gingerly

a fine mess

Ward doesn't look like a zombie now, WOOT WOOT. Scary like that, ya know? Need my Brett to look pretty.

Tech Noir

TFTNT!

Looking forward to this one!

indigo sunrise

Thanks for opening!

Yeah, this is going to be a big one and I can't WAIT

Raonaild

I liked the ep, better than anything else so far in the second half of the season. They managed to tell an interesting and complex story involving almost all of the regulars without feeling rushed. It was nice to see everybody working together like a team, with everybody participating and contributing to the story.

So in a way, Fitz was right that they couldn't change the future, that the flashes of the future Daisy saw couldn't be changed. But, they could be misinterpreted. And there was the bootstrap paradox problem that Lincoln pointed out - SHIELD only got involved in the situation because someone saw a future where SHIELD got involved. So, maybe the visions can't be changed, but the fact that someone had a vision at all influences the course of events.

Interesting that Daisy had that glimpse of the quinjet in orbit - that's going to happen, it can't be avoided, but it will influence their actions going forward, and they'll likely misinterpret what it means until it actually happens. The one thing I thought was odd though was that it was just a repeat of the few second they showed in in 3.11. In other cases when I've seen this kind of flash forward, if they see it more than once usually you see more the second time.

One minor quibble about the ep - Fitz is a smart guy, but he jumped to the conclusion that "Ward" is was actually the thing from the planet pretty fast with little evidence to support his assumption. They know for a fact that the technology exists to replicate faces, and there are Inhumans around with random weird powers, so there are other possible explanations for why someone that looks like Ward is there. It would have been more believable if he had more context, for example if they'd seen how "Ward" interacted with Malick or something like that.

Also, it's unfortunate they didn't really have time to process what this new Ward means, nobody really had a chance to express how they felt about it. But I guess that's what the next ep will be about.

DR76

What if he is wrong? Why would the writers come to such an absolutist conclusion in regard to time travel or the future? Is it because they don't want to contemplate any changes made to the future? Too confusing to them?



Fitz's comments were not an assumption. It was a fact. Unfortunately, he guessed right in an unconvincing way . . . without any real evidence.

Why is it that most of the black characters on this show who acquire abilities, end up looking disfigured or inhuman? Mike Peterson aka Deathlok, Raina and now Andrew Garner aka Lash. Get the point? On the other hand, other characters who acquire abilities managed to remain looking human. Why is that? Does Marvel or more importantly, Mutant Enemy have a problem with African-American characters with abilities?

Raonaild

First, this is not an uncommon idea about how time works. I've seen lots of other examples of sci-fi where the future is fixed, and if you somehow see the future there's nothing you can do to change it, even trying to change it just ends up with events playing out the way you saw. It actually can be more confusing to deal with time this way, because you have to show what will happen and stick to it without making it totally obvious what's going to happen. And they had to get to that point in a plausible way, even when they were intentionally trying to change that fate.

Second, I think the reason they did it in this episode was to make that glimpse of the future that we saw in 3.11 (and again in this ep) more meaningful - according to the rules they've established now, that future where someone ends up on a quinjet in orbit that explodes can't be avoided. It will happen, and now Daisy knows it's going to happen, and knows that they won't be able to avoid it.

The definition of assumption is "a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof." Fitz had no proof that the man they saw was the thing from Maveth in Ward's body, he assumed that from a brief image of someone who looked like Ward on a security camera.

DR76

I've seen it before myself . . . especially on "LOST". Instead of admitting that one doesn't really know, or that sometimes you can change the future and sometimes you can't, "AGENTS OF SHIELD' decided to be absolutist about the subject for reasons of their own. I guess they don't want to explore the possibility of changing the future. Too afraid perhaps?


I see that Brett Dalton has resumed his Season 2 impersonation of Julian McMahon's acting style. So much for impersonating Bill Paxton. Also, that ending struck me as rather rushed and disjointed. I wasn't impressed.

