Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Recap: ‘Failed Experiments’

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – 'Failed Experiments'

During this season of Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, the Girl of Steel herself, found herself exposed to red Kryptonite while aiding the National City firefighters in putting out a fire. As the effects of the red Kryptonite began to take hold, Kara became more aggressive, more manipulative, and even more sadistic. Her typical bright, unfailingly optimistic demeanor was warped leaving us forced to watch our hero not only alienate the people she loves, but worse still, revel in the power of tearing them down with her words. It was a dark moment for this character who up to that point had wanted nothing but to help others and inspire hope. The thing that made it the most painful, though, was not just seeing Supergirl betray her ideals, but understanding that – even though she would never dream of saying these things in her right mind – there was an honesty born out of deeply buried pain at the heart of what she was saying.

This week, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. attempts to do something similar. During the climax of the episode, Mack disobeys orders to confront Daisy – still a thrall to Hive – and attempts to connect with whatever part of her might be fighting against the influence of her Inhuman captor. But Daisy is not receptive. She not only refuses to join Mack, but she lashes out against him, saying that the familial dynamic of the team was a sham, that Bobby and Hunter left because they never cared for their fellow agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., that Coulson manipulated them all to further his own agenda. The only problem with this is that I don’t believe Daisy actually believes any of this.

When Kara lashed out at her sister, her words pierced like knives because we as an audience were made to understand the emotional truth behind these verbal attacks. As much as we had been shown the deep, earnest, honest love Kara and Alex share, we had also been shown how seeds of bitterness had been sown over time – how some part of Alex resented the way Kara fell out of the sky and into her life, in the process making her feel inferior to her newly adopted sister with godlike powers; how Kara recognized this jealousy, and was made to hide her powers from the world and how Alex in particular tried to warn her against ‘coming out’ as Supergirl. Even though Kara was not in her right mind, there was an ugly, painful truth to everything she said. With Daisy, though, having followed her on her journey with S.H.I.E.L.D. for three years now, we know that what she’s saying is false. Even if the emotions didn’t land, there was a big teary-eyed farewell for Bobby and Hunter, we’ve seen the genuine compassion Coulson has for Daisy, and what’s more, we know that Daisy has seen it to. When she says these things to Mack, they don’t hurt in the same way Kara’s attacks do, because unlike Kara’s grievances, none of these are true.

This is the same drum I’ve been beating all season: none of this works because there’s no solid foundation for us to anchor to. Everything is fluid and formless with wholly new situations and character dynamics being conjured out of thin air every single week. This episode that was clearly meant to be the emotional climax of the season lands with all the impact of a bag of cotton balls because none of the emotions are based on anything true.

But I realize I’m doing this review bass ackwards, starting at the end of the episode before covering the rest of it. So what happened on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this week? Well, the thrust of the episode this time is that Hive, along with the recently kidnapped Holden Radcliffe, are attempting to recreate the original Kree experiments that birthed the Inhumans millennia ago. To do that, they need Kree blood, and that’s where the do-dads unearthed from the ground beneath James’ trailer come in handy. It turns out that together these artifacts form a device that would summon the Kree to Earth in case the Inhumans ever attempted to seize power. So, with the device in hand, all Hive has to do is wait for the Kree to come and steal their blood for his experiments.

Meanwhile, back at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, Fitz/Simmons are working on an antidote to counteract Hive’s parasitic influence, but the two are somewhat at odds about the best way to proceed. Fitz realizes that they’ve gone about as far as they can without testing the serum on an Inhuman subject, but Simmons is unwilling to go to (In)human testing just yet because she has no idea what the side effects might be. The serum would compromise their immune system at the very least, and might even lead to death. Lincoln, being the well-intentioned dummy that he is, volunteers to test the serum, and when they turn him down, he sneaks into the lab to shoot himself up with the antidote.

Amidst all of this, Coulson has locked himself in his office, scouring hours upon hours of surveillance footage hoping to catch sight of Daisy. At long last, the facial recognition finally finds a match, putting Daisy in a deserted mining town in middle-of-nowhere, Wyoming. He assembles the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and they invade Hive’s Wyoming hideaway just as the Kree are responding to their invitation. There’s some fisticuffs between Inhumans and Kree, followed by the aforementioned confrontation between Mack and Daisy before the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are forced to retreat, having sabotaged Hive’s experiment, but ultimately failing to stop him or rescue Daisy from his clutches.

As has been the case for the past couple of weeks, this is a pretty decent episode if we’re grading on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. curve. It has good action, some fun super powered shenanigans, a guest appearance by the Kree, and even an eye-rollingly on-the-nose shout out to Captain America: Civil War (#ItsAllConnected). If all you want out of this show is your weekly measure of Marvel, this episode offers up everything you could possibly want, but for someone who wants more than that, I am left, well, wanting. Yeah, on some level it’s cool that we have a primetime show on a major network where the Kree can just casually show up like it’s no big deal, but when you set aside the unprecedented geekiness on display here, this show continues to be frustratingly hollow and emotionally dishonest.

The events of this week should have been a huge, emotional punch to the gut, but none of it worked because the show has not worked to earn any of it. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has not built real character arcs leading to this moment, so these supposedly big emotional blows have nothing to draw from. This kind of improvisational structure where character motivations and story arcs are inconsistent week-to-week undercuts any attempts to show tries to take at bigger payoffs like this one. But hey, who needs competent long form storytelling when you can wink at the audience with a throw away line in reference to a super hero movie coming out this Friday?

David Daut

David Daut

Though his taste has been described as ‘broken’, David maintains that the Fast & Furious series is the greatest cultural achievement of the modern era.