Agents of SHIELD, Season 4, Episode 15: Self Control
The last episode was already pretty awesome, but this one ups the ante. We've already kind of got an episode similar to this during the Hive plotline where the four Inhumans in SHIELD's Secret Warriors are kept contained in something similar to the Thing where one of them is acting as Hive's pawn, and each has a reason to believe someone else is the traitor. Here, though, Fitz and Simmons, aware that Coulson, Quake, Mack and Mace are all LMDs, try to stick together, only to see that once they lock themselves in a storage room that one of them is an LMD.
Which one of them is an LMD, which one of them if faking, or if the LMD among the two of them is actually a sleeper agent unaware of their true nature like May was before, is amazingly well-portrayed, and thankfully it's not a conflict that consumed the entire episode. Like Daisy mentions later in the episode, Fitz and Simmons's relationship is one of the most integral and most iconic to the series, and breaking them apart is pretty heartrending.
The buildup to that confrontation is excellent as well. Is Simmons holding the gun a sign that she's normal or that she's fake? Is Fitz raising his hands in surrender and noting that he's the bad guy in any scenario a sign that he's the real deal? What about Simmons' quick willingness to tell Fitz to slit his own wrists, or Fitz's quickness in cutting his hand? Is Fitz attacking Simmons his self defense against an LMD, or did he successfully dupe the real Simmons? Of course, it turns out that Fitz is the one who has been replaced, which honestly makes sense considering Simmons spent her time in the last episode accompanied by Agent Piper (#BackgroundCharactersMatter) but during the tension as all this goes down, it's definitely easy to forget this detail.
The emotional turmoil that Simmons has as she's forced to murder LMD Fitz -- quite fucking graphically too, I might add -- is definitely there, and well portrayed, and Simmons's brokenness shows when she's absolutely unwilling to let Daisy come even close until she hugs her and lets out a weak earthquake to show that, yeah, it's her.
In other news, just how is Quake not an LMD while last episode had the four of them clearly on camera with the words '4 LMDs detected'? Is the detector somehow detecting Fitz for some reason? Also, why would LMD!Fitz tell Simmons and goad her suspicions towards the fact that there are multiple LMDs running around the base? Also why make like two dozen LMD Daisies? There are a couple of odd plot points that the episode chooses to make, but it doesn't really detract all that much.
Simmons and Quake's two-woman stand is amazing, making great use of sleeping gas, recruiting minor recurring characters Agent Davis and Agent Piper (and one other whose name I don't remember) to help out, and Quake's absolutely amazing earthquake rasengan-hadoken move that rips apart two LMD Mace and LMD Mack's faces apart is just insanely cool. Honestly, it's another slap in the face of the Watchdogs because neither of the confrontations against Ivanov nor Shockley manage to look as awesomely done as Quake's absolutely amazing double-sided shockwave blasts.
LMD Coulson activates LMD May, who has a bit of a different programming, having actually lived as May without knowing that she's an android replacement, and thus having a different world view than the other LMDs, and LMD May confronting LMD Coulson, noting that he only walks and talks like Coulson but he doesn't have anything similar to the man himself before blowing both of them up, is just freaking amazing.
Meanwhile, Aida has officially graduated as the main... antagonist, so to speak. Neither Aida nor Radcliffe are actually villains, not in the way Grant Ward or Hive or Garrett or Calvin Zabo or Jiaying are. Radcliffe's definitely well-meaning, being absolutely livid when he learns that while he was in the Framework Aida has proceeded with plans that may cause the deaths of the SHIELD agents. Radcliffe and Aida's conversation is absolutely well done as Radcliffe tries to tell Aida just how the Framework doesn't hurt people, how reality is a matter of perception... to which Aida ends up concluding that Radcliffe doesn't mind if he's killed and stuck in the Framework permanently according to his reasoning, plus being stuck in the Framework means that there is no way Radcliffe is ever going to change his mind. This makes Aida easily one of the most compelling antagonist the show has ever gotten, simply because of how sympathetic her character arc is.
Ivanov, meanwhile, is reduced to a head in a jar, able to control a robotic body to act as Aida's bodyguard until she can simulate human emotions. Haha, fuck you, Ivanov! What you want doesn't matter, you're Aida's bitch now.
With SHIELD cut down to two main characters and three redshirts, Quake and Simmons enter the Framework in order to wake the five SHIELD agents that had been captured by Aida and Radcliffe before, leading to the next arc of this season -- the journey in the virtual world. And, shit, whatever adjustments Aida has made to remove everyone's regret, things have gone really strange. Hydra rules the world, apparently, through their version of the Triskelion, and May's a top agent there. Coulson is a school teacher spreading Inhuman hate. Simmons is straight up dead and buried (poor girl's going to find herself pretty hard to escape when she enters the Framework world). Daisy's married to... Grant Ward! Well, even killed twice, Ward still finds a way to worm his way back into the show, eh?
The only people with happy endings in the Framework world are Fitz, who's filthy rich and has an unseen girlfriend or wife (that's not the dead and buried Simmons), and Mack... who apparently is now reunited with his dead daughter Hope.
It's an amazing cliffhanger, a great climax to the LMD arc, a very excellent sequence for both Quake and Simmons, a great closure to LMD May, and an amazing setup for Aida, the Framework, and the world within it.
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