I noticed no comment was made about the black characters with abilities. You meant to say that you've never noticed an emerging pattern? Speaking of black characters, where was Mack? Someone had commented that the entire team was involved in this episode. What entire team? Mack was missing. Where was he . . . for the second time this season?

j-pop G&Jo

Hmmm... I wonder who's death Malick saw. I feel like he might've seen his own which was why he was so scared.

Raonaild

Ray of sunshine as usual. I don't really understand why this particular handling of time and visions of the future makes them such terrible, fearful people. Why is it better to see visions of a future that can be changed? To me having visions but being able to change the future is a bit of a cop out, because you can show all these terrible images of the future for shock value then hit a reset switch and undo it all.

I didn't comment because I don't agree and I have no interest in debating you on it. And they did mention Mack in this episode, if you recall he was shot in the last ep and they mentioned in this one that he was still recovering. It would have not been believable if he was up and running around this week as if nothing happened, after being taken away in an ambulance in the last. And he was also featured prominently in the last ep, he had several long scenes that involved just him and his brother, so it's not like Mack has been forgotten about.

I'm guessing it was either that, or he saw a bit of what Ward has planned. Or both.

indigo sunrise

It's also very possible it involved his daughter somehow - since she must have been introduced for a reason.

I loved this ep, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and really liked how everything was played out, the pacing, the mix of emotions and especially all the team scenes - for once I felt like everyone's moments were very well balanced. The scene where they were all practicing together was so great! More of those kind of things, please it's always a treat to have episodes written by Jed & Mo.

Yeah, as soon as it was clear she was having a flash of that bit, I assumed we'd get to see more than we did before. It's interesting that it was just the same bit. So now Daisy has all the info we as viewers already had - I'll be interested to see what she does with it.

I really liked the May and Andrew scenes, I'm glad she went to see him and got to talk to him a last time. At this point it's looking very likely that they'll eventually figure out Lash is going to be the one to be able to take out Hive, though I'm sure it won't be that easy.

Some other random tidbits -

"I've never seen the original terminator" "you're off the team"

Coulson calling Daisy Skye again in an emotional moment I really liked that.

"It's not snow" and then the hand holding gave me Doctor Who flashbacks for sure

Raonaild

They've definitely been setting up that Andrew's transformation into Lash isn't arbitrary, there's a purpose to it that will ultimately benefit the Inhumans, even if his initial instinct is to go around killing them.

Besides being a funny scene, this was another thing I liked about the way they handled time in this ep, considering other similar examples in pop culture.

Ever since I saw them in the preview last week, I assumed they were standing in falling ash. Maybe this is why, because I made the connection with Doctor Who and The Christmas Invasion.

indigo sunrise

Yeah, I hadn't noticed it much in the preview but when Daisy first saw the flashes, I immediately thought it was ash, too. I wonder if anyone not familiar with DW also made that connection (though on that same note, when Daisy was explaining the light in the bit of herself and speculated there could be an illuminated billboard behind her, I also immediately thought no, something's on fire)

gingerly

I liked this one! Probably the best since the show returned. Jed and Maurissa always nail the dialogue & character moments.

Kevin Tancharoen is so good for this show. So many shots looked like they were taken right out of a comic book.

The team finding out about Ward didn't have the impact I assumed it would, but it looks like they're gonna deal with more in depth next week.

I admit I laughed when it was revealed how Lincoln got his bloodied face. It just seemed so serious and then it was like "nope, just gets walloped with a fire extinguisher for no reason"

I loved the scene between Charles and Daisy at the end, casting did a good job with the actor that played Charles.

Exactly. I think that moment fell flat because of this.

Mazza d'Evill

This was a good, goooood episode It just went by too fast Finally another episode that kept me on the edge of my seat

I think they just showed those exact same seconds just to let us know that Daisy now knows too. I'm not even sure I want to see more Is it Elena? Or Mack with Elena's necklace? Etc. Too scary

Coulson calling Daisy Skye

And some great one liners The terminators one, and I forgot something May said that I also found really funny

I definitely hope they'll introduce the daughter at some point Chances are she's Inhuman too, as her father was. Oh well, we'll see