speaking of loyalties, that scene with the gun with May, offering her a spot on the diplomatic head of Real-SHIELD while giving her a loaded weapon? That was kind of badass. Gonzalez has balls, if nothing. May’s loyalties might be called into question, especially with the revelations that the next few episodes will give us. That was a pretty badass scene, though – Gonzalez giving May that ‘Nazi-seeker’ gun, May calling it a bluff and Gonzalez revealing that it wasn’t. Also, ‘you don’t need to look for Coulson. When he’s ready, he’ll find you’ is one of the most badass lines ever. We also get a bit more hints about some incident in Bahrain first alluded to by May’s ex-husband which we’ll see in vivid detail next episode.

Coulson and Hunter get a few fun scenes of mucking around with fooling Real-SHIELD’s forces, holograms and all. That was quite fun. Snarky-Hunter is a lot more fun than angsty-trying-to-rebuild-a-relationship Hunter. And, of course, Deathlok! Upgraded! And kicking all sorts of ass! In retrospect it kind of made sense for Deathlok to throw his cards in with SHIELD off-screen, and while it would be nice to have some foreshadowing for Deathlok to be the cavalry instead of, y’know, May-the-cavalry or Nick Fury or Maria Hill or someone, it does make sense in context. And Coulson is totally the type of guy to withhold such information just to surprise Hunter. So. On their part, they discover just what happened to Skye. And while Coulson is inclined to give Gonzalez and the others the benefit of the doubt, Hunter gives us the age-old pearl of wisdom: ‘good guys don’t stab you in the back’. Granted Hunter’s still extremely pissed regarding the whole Bobbi situation, but can you blame him?

We get a bit of information here and there – Deathlok has been tracking down Dr. List, who, if you forgot, is Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker’s right-hand man who appeared a couple of times in Agents of SHIELD. And apparently Von Strucker’s faction of Hydra has been recruiting powered people… y’know, like Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

Speaking of Winter Soldier references, Real!SHIELD borrows the battering ram weapon thing that the Hydra agents used to attack Nick Fury’s car in that movie.

But really, the main appeal for me this time around is the introduction to the Inhumans society. We learn about what the Inhumans society really look like – a pretty nice little paradise and haven for these Inhumans… and apparently those who undergo terrigenesis are a really select few so it isn’t a gigantic society of powered people like the X-Men. Like, a really select few. Raina and Skye are real exceptions to the rule because not only did they forego the whole selection process, they go through it in a Kree Temple instead of whatever modern version of it that the Inhumans Society use. And, of course, as been alluded to several times, there are rules upon rules upon rules that are hanging over the Inhuman society’s head though we don’t really see much of it beyond ‘Lai Shi is segregated from the world’. There is, of course, something quite off about Lai Shi and I thought the show makes a pretty good job making it seem idyllic but suspicious at the same time. Of course we all know that the Inhumans kind of operate on a cult-esque system so.

And, y’know, the fact that they lock Cal up somewhere. I mean the guy’s a dick and all, but that seemed unnecessarily cruel especially since we know that Cal will be extremely docile once you shove Skye and/or his wife in front of him.

Also between Lian Yu (purgatory) and Lai Shi (afterlife) what is it with superhero shows and super-secluded islands named after Chinese words relating to a state of not-quite-death?

We get a new character in the form of Lincoln the electrical-manipulating Inhuman who also happens to be a medical student. He’s quite fun, and I’m sure there are loads of people shipping him with Skye right now. Lincoln is fun, he’s not annoying. Don’t particularly like him, but he’s kind of cool. He’s nice and he’s got electrical powers and shit. Gordon also gets quite a few more scenes just giving his funny dry humour (he brings in pizza every week!), but the big surprise comes in the revelation that Skye’s mother, Jiaying, is still alive and well even though last we saw she was vivisected and left as a pile of organs by Werner Reinhardt. She’s got pretty evident scars all over her body, though, and we know she’s basically immortal and Cal is a bit of a mad scientist, so beyond the slightly bad taste of yet another character dying-but-not-really in the Marvel Cinematic Univrese it really isn’t that bad as far as explanations go. Also, I’ve watched a couple of episodes after this one at the time of writing so there isn’t going to be much speculation. We don’t quite get a lot of Skye/Jiaying scenes yet, but the following episode will certainly deliver.

There are still some questions about Jiaying, though, especially the fact that she’s alive. She’s clearly not being supportive to Cal at all beyond keeping him alive, while Cal has gone through hell – going through experiments to turn him into a knockoff Hulk (which we haven’t seen yet), gone crazy, made deals with the devil like Hydra and whatever, faced off against SHIELD and whatever just to get to his daughter… and Jiaying just doesn’t really give a fuck. Also Gordon is being a wonderfully gigantic douchebag to Cal that is both hilarious and quite depressing to see.

Also, Raina appears! She’s like, all thorns and shit (‘thorn’ seems to be a recurring word that Raina likes to use. Maybe a hint to her future supervillain codename or whatever?) but it’s hinted either in this episode or the next that the physical mutation is not Raina’s gift. I mean, sure, she gets these sharp spikes and claws and the ability to pierce SHIELD agents through the stomach, but that is not her Inhuman gift. Gordon gives a little information dump that physical changes are normally not the gift, and each Inhuman can only get one. And as we seen, it’s mostly been consistent – Skye’s vibration-earthquake powers, Gordon’s teleportation, Lincoln’s electricity and Jiaying’s immortality healing factor thing.

Also Skye was totally ready to murder Raina on the spot with is equal parts disturbing and awesome at the same time. Good thing (because I like how Raina continues to be a wild card in this series) Jiaying interferes, and kind of shows a different side of moral myopia compared to Gonzalez. Jiaying refuses to acknowledge that fact that Raina is a known murderer and a criminal before obtaining her powers, and operates under the rule of ‘she’s one of us, so we protect her until she proves hostile’. Is it that much different from Gonzalez insisting that powered people be controlled so that his own people, the normals, are safe? And, in the same vein, just what amounts to redemption? We see two former antagonists (albeit under starkly varying circumstances) be portrayed in a positive light this episode: Deathlok and Raina. Just how much can someone suffer, just how much shit can they go through, before they are considered to be redeemed?  Just how much change can someone like Fitz and Simmons go through before they snap? Though for those two, at least, it’s a bit of a subversion. Again, the same questions apply to Coulson and Gonzalez’s differing point of views. Two good guys at each other’s throats because of differing point of views and going through a different series of shitty situation.

Of course, meanwhile the remnants Hydra is still operating mostly unchallenged, and Grant Ward has been MIA for quite some time.

Overall a pretty great episode. It’s really heavy on the talking parts, but you know what? I am totally fine with it. It’s not quite as strong as the previous or the following episode, but it does deliver quite a few introductions regarding the Inhumans and the Civil War.