Oh boy. I love this story line so much you have no idea. There were so many moments in this episode that made me so very happy. It was a bit of an information-heavy 45 minutes, but all of that information was interesting and pushed the plot forward beautifully. Let's take a look.
Cons:
Like I said, maybe this was a tiny bit information-heavy? A lot of stuff went down, and there was a lot to keep track of. I don't necessarily think the episode felt crowded, but perhaps there could have been more to explore if the contents of this episode had been spread out over two? I often find that to be true with this show. There's a great episode, and I can't help but think it might have been truly astonishing if it were given more time to breathe.
Another nitpick: We learn that in this world, Mack's daughter Hope is alive. The scenes between them establish their relationship, so that when Mack decides to help the subversives fight against Hydra, we understand why he's doing it, and what he's risking. That's all well and good, but maybe these scenes could have been a little bit less sickly-sweet? He's calling her "Spark-plug" as a cute little nickname, and there's just so much adorableness that it actually came off as a bit distracting. Not too bad, though. The little girl playing Hope did a great job.
Pros:
Gosh, I don't even know where to start. Very briefly, the plot is that Coulson, his memories partially restored, along with Ward and Jemma meet up with Jeffrey Mace, the Patriot, who is the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. They find Radcliffe, and then Evil Fitz and Aida, who here goes by "Ophelia" show up. Jemma, horrified, sees Fitz kill Agnes, who is dead in the real world and had existed only in the Framework. Meanwhile, Daisy is tricked into betraying her true allegiances when Mack is arrested by May, and told to tell Daisy that he remembers her from the real world. Hydra has captured Daisy, and Mack decides to go and help the rebellion, despite not remembering the truth.
Yeah. Lots of stuff went down. I guess I'll just break this down by character and see how that goes.
First of all, Mack. Sure, his scenes with his daughter might have been a little too mushy, but the payoff was worth it. The moment when Daisy comes in to his cell and he seems to remember her... wow. Powerful stuff. I was so excited. I felt like doing a victory fist pump. Daisy was so relieved, and I was too. And then... he made a strange face at the name Yo-Yo, and Daisy realized the truth. I was riding right along with all of those emotions during that scene. Mack seems like pretty much the same guy he's always been, with changing circumstances leading him down another path. He's got a strong moral compass, and he always tries to do what's right. I can't wait to see where he goes from here.
Speaking of characters who are fundamentally unchanged... Coulson. You can't tell me that Coulson isn't the kind of person who'd be deep into conspiracy theories if he wasn't actually literally a part of one. There's this recurring joke throughout the episode about Coulson making his own soap, because he believes Hydra controls peoples' minds with soap. There's a lot of humor here, and a lot of really detailed acting choices by Clark Gregg. He has that giddiness and excitement whenever he learns something new about the world, as evidenced by his tone of voice when he talks about his robot hand. He's also realistically not the same bad-ass we know from the real world, as we can see when he holds and fires a gun. Clark Gregg did an excellent job of showing us that he's not familiar with holding this weapon. Even so, hints of his original self peak through, and he handles himself well in a tense situation.
Ward. Oh boy. This isn't Ward. Just as Fitz and May have been fundamentally altered by a new set of circumstances, so has Ward. Sure, we know his capacity for true evil, and I will still be sick to my stomach if they try to put Ward and Daisy together in any capacity. But here, he's a fearless rebel doing whatever he can to take down the bad guys, and he really, really loves Skye. That's so interesting to me. And Jemma's reaction to the whole thing is pretty classic. She's confused and weirded out, and not giving an inch. The moment when Ward finds out from Mack that Daisy has been taken by Hydra... he looked like his world had just ended. This version of Ward is some perfect idealization of him. The Ward that could have been if not for the way he was brought up and corrupted. In some ways, he's the Ward that we all found so boring at the start of Season One, before we learned he was a traitor. It's amazing to me that I can now find those same character traits so fascinating.
Mace. This is what I'm talking about. This is why this Framework thing is so brilliant. Here, we see a Mace who has taken over as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., just like in the real world. But he's confident and actually in charge here. Coulson isn't helping him. He's calling the shots. Mace is such a surprising character on this show. I never would have expected to find him as interesting as I do.
Daisy took a very reactionary role in this episode. She got information on where to find Radcliffe, but in the process she was taken in by May to help on a mission. Ward was forced to leave her behind. From there, she just follows along and tries not to betray anything strange about herself. This all falls apart when she thinks Mack remembers her. Of course, being the bad-ass that she is, even after May and a bunch of other Hydra agents are bearing down on her, she manages to get pretty far before being captured. She even gets an awesome elevator scene, where she takes out a bunch of people single-handed, in a beautiful homage to Captain America: The Winter Soldier (which is the best movie in all of the MCU. Fight me). Daisy gets pretty badly beaten after her capture, and as the episode ends, Evil Fitz is unmoved by her pleas for compassion. He's run a test on her, and knows she's a potential Inhuman. Things are not looking good for Daisy. This is awesome, because it adds real stakes. She's been captured by Hydra, and they're not messing around. I can't wait for the payoff here. Ward's desperation to get her back, Fitz's horror after they all get out of here, and he realizes what he's done to his dear friend... it's all going to be so delicious to watch.
