Mikes Film Talk

Agents of SHIELD may just have hit a series best with this episode. Spacetime features some of the best fight sequences ever, and each one has a woman as the attacker. While May’s practice runs were pretty spectacular, the “one take” fight work of Daisy Johnson’s rocked the rooftops. There was also another Terminator reference, this time from Phil Coulson to Lincoln.

“You’re off the team.”

This is Coulson’s response when Lincoln admits to having never watched The Terminator. The last time the show made a reference to the Cameron film was when Grant Ward/Hive devoured all those people to power up. His pose and the way Hive stood up, screamed Terminator.

Agents of SHIELD found an inhuman who can not only see the future but causes the people he touches to also see it.  At the start of the episode the man touches a shop owner who rushes to call Daisy, he also cryptically states that “this is where I die.”

When Daisy meets Charles she gets a vision that shows the entire team in chaos and Coulson shooting her.  The inhuman is then kidnapped by Hydra and the shop owner does indeed die right there.

Ward/Hive (Brett Dalton) is now, after he ingested all those people, a sort of zen leader who dispenses wisdom to Gideon Malick (Powers Boothe). Later, after they take over a company for their product research technology, Ward gives Gideon the exoskeleton suit and urges Malick to kill the company’s former owner.

Daisy is benched and May rehearses how to bypass the scenario in Daisy’s head by practicing over and over the battle in the security room.  Fitz believes that the training will be circumvented and that May will not go at all.

He is proven right when Andrew Garner/Lash (Blair Underwood) reappears and May heads to see him.  This leaves Daisy to breach the security suite of the building where Charles, Malick and Hive are. 

Cue one brilliant fight sequence a’la Oldboy (all in one shot) where Daisy kicks serous arse and Phil shots not his agent but a baddy behind a two way mirror.  She then goes to save Charles but is tackled by Gideon who is still in the exoskeleton outfit. He beats her badly and just as it looks like she may lose, Charles touches Malick who then strikes the man.

Daisy uses her powers to fling him across the roof and into a metal outcropping. During the time that Charles touches Gideon  we are not privy to his vision. Whatever it is must be bad as later Giyera tells Hive that Malick sounded scared.

This was a cracking episode. The element of “time travel” as it were, combined with the “death” of Andrew to Lash almost in front of May’s eyes along with the shaking of Malick’s confidence added an extra level to the fight heavy show.

Sidenote: Coulson was not the only one who got to make a pop culture reference. Malick also gets to put his oar in the water by telling Hive that when Gideon  saw him before he:

“Looked like an extra in the ‘Dawn of the Dead’”

It is equally unsettling to see Hive acting like a sort of evil “Yoda” (but without the backward speech pattern) who seems to know all too well what Malick desires.

Lincoln, who winds up bloody and on the floor in the vision and during the assault, makes clear his feelings about where Coulson stands with him.  He tells the head of SHIELD that if he shoots Daisy he will kill him.

Sadly, at the end to the episode, Charles dies. Before the man goes he asks Daisy to promise to look after his daughter. Malick escapes and then calls Giyera to complain that he should be by his side.

Agents of SHIELD: Spacetime has moved things forward brilliantly. We are treated to another Terminator reference and the sight of both May and Daisy going through their paces was exciting and fun. Like Coulson says in the training scenario

“Wish we could practice every moment of our life like this.”

We do too Phil. We do too.

Agents of SHIELD airs Tuesdays on ABC.