“What They Become”
Directed by Michael Zinberg
Written by Jeffrey Bell
Midseason finale! I am very excited, and I am clueless with what they are going to do! Whatever happens is sure to be fun! Especially going by WordMan’s link to io9 which says the episode is going to be really good. (io9 can usually be trusted to be level headed and not over-hype.) (Also, I trusted WordMan’s summation of the link. I didn’t even want a tiny spoiler!)
Whoa. Lots to figure out. Liked a lot of it, but it didn’t answer as many questions as clearly as I was expecting. And I had a couple of disappointments that I am going to think about for a bit before getting snarky.
Crystal has an odd color pattern in her hair. Highlights in her hair, patterns in her skin, even an odd voice effect would have worked.
But if she’s supposed to be Quake, they’re going for the Inhumans-as-mutant-standin angle. Although that rather weakens the “turn into a monster” aspect – which is the same problem the 616 Marvel Universe has: if you can’t tell superpowered people from superpowered mutants, why does everyone hate and fear mutants but not the other superdudes?
Raina had… gold eyes and spikes? So she’ll fit in better with the other Nightbreed.
Disappointing Kree city from the stars. Guess it wasn’t in the FX budget. I figured there would be Terrigen Mists. Do you really have to go all the way to the hidden city to use one? What a pain.
At least Ward has found a new pal whose brain is as messed up as his is.
Okay…gotta do a bit of MCU research - I didn’t read a lot of Inhumans-centered stories back in the say, and I think most of this played out after I was in my teens in the 70’s
My disappointment: Is Whitehall really dead? That’s it?! Dude tortures and murders a key character’s mom* to gain extended life, her whackjob/connected-to-aliens-somehow, powerful dad swears revenge - and the Bad Nazi gets caught in an incidental shoot-out?! Really?! A) there better be more than that; and B) that’s not what I would call a “good” cliffhanger for mid-season - more of just a “you better make this better” lack of closure.
*especially when I have a huge soft spot for the actress, Dichen Lachman, from the not-so-great Whedonverse show Dollhouse. And yes, Declan, Bobbi/Adrienne looks amazingly great in those outfits. Between her, May, Skye’s mom, Raina and even Simmons at times - we straight guys are getting some actors that make me wonder why Skye/Daisy is the focal point - she’s pretty, but compared to the others…
Nah, no way he stays dead. It doesn’t even really take a fan-wank - he’s got eternal youth, so whatever caused that (and it ‘healed’ his old-age) will heal a single gun shot wound. 33/May thought he was dead because his body shut down (or slowed way down) while healing.
Plus, they need a villain, and a basically non-superpowered one is a nice touch (and easy on the CGI budget).
I totally buy that - but, IMHO, it would’ve been better to have 33/May react the way she did, walk out, and then, I dunno, have our Big Bad Whitehall flinch a finger or something…
It makes it worse from a paranoia standpoint because it opens the possibility that anyone you meet could have some deadly superpower. Also, what other choice did they really have than to use Inhumans as a stand-in for mutants?
Actually, the Inhumans rather than mutants thing makes much more sense logically. People giving birth in one generation to spontaneous mutations that have impossible powers is a lot harder to swallow than a mysterious alien genetic engineering project that activates a superpower when exposed to mysterious alien radiation.
I guess SHIELD doesn’t believe in the Mozambique drill. Or May hadn’t gotten that far in her lessons with Skye. It was pretty cool watching her just instantly put a few rounds in him as soon as she got the chance - nice followup to the “How’s your marksmanship?” banter.
616 is the main comic book reality - the comic book timeline before the Ultimates and all that. The MCU reality is 199999.
Hmm - I didn’t get that from the article. They conceded it would have been fun to see Cal tear Whitehall apart, but didn’t really confirm he’s never coming back.
Also harkens back to the conversation about HYDRA would just kill someone while SHIELD was pondering. She didn’t think it over much, but she should have gone for the head shot. I wasn’t thrilled with the two broken snowflakes (Ward, 33) finding each other and forming a bond.
Saving Mack and killing Tripp seems like a standard Joss swerve, but honestly I don’t care about either character so it didn’t have much impact. Superpowered Skye/Daisy has the potential to be really boring. I’m more interested in what happened to Raina.