May doesn't get a lot to do here. I'm waiting to understand more about her Framework self. In any case, she's still completely without mercy when it comes to her dealings with Daisy. Bringing in an innocent man and his scared innocent little girl just to trick Daisy... that's some brutal stuff, May. I'd love to see May and Coulson interact within the Framework. This world has emphasized Coulson's lovable and silly side, and emphasized May's coldness. In this world, the idea that the two of them could love each other seems frighteningly far away.
Radcliffe, like Mace, is a character I never expected to have such complicated and interesting feelings about. When Coulson, Jemma, and Ward find him, he's genuinely distressed. He doesn't want them to be imprisoned. He didn't want Aida to have taken over. Radcliffe is not exactly above reproach, here. Not by any means. And yet... he's a victim, too. A victim of his own stupidity, perhaps, but not of his own malice. He tries to get through to Fitz, telling him that they had a deep friendship, almost like father and son. He genuinely beseeches him to remember the love that Fitz and Simmons shared. And he wants to do whatever he can to protect poor Agnes. He's a bit of a coward, and he lets the power and possibility of science go to his head. But he really does love Agnes, and he really does care about Fitz. Fascinating!
Aida, or shall I call her Ophelia, is just brutal. Lady Hydra, they call her, and I can tell why. She has a tight grip on this world she's created, and any threat to it infuriates her. Maybe the very best scene in the episode is when Aida confronts Radcliffe about how he treated her in the real world. She talks about how demeaning it is to be used, and treated like a thing. All of those little moments, those hesitations and ticks we saw all season, as Aida learned more and more about her own personality, are finally able to come out. She knows the power and complexity of the world she's created. She knows what she has to do to keep control of that. There's something so frightening about an AI who not only turns against her creator, but actively hates him.
Fitz. Oh, God. Fitz. If this universe shows us a Ward who is changed into a good person through idealized circumstances, here we have a Fitz who has become a hardened mad scientists through the reality of his own world. In some ways, Fitz is still the biggest question mark in the Framework. We don't know exactly what went on in his past to make him this way. At first, I wondered if he was going to have a past with Jemma, and then Jemma died inside the Framework and he blamed S.H.I.E.L.D. and became Hydra. But they went another way. Fitz doesn't remember Jemma. He doesn't remember anything from the outside. But there's one important difference between Fitz and all of our other characters trapped in here: he knows. Ophelia, as Aida calls herself, has told him everything. I mean, sure, a highly edited and skewed version of everything, but still. He knows that there's an alternate reality. He even knows that he and Aida existed over there. He can't remember anything, so his entire perception of the real world is based on what Ophelia tells him.
And this is the best thing ever. Ophelia and Fitz's romance makes me sick to my stomach, but it's so clearly supposed to. Whatever resolution they have planned, I'm so excited for it. You've got Fitz telling Ophelia "I'd cross the universe for you," and then later Radcliffe tells Fitz about his love for Jemma, and says "he crossed the bloody universe to rescue her." According to Radcliffe, Fitz and Jemma were "in love. Unbreakable." This entire Framework narrative is centered around the Fitzsimmons relationship, bringing their journey as a couple into the forefront in a way that we haven't seen yet in all the years of this show. Fitz, even though he doesn't recognize Jemma, and has no problem in leading a team to eliminate her, seems drawn to her. He sees her across a crowd of chaos, their eyes meet... and it doesn't change anything, but Fitz seems perturbed. It's enough of a hint there to make us think that somewhere deep inside, the real Fitz is reacting against all of this.
Of course, Fitz killed an innocent woman in cold blood, after Jemma promised Ward that he'd never do anything like that. That was hard to watch. I think we're still missing some pieces as to why Fitz is like this, but in other ways it makes a lot of sense. His devotion to Opehlia is a sick and twisted version of his devotion to Jemma. Leo Fitz loves fiercely, and his loyalty is not to be questioned. That applies here as well as in the other world, but in the Framework it's twisted to a frightening degree.
Jemma. My darling Jemma. Just like last week, she had a really rough go of it here. What with Daisy running around evading capture within Hydra, Jemma felt very alone. Coulson is sort of the real Coulson, but Mace, Ward, and most troubling of all, Fitz, are not the people she knows. Like I already mentioned, I cannot wait for the epic reunion stuff with Fitzsimmons. But at the same time, Fitz has done some pretty unforgivable stuff already, and he doesn't appear to be snapping out of it. Jemma's anguished yell of grief when Fitz killed Agnes was really hard to hear. I anticipate this might be a difficult thing for them to move past. I can't wait to watch the angst.
That's all I've got. And it's a lot. I have feelings. I don't want this show to end this year... I'm hoping they can eek out one more season, because there are still stories I want to hear with these characters.
9/10
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