OK, so they’re very well aware of the idea that this is a common theme, robots turning against their creator. Mack gets some great lines. How many movie references can they make?
I’m not sure how I like the senator and SHIELD relationship. They’re trying to use some nuance and humanize (ha!) the senator, but it’s kind of pointless. Her relationship with the Watchdogs is pretty damning.
Floppies?!
Love the shotgun axe! “Roll credits”
Harsh, she killed her own brother. “The Superior”?
Small wonder, nice robot child reference.
So Radcliffe is a bad guy, and I doubt he’s the Superior. Is he pulling the strings to promote a Coulson/May romance?
Watching it with a bit of inertia - only kinda scratching my Marvel itch.
Regarding the brother - yeah, really harsh. Given the last scene, he hit the ocean floor and re-cocooned. Obviously he’s coming back - so is recocooning a Thing for Inhumans, or part of his apparent power set?
Between Mack & Yoyo’s complaints about evil robot movies, and Daisy observing that Simmons has been kidnapped at least 3 times since they’ve met, it’s obvious the writers had a lot of fun with this script. Nice twist at the end - I thought real May was going to wake up and turn out to be the one in charge.
Or each time he’s killed and regenerated he comes back with a different power. It’s like a slot machine, who knows what you come up with.
I’m glad AIDA’s not the big bad, she’s just a tool of Radcliffe. He programmed her acting like she has emotions; she’s still just an emotionless android. Not exactly clear when Radcliffe had time to rework her programming or make the plan to capture May. Did he suggest May go fetch AIDA or did that come from Coulson?
A “killed by robot” rider on your insurance policy? Brilliant!
Yeah, but he must have lied to the insurance company about his employer - you’d think “killed by robot” would be a specific exclusion for SHIELD agents, along with “subverted by Hydra” and “stabbed by alien”.
That was some masterful audience trolling by the writers. Set everything up as the lamest cliche ever, the creation turning against its creator, enjoy the ensuing internet groans (which I liberally participated in), then lampshade the hell out of it in the episode, only to pull out the rug under our feet—it’s the creator, not the creation, that’s turned evil. I haven’t enjoyed an episode of the series this much in quite some time.
Oh, and any idea on who the superior is going to turn out to be?
Just watched this weekend - why did Radcliffe want the physical Darkhold? Aida had already read it IIRC.
My only fanwank is that it presents information to solve/create the reader’s current predicament and/or ability to perform whatever step of the book’s nefarious plan the reader can handle? So the book itself still holds lots more information.
The biggie - Mace isn’t an Inhuman; he’s enhanced by injections of a variant of the formula used by Daisy’s dad to give him strength without going all homicidal. But he needs steady injections to keep it up, otherwise he’s a just a schlub. This explains the secret that Simmons figured out he was keeping, and he never set out to be a hero. Talbot made him into one because he was ordered to make the Director of SHIELD an enhanced individual. So he lied (under orders) and comes off as a well meaning puppet who loved being adored but he seems to have his heart in the right place and his motivation was to do good things. I also feel like the actor is doing a great job playing Mace as a bit of a Boy Scout in over his head.
Talbot - this is one of the few characters who really feels like he was plucked from the pages of a comic book and put on screen. He acts like a bull in a china shop, no concept of social order or diplomacy but he’s not a dummy. He understands enough of what’s going on around him to make some intelligent choices. He’s probably going to be a source of more enhanced agents.
Radcliffe - his motivation was softened a bit since last week. He’s horrified by Aida killing Agent Expendable but not enough to turn himself in for it. It’s hard to read how Aida 2.0 is taking all this; she seemed genuinely pissed and offended by some of the things Radcliffe said but they emphasized in the last episode that she still doesn’t feel emotions. He clearly doesn’t want to harm May any more, but he has no problems keeping her drugged up and captive. Swell guy.
Things I liked
[ul]
[li]Coulson back in charge of SHIELD, with Mace as the figurehead[/li][li]Fitz still mucking about with Aida 1.0’s head. I’m sure that’s all going to turn out well - but I suspect it will end up helping May/Maybot[/li][li]Mack still is a genuine bad ass[/li][li]Talbot’s ringtone for calls from the White House[/li][li]The self-discovery arc that’s about to happen for Maybot[/li][li]Daisy didn’t completely annoy me this episode[/li][/ul]
All in all a good episode. The whole plot to get Mace out in the Quinjet was pretty bogus; it was paper thin. Running around in a National Park looking for a guy who fell out of a plane is beyond dumb. They never explained how the Watchdogs sabotaged the jet, although I wonder if that will be covered in the next episode based on scenes from next week. But ignoring that they answered some questions, asked new ones, and advanced the plot.
I liked this revelation. When they introduced Mace I thought he’d become the stereotypical director who’s all by the books and winds up impeding Coulson and his group through his stubbornness and ego. Instead, showing him as this vulnerable figurehead type makes him much more interesting, IMO.
To me he feels like a combination of the original Glenn Talbot and General Thunderbolt Ross from the Tales to Astonish issues of The Incredible Hulk.
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Things I liked
[LIST]
[li]Coulson back in charge of SHIELD, with Mace as the figurehead [/li][/QUOTE]
I liked this too.
I’m getting a weird Fitz-in-love-with-Aida feeling. Kind of like a TV version of “Her”
[quote=“Telemark, post:14, topic:776930”]
[li]Mack still is a genuine bad ass[/li][/QUOTE]
Coulson and May have always been my favorite characters from the show but Mack is quickly gaining on them.
I agree. If they wrote her out of the show tomorrow I’d be very happy
Talbot is entertaining, and still playing around with super serums. Has he learned nothing from Banner?
Interesting reveal about Mace. I guess they aren’t going to make him some more serum?
I wonder if Mace not being an Inhuman, and downplaying Daisy the center of everything has to do with the New Inhumans tv show they’re making?
Fitz is an idiot. He’s really going to keep playing with the AIDA head that has read the Darkhold?
Back when we saw AIDA 1.0 working on some sort of holographic brain, was that the May bot? Otherwise I can’t figure out how they got all of May’s memories. Surely Radcliff isn’t that good? He’s also created drugs that can create simulations for the captive May? Is he that good, or is it the Darkhold?
I’m not convinced that Aida got evil after reading the Darkhold. If we are to believe Radcliffe (and if we believe that he knows what he’s talking about) everything Aida did was directed by his instructions. She may have been acting perfectly rationally (if over enthusiastically) in carrying out those instructions.
Our heroes know that Mace isn’t Inhuman, but I assume that knowledge will remain Code Turquoise level (or whatever means “need to know and if you don’t know you don’t need to know”). In public, he is still the director, so he’ll need to throw a car occasionally to keep his cred intact.
