Agents of SHIELD Season 4 Episode 15 Review: Self Control

It took iv years, but I think Curiosity's Agents of SHIELD may take finally achieved near perfection.

For iv seasons now, Marvel Studios' inaugural series has hovered effectually greatness just never quite achieved that milestone. Recollect about it, when Agents of SHIELD began, it was a prove that connected the story of the likable SHIELD agent dude that Loki killed in The Avengers , and that was pretty much information technology. People were expecting the ABC actioner to exist an extension of the Marvel films, but it soon become apparent that Agents of SHIELD would exist movie-adjacent at best.

Since then, Agents of SHIELD has introduced some new concepts into the MCU such as the Inhumans and Ghost Rider while developing HYDRA into a more than multi-layered threat. Simply the series never quite hit that ballsy apex that the Marvel flick releases seem to blast so effortlessly.

Well, tonight it did.

While Agents of SHIELD has always had a difficult time finding its narrative purpose, and information technology's even had a more difficult fourth dimension finding grade A-villains, it never really had a trouble introducing enjoyable protagonists. Coulson, May, Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy have grown into beloved Marvel icons thanks to season after season of graphic symbol-building conflicts. I didn't really know how much I love these people—no, these heroes—until tonight's episode. This evening, some of these characters fought for their very lives against LMD doubles of their friends, and this reviewer realized how much he would miss these characters if they were lost in this battle.

Last week, it seemed similar Coulson, Mace, Mack, and Daisy were replaced past LMD duplicates. Well, information technology turns out that this episode all the same had some cards left to play. For example, information technology wasn't Daisy that was replaced by AIDA and Radcliffe. I overlooked information technology last week, only how was AIDA going to replicate Daisy's Inhuman Quake powers? Reply: she wasn't, merely there was even so iv LMDs inside SHIELD, and this is where things got tense.

Daisy is non an LMD, merely there are four remaining LMD infiltrators. Last week, it looked like Fitz and Simmons would accept to fight for their lives against the LMDs. That statement would be half-right, because information technology was Simmons alone that would have to do battle with her friends' android doppelgangers because it is revealed that Fitz is an LMD!

This is where the hour packs a potent punch. Since the first season of the series, it really has been Fitz and Simmons that have been the beating center of Agents of SHIELD . The two take fought through endless battles, they take literally been separated by galaxies, and they accept survived crippling injuries to find honey in each other's arms. With the LMDs inside of SHIELD, information technology is that well-earned dear that is in so much danger. Every bit a fan, one just actually wants to meet Fitz and Simmons' romance survive, and this week, that love is in more danger than it has possibly e'er been. So you're rooting for Fitz and Simmons. Yous're pulling for them every second to find a way to beat the LMDs, and so, the rug is pulled every bit Fitz reveals himself as a Cylon, er, I mean LMD.

And the best part is that when this is revealed, Simmons is of grade horrified, but she most instantly fights back and stabs the electronic shit of her lover's robotic double. In that one moment of bravery and startling violence, Simmons defines herself as a woman of action and equally a hero. She is a gentle and refined woman who loves deeply, but when danger to SHIELD is well-nigh, even if that danger looks exactly like her soulmate, Gemma Simmons stabs the bejeezus out of it.

Just Simmons is not alone in her struggle. Over again, Daisy is not an LMD, but there are still Daisy LMDs fix to go. Happily, for our heroes, Daisy discovers those LMDs in a very Westworld like scene and takes the fight to the 'bots. She teams with Simmons and dedicates herself to battle for the dear of Fitz and Simmons. The fight between Daisy and Mack and Coulson might very well be the most heart in throat moment in Agents of SHIELD history. Daisy without her quake harness and gloves versus two robot killers that wear the face of her all-time friends. And Daisy wins past shaking robot Mack apart. Robot Coulson survives but this moment serves a reminded but how powerful and capable Daisy has become. A long manner from that snarky estimator hacker from season i, huh?

Information technology's hard to comprehend every moment that makes this week's Agents of SHIELD the show's finest hr. I'll but say that this was Jeb Whedon'south directorial debut on SHIELD , and man, did he ace every freaking frame. Every struggle seemed and then important to both plot and character, and what else tin can yous ask for?

But how do Daisy and Simmons escape the LMDs yous inquire? Information technology seems that one LMD discovers her humanity. May is then well programmed to replicate the real Melinda May that she cannot overcome her sense of duty to her friends and to SHIELD. Robot May blows herself and the base up, allowing Daisy and Simmons to escape. Amazing, powerful stuff.

In that location are some developments on the villain said of things every bit it looks similar we must bid goodbye to Doctor Radcliffe. Radcliffe was in the Framework when AIDA pulls him out and tells him about Simmons and Daisy's escape from the LMDs. She and so proceeds to tell Radcliffe of a paradox that exists in her programming. She's supposed to protect the Framework and Radcliffe at all costs, only Radcliffe and his stormy emotions present a constant threat to the Framework should he have the whim to shut the Matrix like simulacrum downwards. So AIDA kills Radcliffe but plugs him into the Framework moments before his expiry. Now, the dying md can live a lifetime in the Framework while he bleeds out in reality. Heady stuff, that.

However Radcliffe isn't the only player that goes in the Framework. You lot idea this episode had information technology all earlier? Well, become this: Daisy and Simmons enter the Framework to bring the whole thing crashing down. Earlier the episode ends, we go to see what each amanuensis is doing in the electronic paradise. Information technology's all very Black Mercy as we see that Mack is a family human being, Coulson is a teacher, Fitz is a successful and rich, Simmons is dead (!), May is the head of – HYDRA-, and Daisy is living in blissful harmony with, no, non Lincoln, but Gant F'n Ward. Yes, I tin can't take it either and it's going to exist a long hiatus until April.

Between the death of the LMDs, the decease of Radcliffe, the creation of an android Superior, the revelations of the Framework, and the non-stop activeness this week, one has to say that "Self Control" will go downwardly as the best episode of Agents of SHIELD in the four-year history of the show.

For the first time since the mid-flavour break, I didn't even miss Ghost Rider.