Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Devils You Know
October 21, 2015 3:16 AM - Season 3, Episode 4 - Subscribe
S.H.I.E.L.D. and the ATCU team up to track Lash. Hunter gets closer to Ward. Simmons is keeping secrets from Fitz.
S.H.I.E.L.D. and the ATCU team up after an ambush by Lash on a recruiting mission that Inhuman Alisha (the duplicator from Afterlife) goes on. This co-operation leads to the discovery of an Inhuman named Frye who has intense, painful reactions when exposed to other Inhumans. After he's apprehended by the ATCU, the van with him, Daisy and Mac is attacked by Lash who kills Frye. Daisy sees him transform into a traditionally human form.
Meanwhile, Hunter gets deeper into the Hydra recruitment drive and his zeal to kill Ward at all costs alarms May. She returns to speak to Coulson about the situation. While there, she and Andrew speak about the end of their relationship which was due to him leaving without explanation, a move May pulled on him years before. He asks for time to explain the next day.
Hunter arrives at the Hydra base and is instantly made by Ward. During the standoff, May arrives. Ward then threatens to have Andrew killed if they don't surrender. Hunter makes the decision to go after Ward anyway, shooting him in the shoulder as Ward flees. Andrew is lifeless on the ground after being attacked by Strucker. The market in which he lies is then blown up.
Gemma's research on the monolith is found by Fitz. He asks her why she needs to return. She begins to tell him the truth...
S.H.I.E.L.D. and the ATCU team up after an ambush by Lash on a recruiting mission that Inhuman Alisha (the duplicator from Afterlife) goes on. This co-operation leads to the discovery of an Inhuman named Frye who has intense, painful reactions when exposed to other Inhumans. After he's apprehended by the ATCU, the van with him, Daisy and Mac is attacked by Lash who kills Frye. Daisy sees him transform into a traditionally human form.
Meanwhile, Hunter gets deeper into the Hydra recruitment drive and his zeal to kill Ward at all costs alarms May. She returns to speak to Coulson about the situation. While there, she and Andrew speak about the end of their relationship which was due to him leaving without explanation, a move May pulled on him years before. He asks for time to explain the next day.
Hunter arrives at the Hydra base and is instantly made by Ward. During the standoff, May arrives. Ward then threatens to have Andrew killed if they don't surrender. Hunter makes the decision to go after Ward anyway, shooting him in the shoulder as Ward flees. Andrew is lifeless on the ground after being attacked by Strucker. The market in which he lies is then blown up.
Gemma's research on the monolith is found by Fitz. He asks her why she needs to return. She begins to tell him the truth...
May is smart enough to know that surrender would not have saved Andrew, even if that was hard to see in the heat of the moment, given Ward's rationale for targeting Andrew in the first place.
posted by OnSecondThought at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2015
posted by OnSecondThought at 9:09 AM on October 21, 2015
Andrew? That's the best theory I've seen thrown around.
Hm. Interesting. Might be true? I guess it would explain his sudden disappearance from May's vacation, and serve to keep him around. I tend to agree that they wouldn't kill him off like that - too soon in the season, and it's the sort of thing Hunter and May could never recover from, as opposed to temporary drama. It doesn't really *feel* like a move the show would make, whereas giving someone a superpowered evil side might be.
(They did surprise me by killing off Lucy Lawless so fast, but they hadn't taken any time to establish her character, either. This just feels like a surprising way to lose someone who's been around awhile.)
Other stuff I thought:
* I'm enjoying the ACTU situation more than their open hostilities with the US Army last season. It portrays the ACTU as much more competent, and it allows a lot more interaction since they can converse with lower stakes. Also, Rosalind is great fun, and Daisy's unhappiness about this continues to feel like a much more organic setup for Civil War than they had for prior movie tie-ins. (The Ultron thing was still extra weak.)
* I hope Coulson actually has a laser finger.
* Daisy has become incredibly powerful, but she's still a squishy blaster. I still wish Coulson would try to offer Sif a job. They could really use someone who can withstand guns/thrown vehicles/etc. (I know she would say no, but it would still be the coolest thing ever.)
