AGENTS OF SHIELD Season 3 Episode 20: 'Emancipation' Recap


It’s that time again when one way or another, AGENTS OF SHIELD will tie into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. This year’s flavor is, naturally, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR. So here's your minor spoiler warning if you haven't seen the movie yet.

There were a few small Easter Eggs, like the newspaper Coulson was reading about Peggy Carter, or the lines about Captain America being a fugitive now. But the real issue came down to the Sokovia Accords and how they affected the powered people under Coulson’s command. 

The Accords arrived in the form of Talbot. Always one to stick it to Coulson when he can, Talbot was more than happy to try and get all of Coulson’s Inhumans to register. It isn’t like Coulson has an army of Inhumans at SHIELD. In fact, it seems like as time goes on, he has fewer and fewer. Yo-yo showed up for a bit, and Lincoln was there, but that’s about it. Oh, and there’s Lash, or as Talbot called him: Rasta-Hulk. 

Over on Hive’s side of things, the Watchdogs finally began to serve larger purpose in the overall story. Not ones to be satisfied by the Accords, they still want extinction. Therefore, they’re more than happy to be lured into a trap by Hive. The scene where Hellfire took the chain and lit it on fire was pretty awesome. Very reminiscent of Ghost Rider. 

The Watchdogs were to be used as “volunteers” in the second round of tests to make more Inhumans. This time it worked “as planned” and the humans didn’t melt into pizzas. Instead they turned into “abominations.” In fact they were more like Inhumans zombies than anything else. But Hive was happy with them, so Radcliffe got to live another day. 

The entire Lincoln storyline was giving me a headache for most of the episode. I couldn’t imagine how boneheaded he could be. After everything that’s gone on, he was still willing to follow Daisy’s lead? Escape SHIELD, steal a quin-jet? These past few episodes have not been kind to Lincoln as a character and this was the nail in the coffin. Or at least I thought so. As it turned out, Coulson was pulling a fast one on everybody. He needed everyone to think that Lincoln was going a-wall. Frankly, as an audience member, it was pretty easy to believe considering all the dumb stuff Lincoln has done in the past. So when the jet opened and Lash was standing there instead, it was a pretty neat reveal. 

I have a few issues with their plan. First off, Lash is still an Inhuman. What’s to say that Hive couldn’t just put him under his control instantly? They never explained that part and I feel like there’s a deleted scene somewhere that does so. Nothing about Lash ever indicated that was resistant to Hive’s spell. They just sent him on a hunch that he his purpose was “kill Lash.” 

And that actually would have made sense, considering his was able to do a decent amount of damage to Hive. But they then backtracked it by saying his purpose was to “save Daisy.” All in all, that seemed a bit of a logic leap. Thinking that the Kree had designed something to take down Hive makes sense. But to say that they designed an Inhuman specifically save another, for this exact moment in time and place, makes little to no sense. 

SHIELD is running out of time. Lash was basically the last thing the show had introduced that could be used to defeat Hive. Next week is the season finale, which gives them two hours to come up with a way to kill Hive. My money is on launching him into space. Whoever is on that ship in the flash forward will be the one who sacrifices themselves in order to defeat Hive. The show wants you to think it’s Mac, but I still think that’s a misdirection. It feels too obvious for it to be Mac. At least we won’t have to wait long to see!

Written by Peter Freeman, TV & Animation Writer -- Click to read Peter's posts


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