I’ll admit that it was a bit awkward for SHIELD to go off the air for so long, only to come back for two weeks. But I guess with the election happening, and then Thanksgiving holiday, it made sense. Thankfully it didn’t really hurt the momentum of the ending. Instead we got high paced action episode of SHIELD.
The only complaint I’d have with this whole season thus far — aside from keeping Daisy out of SHIELD for too long – was that I never really found Eli all that good of a villain. He didn’t really become the main star of things until these last two episodes. So it was hard to take him seriously as a threat. That said, the episodes was still really fun to watch.
I’m glad there’s been more movement on Coulson’s inability to follow orders. He tells the Director it’s “his choice” but he knows what the right answer is, and would probably do it whether the Director gave the go ahead or not. Yes, Mace keeps secrets, and he’s probably not all he says he is, but he’s right in challenging Coulson. The man gave up his leadership position, yet acts like he still owns the place.
It’s a shame that Ghost Rider was put out of commission for almost the whole episode. He’s easily been one of the defining characters of this season, even if he was only introduced eight episodes ago. Despite that, it was nice to see him and Eli finally come face to face about everything that’s happened. It was good to see that Eli hadn’t gone completely crazy and was able to rationally talk to his nephew, even if what he was saying sounded insane.
Mace wanting to bring Aida into the action made sense. She knew the tech better than anyone else. She’d even built some of it herself. Of course now that the LMD program is under SHIELD supervision, you have to wonder what exactly Director Mace has planned for it. I also hope that — given the ending, which we’ll get to soon — that Aida doesn’t turn out to be some kind of Ultron-lite.
Speaking of getting in on the action, Director Mace himself go into the thick of things with a slick new SHIELD suit. It was nice we got to see the Inhumans to go work. With Yo-Yo pulling most of the weight there especially. Her effects were really well done as she ran around the rooms, repositioning enemies and helping her friends win the battle. I hope now that she and Mack and finally made moves on one another that she’ll be sticking around.
In the end, it was sad to see Ghost Rider go. It was a grand exit, that’s for sure. I’m positive that he’ll be back at some point in the future. But to have someone of that power on their team would really limit the kind of threats the show could have. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for his return though.
Lastly, let’s touch on the very end of the episode. Obviously Aida has gone a little haywire after using the Darkhold. The big question is, how long have we had robot May instead of the real May on our team? Why is this even happening, what’s Aida’s plan? All things we will have answers to in January no doubt.
Written by Peter Freeman, AGENTS OF SHIELD Beat Writer -- Click to read Peter's posts
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