* I hope Simmons' explanation to Fitz is good. I'm glad they're not putting it off very long - dragging it out would be annoying and pointless. (Using it as the final cliffhanger made sense given how busy the episode was already, but much longer would've been bad.)
posted by mordax at 9:17 AM on October 21, 2015
Hm. Interesting. Might be true? I guess it would explain his sudden disappearance from May's vacation, and serve to keep him around. I tend to agree that they wouldn't kill him off like that - too soon in the season, and it's the sort of thing Hunter and May could never recover from, as opposed to temporary drama. It doesn't really *feel* like a move the show would make, whereas giving someone a superpowered evil side might be.
(They did surprise me by killing off Lucy Lawless so fast, but they hadn't taken any time to establish her character, either. This just feels like a surprising way to lose someone who's been around awhile.)
Other stuff I thought:
* I'm enjoying the ACTU situation more than their open hostilities with the US Army last season. It portrays the ACTU as much more competent, and it allows a lot more interaction since they can converse with lower stakes. Also, Rosalind is great fun, and Daisy's unhappiness about this continues to feel like a much more organic setup for Civil War than they had for prior movie tie-ins. (The Ultron thing was still extra weak.)
* I hope Coulson actually has a laser finger.
* Daisy has become incredibly powerful, but she's still a squishy blaster. I still wish Coulson would try to offer Sif a job. They could really use someone who can withstand guns/thrown vehicles/etc. (I know she would say no, but it would still be the coolest thing ever.)
* I hope Simmons' explanation to Fitz is good. I'm glad they're not putting it off very long - dragging it out would be annoying and pointless. (Using it as the final cliffhanger made sense given how busy the episode was already, but much longer would've been bad.)
posted by mordax at 9:17 AM on October 21, 2015
We originally posited that Lash was that blond soldier guy that's always with Rosalind.
Now, I'm wondering if maybe Ward is actually Lash...*runs off to look at fan theories*
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:31 AM on October 21, 2015
Now, I'm wondering if maybe Ward is actually Lash...*runs off to look at fan theories*
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:31 AM on October 21, 2015
Tinfoil: Simmons isn't Simmons, she's something that has taken the form of Simmons (Phoenix Force-style), leaving the real Simmons still trapped in that blue...uh...area. Maybe she's Mar-Vell in disguise.
posted by The Tensor at 9:56 AM on October 21, 2015
posted by The Tensor at 9:56 AM on October 21, 2015
I'm still having to do everything in my power to not hum the Sonic the Hedgehog invincibility theme music every time Lash appears onscreen.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:41 AM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:41 AM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Maybe Simmons just developed an addiction to one of the additives in whatever space twinkies or moon pies she was eating on the moonolith, and needs to get back to get her fix. She didn't lose any weight in the time (weeks? months?) she was there, so clearly she must have been eating something. She already mentioned she lost her taste for strawberries.
I liked this episode a lot, and I particularly enjoy that the separate story lines are all so very different, e.g. "He's on a mission. High-value target. Human target. Not your area of expertise." It shows that what SHIELD is really good at is multi-tasking on very different problems.
As for Lash, maybe s/he just thinks Daisy is worthy.
I really like Blair Underwood, but I sort of wish the show had enough guts to kill him off. It would create more tension about potentially killing off other characters and also cause huge enmity between Hunter and May, whether justified or not. Then again, not killing him off would reveal Coulson's "he's replaceable, you're not" line as sort a red herring, particularly if he becomes indispensable to the team/plot.
posted by tempestuoso at 10:48 AM on October 21, 2015
I liked this episode a lot, and I particularly enjoy that the separate story lines are all so very different, e.g. "He's on a mission. High-value target. Human target. Not your area of expertise." It shows that what SHIELD is really good at is multi-tasking on very different problems.
As for Lash, maybe s/he just thinks Daisy is worthy.
I really like Blair Underwood, but I sort of wish the show had enough guts to kill him off. It would create more tension about potentially killing off other characters and also cause huge enmity between Hunter and May, whether justified or not. Then again, not killing him off would reveal Coulson's "he's replaceable, you're not" line as sort a red herring, particularly if he becomes indispensable to the team/plot.
posted by tempestuoso at 10:48 AM on October 21, 2015
I really like Blair Underwood, but I sort of wish the show had enough guts to kill him off.
I agreed with this statement 100% up until the first comment in this thread suggested that he may be Lash. I like that idea a lot.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:00 PM on October 21, 2015
I agreed with this statement 100% up until the first comment in this thread suggested that he may be Lash. I like that idea a lot.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:00 PM on October 21, 2015
Andrew is lifeless on the ground after being attacked by Strucker.
