Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Maveth (3x10)

What the what?! Did they just... I'm not sure if I'm okay with this, in all honesty. There's a lot of stuff to be concerned about. Let's just jump in.

Cons:

The main thrust of this episode takes place on the alien planet, as Ward leads the Hydra team, with Fitz, try to find the monster and take it back out through the portal. Fitz finds Will, and convinces Ward that they need him to get back out. All goes well, as Will and Fitz manage to take out the other Hydra agents, leaving Ward behind and injured. However, as they get closer to where the portal will reopen, we get a surprising twist - Will isn't Will at all. It's the Inhuman monster, inhabiting Will's body. Apparently, Will died saving Jemma. I'll talk in a minute about the excellent execution of this twist. But at the same time, I can't help thinking... what the heck was the point of all that? Will was introduced as nothing more than a love interest obstacle for Fitz and Simmons, and after all that buildup now we learn that he's dead? Ugh! What a waste of all of our time! As much as I do ship Fitzsimmons, I was actually looking forward to seeing what they could do with his character once he got out of the alien world and started interacting with our team. That was a squandered opportunity.

Similarly, it looks like Ward is actually, seriously, dead. That's... that's just HUGE. And I don't like it. There's something sort of lazy about introducing an incomprehensibly evil force and then having it conveniently house itself in a human receptacle to make it easier for our heroes to interact with. The same sort of thing is happening in Supernatural right now with the Darkness, and I am just not a fan. Ward is way too cool of a villain to be dead. It just sucks because I felt like even after all this time, we had only scratched the surface of what could have been one of the greatest TV villains ever to grace the small screen.

A smaller complaint, but one I must mention - there's this cheesy little scene where Coulson imagines himself in bed with Rosalind, reluctant to get up and face the day. She encourages him, saying "they need you," and Coulson wakes up on the alien planet to set out and follow Ward. This was just too much. They convinced me to like Rosalind, then they killed her, fridging her for Coulson's angsty journey, and then in this episode they just re-emphasized how annoying her departure from this show really is.

Pros:

Despite the flaws, however, I'm happy to say that this episode was quite good. What's interesting is that to go along with each of the flaws, I have some serious praise to hand out as well. I had a lot of twisty feelings about this episode.

Fitz was such a precious cinnamon roll in this episode. I swear. He found Will and he saved him from Ward by saying that Will was the only way of finding the portal out of there. That may have technically been true, but Fitz was trying to save Will's life just as much as he was trying to save his own and Simmons' as well. And despite the sort of stupidness of the Will-is-the-Inhuman-beast thing, the buildup to this twist was excellently done. I was actually enjoying Will and Fitz's scenes together. Fitz explained that Will had been unknowingly working for Hydra. Will seemed surprised that Hydra still existed, and Fitz replies: "well, you know, cut off one head, and blah blah blah blah blah." that was just so precious! And then, the moment of realization comes. Fitz tries to help Will with his injured leg, but when he pulls away the leg of Will's pants, he sees the leg of a corpse. As in... the skin is pretty much gone, and there's bare and dry bone underneath. Woah! That was an intense moment.

Then there's Coulson killing Ward. See, I still think it's awful that Ward is actually dead, because it seems to me like a hell of a lot of wasted opportunities. But the fact that Coulson kills him is just... wow. Coulson ends up taking Ward as his prisoner, but the two get into a fight while Fitz has to fight off the Inhuman inside of Will. The Ward-Coulson fight was really intense, and it all ends up coming down to Coulson's prosthetic hand. He presses down on Ward's chest cavity, cracking it and killing him. Oh my God. There's not a lot of ambiguity there in terms of Ward's alive-ness, is there? He's pretty well and truly gone. I mean, maybe the Hydra-Inhuman creature can heal him, but right now it doesn't look like it. And the fact that Coulson didn't have to do this to get away just makes it all the more brutal. It was a cold-blooded revenge killing, and Coulson knew it. That's why he took off his hand after the deed was done, leaving it behind with Ward's body. Yikes.

All the stuff happening with the rest of our characters, back on regular old Earth, was excellent.

First of all, Simmons manages to get out of her restraints all on her own and nearly escapes Hydra's clutches. The only thing slowing her down is the discovery that Hydra has a bunch of Inhumans held at their base, awaiting the moment they can be used as an unwilling army. Simmons discovers Andrew, and is forced to let him out of his enclosure so he - or rather, Lash - can save her from approaching Hydra agents. Lash, now free, ends up killing all the other Inhumans held by Hydra, which May discovers when she goes looking for him. I'm glad that Lash is back in the story, because I felt like he was underutilized the first time around. This was cleverly integrated into the main story, as Lash served as  means for Simmons to make her escape, and also drew attention to Hydra's other Inhumans. It's a little disappointing that none of them survived the slaughter, but it does draw our attention to the Inhumans that we do still have.

Mack and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. under his command are totally bad ass. They infiltrate Hydra like a boss, separating into teams to take out Hydra's various defenses. There were so many perfect moments in all of this chaos. I loved seeing May and Daisy work with Joey and Lincoln. Joey is scared, and Lincoln reassures him that they're all freaked out. May dryly responds "I'm not." That's awesome! Then later, Joey announces that he "might be able to reinforce the doors. Using my uh... my uh..." Bobbi helpfully supplies: "amazing new super power." We see Joey use his ability to melt bullets before they can hit him, which was also pretty cool.

We also see Mack, Bobbi, and Hunter take out yet more Hydra agents. Mack says they need to move quietly, and Bobbi says "copy that," immediately moving on. There's a few moments of silence, during which Mack says to Hunter: "are we supposed to wait here, or..." cue the sound of Hydra agents being felled by the bad ass Agent Morse. I loved that!

In the end, Mack proves himself a worthy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. as he commands the rest of his team to get clear of the Hydra base while he and Daisy (at her own insistence) remain inside. They will wait until the last possible second for Fitz and Coulson to come back through the portal, but if anything else emerges from that portal, May is under orders to deploy weapons and wipe out the Hydra base. Even if Mack and Daisy are still inside. This nearly happens, as Coulson and Fitz make it through the portal at the last second, and Daisy and Mack barely get them into the shuttle and up and away from the castle before May's weapons destroy it entirely. That was intense!

The episode ends with some lovely reunions. May and the others are enormously relieved that they haven't just been forced to kill their friends. Lincoln and Daisy share a kiss. May and Coulson hug, which was awesome. And Simmons, seeing that Fitz has returned to her, hugs him tearfully. She'll have to grieve Will, but she's obviously enormously relieved that Fitz is okay.

I've already mentioned the episode tag, which shows the Inhuman monster appearing to greet Malick, wearing the body of the former Grant Ward. I'm not happy that Ward is dead, and I'm not happy with the whole "human vessel for unspeakable evil" thing, but I guess I'll try and give them the benefit of the doubt. Now we just have to wait until March to get the next episode. Stupid ABC with its giant midseason hiatuses!

7.5/10