Agents of SHIELD S05E06 Review: Inhuman Revolution

Agents of SHIELD, Season 5, Episode 6: Fun & Games

We continue with the Lighthouse storyline after a brief detour, and we get a brief recap which establishes that Fitz has infiltrated Kasius's gathering of buyers as a member of the Marauders alongside a bunch of other unsavoury characters. It is neat seeing Fitz try to play up a bloodthirsty slaver while simultaneously trying to justify sending May to the husk of Earth instead of killing her straight-up, or to try and buy Simmons, and generally it's pretty entertaining. But Fitz ends up being unable to save Sinara from killing Ben, Daisy's mind-reading Inhuman ally.

There's a lot to like here as Fitz tries to peel back the layers behind Kasius. He's completely in control when interacting with Simmons and Quake, of course, but relative to Fitz and some of the other alien buyers, who he regards as sort of an equal, we get to see another side of Kasius -- one that is a bit over-eager to impress, perhaps, and one with some real beef with the rest of his family. Kasius's father has exiled him to rule over the Lighthouse because of some past mishap, and that is a sore, sore point for Kasius, who wishes to return to the Kree homeworld.

After some action scenes between Ben and May, Kasius orders Sinara to execute Ben for lying to him in regards to the amount of time-travelers in the Lighthouse... which I felt was a bit of an awkward scene to have in the midst of Kasius impressing his bidders. Of course, despite Fitz's insistence that all the violence isn't quite enough, he manages to trick Kasius into disabling Simmons' inhibitor, and then during the cage match between Quake and Sinara, Fitz and Simmons stab Kasius (not fatally), jump into the ring, have a big damn kiss, and then the trio plan an escape. Oh, and Enoch, disguised as a Kree, blows something up and apparently goes to the surface? Is it part of Fitz's plan, or his own agenda?

Oh, and of course, somewhere in-between all that, Kasius's jackass brother, Faulnak, shows up, clearly uninterested in anything that's going on, and is the one behind demanding that Quake fight a fully-blooded Kree warrior like Kasius's bodyguard Sinara, clearly wanting nothing more than to really show up Kasius in his own turf. Interesting to see how this brotherly rivalry will proceed.

On the lower end of the Lighthouse, one of Kasius's minions, identified as 'the Vicar', forces a bunch of teenagers to undergo terrigenesis in order to boost Kasius's inventory of Inhumans. Among these, a boy called Flint (who we spend a brief scene early in the episode following) ends up being one. Elena, Mack and Coulson end up sheltering Flint, but throughout their struggles, the Vicar kills their ally Tess anyway, and in a struggle against the douchebag Grill, Flint ends up manifesting his rock-controlling powers and killing Grill. It's an interesting series of scenes, and well-directed, but ultimately I wonder if a repeat of the whole 'confused Inhuman youth discovering his own powers' is really something that we need to plop into the already pretty-packed plotline. Ultimately, a pretty solid episode.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Fitz disguises himself as a Marauder, which is a band of space warriors that were briefly seen in the opening scenes of Thor: The Dark World. 
• Kasius's dinner feast features Xandarian snails, referencing the planet Xandar, which was introduced into the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy. Also, like the aliens in GOTG, the aliens here also trade in units.