Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Broken Promises (4x09)

Alright, then. I can dig it. Things are heating up in various ways for our cast of characters. What I admired most about this episode was the chemistry between various pairs. Some were predictable, others were not.

Cons:

The plot may have been a little all over the place. Not enough to confuse me, but enough that this story might have benefited from being broken into separate episodes. The A-plot focuses on Aida going rogue, after the Darkhold. Mack, Yo-Yo, Fitz, Coulson, and May (the secret android look-alike, rather) all try and bring her down, and then succeed, only to reveal the plot twist: That was an earlier model of Aida. The current version is safe with Radcliffe, who has been the secret baddie for a couple of weeks now.

The other plot stayed with Mace, Daisy, and Simmons as they looked for Nadeer's brother Vijay. (Sidenote: I have been spelling Nadeer incorrectly as "Nadir" up to this point. I'm not going back to fix it in previous reviews, but I'll use the correct spelling from here on out). Anyway, Simmons helps to get Nadeer's location, and our S.H.I.E.L.D. team moves in. Nadeer ends up killing her brother because she believes all Inhumans are diseased and corrupted. We see in the end credit scene that Vijay might still be alive, as his corpse re-solidifies into stone as he lands at the bottom of a body of water.

So, why did I put the whole plot description in the "Cons" section? It's not a bad plot at all, and in fact I enjoyed several aspects of it. But like I said, things got a bit crowded. So many characters didn't get any real screen-time together. Like Fitz and Simmons, or Coulson and Daisy. Remember, Daisy has only just been brought back into the fold. Wouldn't it have been nice to have a bit of time to reflect on that?

On a more nitpicking note, there's this scene where Simmons gets to be a badass and fight with one of Nadeer's people (a Watchdog, possibly). I get the idea, but I don't really like Simmons punching people and fighting off a guy like that. I don't mean that she should be a damsel in distress, but it would have been more true to her character and skill-set if she'd taken him down with a quick taser shot or something. Not every character in this show needs to be a martial arts master. We've already got May and Daisy to give us that kind of female empowerment stuff. Simmons' gift is her brain.

Pros:

I don't much mind that the episode felt crowded, though, because the stuff it was crowded with was really amazing.

First off, that twist with Radcliffe. It's brilliant because at first you think - wait, has he been evil this whole time? But then, no... it turns out that the Darkhold has corrupted his mind. His affection for Fitz is actually genuine, and his original plans for Aida weren't evil or ambitious, necessarily. Radcliffe is a character that we, as the audience, perhaps began to trust a little too quickly. After all, he was working with Hive last season. I'm glad that Aida's not gone, although I'm not terribly surprised about that part of things. She's far too interesting to do away with. But the fact that our heroes now believe they've neutralized the threat? That's fascinating stuff!

Fitz and Radcliffe have a conversation about sentience and whether or not their quest to stop Aida should be considered murder. In some ways it's your standard AI plot point, but I liked the different levels to this. Fitz, despite himself, is actually fond of Aida as if she were a person. If he starts to buy into that fantasy, it makes him more susceptible to Radcliffe's way of thinking, which in turn positions him opposite the rest of his friends, including Simmons.

Coulson and May spend the episode tracking down the evil robot together, reminiscing about the past, and maybe hinting at a romantic future. This is super uncomfortable and super devastating, because of course as we know, that's not really May. This episode threw an interesting wrench into proceedings, though. Does "May" know she's an android? There's a moment when she and Aida confront each other. Coulson is unconscious and nobody else is watching, and yet "May" still opposes Aida, trying to stop her from getting to the Darkhold. Is this because she doesn't know that Radcliffe is still controlling Aida, and that they're both working toward a common goal? Or is this android in May's form actually doing what she can to help Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D., having been programmed to act in the best interests of that organization to keep Radcliffe's cover strong? I really don't know, and that's fascinating.

Mack and Yo-Yo ended up being my favorite part of this episode, surprisingly. They provided comic relief while also making me understand them better as a couple. Throughout the whole hour, Mack and Yo-Yo discuss how stupid Radcliffe is for making artificial intelligence, citing as evidence all movies on the subject. The best exchange:

Yo-Yo: "Someone needs to make Radcliffe watch all the Terminator movies."

Mack: "Even Salvation?"

Yo-Yo: "He brought this onto himself."

I loved all the joking and the back-and-forth. It made me feel like these two could make a real go of it.

In fact, let's take a moment to highlight the comedy in this episode over all. It was at its cleverest, and really helped to cut through a lot of the darkness surrounding the larger plot. Some favorite lines:

Simmons: "You know how boys can be with their robots."

Daisy: Nods, then looks confused. "No, actually I don't."

Coulson, while looking for the run-away Aida: "I'm checking local APBs. Pointlessly." Ha!

Over in the subplot, stuff with Nadeer and her brother gets serious very quickly. Basically, the two of them had made a murder pact to kill each other if either one ever became Inhuman. But Vijay is displaying no signs of Inhuman skills, so the Senator hesitates to kill him. We find out that he does have powers, some sort of speed/sonic thing that isn't explained very well, but that lets him evade the grip of the Watchdogs. The moment at the end, when Nadeer really did shoot her brother was really emotionally affecting, despite the fact that it wasn't a big surprise. I liked seeing this development of Nadeer's character. She really does love her brother, and she's wrong to be working with the Watchdogs, but she has a set of principles, and she's adhering to them. There's something honorable in that, in a twisted way.

We also get a hint that there's somebody else pulling the strings over in this subplot: one of the Watchdogs refers to "the Superior." I don't know who that is - perhaps somebody we already know I'm anxious to find out!

The Odd Couple of the night was Daisy and Mace. They are both Inhuman, and they are both working for S.H.I.E.L.D., so they clearly have a ton of stuff in common. However, their reasons for distrusting each other are made all too clear by the events of the season up to this point. It makes for an interesting dynamic. We, the audience, know that Mace isn't totally on the up-and-up, but he's not lying about his objectives, either. I'll be interested to see how Daisy deals with this new authority figure in her life. It could be a fascinating way to look back at the way Daisy, then going by Skye, first interacted with Coulson, who later became a father figure to her.

I guess I'll stop there before I ramble on too long. In many ways, this episode was merely a setup for what's to come. I'll miss Robbie from the last half of the season, but Aida and Radcliffe make some formidable enemies, and I can't wait to see how the gang grapples with this fresh set of challenges!

8/10