Was it actually Andrew though? I only remember seeing feet but not a face. Maybe the clothes were the same and I didn't notice. And then we saw Strucker running outside, looking very frightened as he crouched behind the car. I assumed that Andrew got away after attacking one of the goons with Strucker and that's whose feet we saw. Which makes sense if Andrew is Lash....... hmm !!
Are Bobbi and Hunter spinning off? The May/Hunter thing is a great way to set up the tension and reason for them both going off together.
posted by the webmistress at 12:14 PM on October 21, 2015
Was it actually Andrew though? I only remember seeing feet but not a face. Maybe the clothes were the same and I didn't notice. And then we saw Strucker running outside, looking very frightened as he crouched behind the car. I assumed that Andrew got away after attacking one of the goons with Strucker and that's whose feet we saw. Which makes sense if Andrew is Lash....... hmm !!
Are Bobbi and Hunter spinning off? The May/Hunter thing is a great way to set up the tension and reason for them both going off together.
posted by the webmistress at 12:14 PM on October 21, 2015
Are Bobbi and Hunter spinning off?
Maybe: Marvel's Most Wanted
posted by The Tensor at 1:00 PM on October 21, 2015
Maybe: Marvel's Most Wanted
posted by The Tensor at 1:00 PM on October 21, 2015
They almost made a point of how they weren't showing Andrew dead, yes. It was some random shoes.
posted by Justinian at 2:21 PM on October 21, 2015
posted by Justinian at 2:21 PM on October 21, 2015
Someone whom May has known for years is a shape changing alien? And wasn't Andrew at the base talking to Simmons during one of the Lash attacks.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:39 PM on October 21, 2015
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:39 PM on October 21, 2015
"Was it actually Andrew though? I only remember seeing feet but not a face. Maybe the clothes were the same and I didn't notice. And then we saw Strucker running outside, looking very frightened as he crouched behind the car."
Right. For me, not showing Andrew felt like a mild fake-out but that he was probably dead, but then frightened Strucker told me that someone killed everyone else and that Andrew wasn't dead. But it never once occurred to me before just reading this thread, that Lash could be Andrew. That makes a whole bunch of sense, especially given that Lash expressed that he was doing it out of necessity, and that Andrew found whatshername at the facility to be of such great importance (if he's Lash, it was a huge surprise, considering he'd just killed her). And then there's the thing about him inexplicably leaving May. I think all signs point to it being him.
As for what's going on with Simmons, I became convinced in this episode that she fell in love with another person who is trapped there and she has to go back to save them. It seems to me that since we were shown that other people were sent there, and that if her motivation for going back was to save other people, then she'd have told everyone that right away ... unless she's afraid of Fitz's response, which she clearly is. There are other explanations and there are problems with this one, given the whole FitzSimmons are destined to be together thing, but I think my scenario is a strong possibility.
I have to say that I really like how Daisy's personality/character has changed. The scene with her in Coulson's office and she calls Rosalind "dragon lady" was so great, I rewound and watched it again. The actor is really nailing this confident and snarky version of the character.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:05 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Right. For me, not showing Andrew felt like a mild fake-out but that he was probably dead, but then frightened Strucker told me that someone killed everyone else and that Andrew wasn't dead. But it never once occurred to me before just reading this thread, that Lash could be Andrew. That makes a whole bunch of sense, especially given that Lash expressed that he was doing it out of necessity, and that Andrew found whatshername at the facility to be of such great importance (if he's Lash, it was a huge surprise, considering he'd just killed her). And then there's the thing about him inexplicably leaving May. I think all signs point to it being him.
As for what's going on with Simmons, I became convinced in this episode that she fell in love with another person who is trapped there and she has to go back to save them. It seems to me that since we were shown that other people were sent there, and that if her motivation for going back was to save other people, then she'd have told everyone that right away ... unless she's afraid of Fitz's response, which she clearly is. There are other explanations and there are problems with this one, given the whole FitzSimmons are destined to be together thing, but I think my scenario is a strong possibility.
I have to say that I really like how Daisy's personality/character has changed. The scene with her in Coulson's office and she calls Rosalind "dragon lady" was so great, I rewound and watched it again. The actor is really nailing this confident and snarky version of the character.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:05 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Someone whom May has known for years is a shape changing alien?
