Agents of SHIELD 4.09 Review: “Broken Promises”
Daisy and Mace don’t see eye-to-eye but are willing to work together, despite the Director’s poor attempts at jokes. Jemma gets to kick some butt. Mack has robot uprising insurance. There was a lot to love in Agents of SHIELD’s mid-season return.
It’s Alive, It’s Aliiiiiiive
Honestly, I’m a bit less interested in the fact that Aida got the (shotgun) axe tonight than I am to learn that Robo-May doesn’t actually realize she’s a Life Model Decoy. That means, in theory, everything she’s doing is what May would be doing. It could also show the team that not all LMDs are inherently vengeful. They’re, obviously, Inhumans 2.0 as far as that moral goes.
It’s nice to see a form of revenge based on squandering a person’s potential. Aida’s way to get back at the people holding her back is to further her programming. Sure, it’s through the Darkhold and you know…lots of bad can come of that, but it’s an interesting take on the “Best revenge is success” parable.
Also, we all knew Radcliffe was going to turn over an old leaf at some point, right?
Senator “Nadir”
Senator Nadeer has gone from straight forward bigot to kind of sympathetic, which is a disturbing turn. We always want our villains to have layers but I don’t necessarily want to hold sympathy for someone that is so clearly acting on their xenophobia. She’s definitely someone who has experienced tragedy, though. Her reasoning is direct, she’s watched people she loves die due to invasion. Her brother, Vijay, being in an Inhuman cocoon brought her to her depth. It’s her nadir.
Her moment in the woods with Vijay was one of this season’s most tense. With a Watchdog pistol to the back of his head, he plead his life saying he had no changes after emerging from his cocoon. We all knew it would happen, but it was enough to get Ellen to stay his execution. At least until about fourteen minutes later when none of it mattered anymore. Lucky for Vijay, the stinger shows him re-husking so surely this isn’t the last we’ll see of him.
I For One Welcome Our New Robot Overlords
Tonight’s script was punchy. It had a lot of the pop-culture and humor more akin to DC’s CW lineup than AoS tends to lean. My favorite parts relied on quips and the fact that Mack and Yo-Yo’s budding romance has a basis in 80’s robopocalypse movies. I mean, they talked about Chopping Mall. That’s relationship goals right there.
After a pretty dire first half-season, which I loved and it fit for Ghost Rider, it’s nice to have a heavy dose of brevity for the back end. I always worry about tone growing stale entering this part of a long season, so this first entry showing some emotional juxtaposition is appreciated. Hopefully that will continue as the season moves forward because I think the Philinda crowd is going to get super loud and I’ll need jokes to drown them out.