Or Andrew got exposed to the terragen and has manifested his abilities. Which would explain why he suddenly disappeared.
posted by nubs at 11:11 AM on October 22, 2015
Or Andrew got exposed to the terragen and has manifested his abilities. Which would explain why he suddenly disappeared.
posted by nubs at 11:11 AM on October 22, 2015
One thing I don't like so much unless they go another way with it later is the idea that Strucker is inherently evil because of his parentage. It really goes against the idea that the show has that no one is inherently bad on the Inhuman side just because of what they are and where they came from.
posted by inturnaround at 11:17 AM on October 22, 2015
posted by inturnaround at 11:17 AM on October 22, 2015
It wasn't my impression that Strucker was necessarily inherently evil because of his parentage, but that Ward was helping to push him in that direction. Ward even said something along the lines of "I wanted to see if you had it in you" after he (Strucker) was forced to do violence under duress. Then with some careful exploitation of familial pressure/pride/guilt, Ward subtly reinforced Strucker's violent behavior as being a good thing. And Strucker, lacking a father figure, might be inclined to see Ward in a paternal way, reinforcing his loyalty. (In a manner not too dissimilar from Ward's own experiences.)
If Strucker's parentage were discovered by a better person than Ward, perhaps he could have been swayed in a more positive direction. But Ward is a master manipulator, and the naive kid didn't have much chance.
But then again, as you implied, perhaps Ward is underestimating him.
posted by tempestuoso at 1:27 PM on October 22, 2015
If Strucker's parentage were discovered by a better person than Ward, perhaps he could have been swayed in a more positive direction. But Ward is a master manipulator, and the naive kid didn't have much chance.
But then again, as you implied, perhaps Ward is underestimating him.
posted by tempestuoso at 1:27 PM on October 22, 2015
Or Andrew got exposed to the terragen and has manifested his abilities. Which would explain why he suddenly disappeared.
That would be odd, as Lash seems Kree. Could he always have been Kree, a sleeper agent left behind to guard against any Inhumans who get powered up? Sure. But I really dislike this and any similar idea that Andrew is Lash. It reeks of cheap melodrama with little purpose. Not everyone and everything has to be connected!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:15 PM on October 22, 2015
That would be odd, as Lash seems Kree. Could he always have been Kree, a sleeper agent left behind to guard against any Inhumans who get powered up? Sure. But I really dislike this and any similar idea that Andrew is Lash. It reeks of cheap melodrama with little purpose. Not everyone and everything has to be connected!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:15 PM on October 22, 2015
My theory is time dilation. Time wherever the Monolith portal opened up worked differently, so Simmons was gone for moths from Fitz's perspective, but it was really years from Simmons perspective.
Also Simmons either needs to go back to rescue a partner, or her child from a relationship.
My money is on a child.
Also we only glimpsed whatever was chasing Simmons that one time, but it looked a lot like Lash to me .....
Just my two penneth.
Also as cast regulars and regular guest spots continue to grow it's getting harder to keep track of everyone. What happened to the new Asgardian this episode?
posted by Faintdreams at 9:39 AM on November 2, 2015
Also Simmons either needs to go back to rescue a partner, or her child from a relationship.
My money is on a child.
Also we only glimpsed whatever was chasing Simmons that one time, but it looked a lot like Lash to me .....
Just my two penneth.
Also as cast regulars and regular guest spots continue to grow it's getting harder to keep track of everyone. What happened to the new Asgardian this episode?
posted by Faintdreams at 9:39 AM on November 2, 2015
I don't think you have to keep track of everyone. They wander in and out as the plot needs them.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:26 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:26 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
They wander in and out as the plot needs them.
This is actually what makes Agents of SHIELD the most like a continuing comic book to me and the more it happens, the more I love it.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:03 PM on November 2, 2015
This is actually what makes Agents of SHIELD the most like a continuing comic book to me and the more it happens, the more I love it.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:03 PM on November 2, 2015
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Andrew? That's the best theory I've seen thrown around. That would explain why he spared Daisy, and why he was so worried about what Frye told SHIELD. Not sure about his motivation though.
The attack on Andrew was during the day time. The attack on the ATCU van was at night. So even though we saw them concurrently, there was presumably time for him to get there.
If Andrew is somehow dead (and let's be honest, he's not), then Hunter better not ever show his face to May again. Even with Andrew alive she's going to be pissed at him. Sure hope they don't write out Bobby and Hunter from the main cast.
posted by 2ht at 7:07 AM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]