At long last Agents of SHIELD in “Hot Potato Soup” bring back the Koenig’s and allows the agents to work out that May has been replaced with a Life Model Decoy, aka LMD. It took Simmons to remember that Radcliffe did a complete brain scan of May when she was affected by the Darkhold “ghosts” earlier in the season.
Last week, Phil revealed that he gave the book to Billy as he is good at making things disappear. This week sees three of the Koenig’s who were all “raised” with LT Koenig (played by the brilliant Artemis Pebdani) who rules them all.
(It is all too tempting to paraphrase Tolkien here: One Koenig to rule them all, One Koenig to find them, One Koenig to bring them all, and in SHIELD bind them. Sorry…)
The Koenig storyline was interesting and the introduction of LT gave the show a strong, and powerful, female slant. Simmons, who works out the May issue, May the LMD, Aida, Quake and finally LT are all uber capable.
On a sidenote: Pebdani must be super busy right now. Playing Linda on FOX’s Son of Zorn and nipping in quickly to play the “leader of the Koenig’s” on ABC. She manages to pull off both roles effortlessly and has become a personal favorite.
This episode of Agents of SHIELD was impressive in terms of the LMD intricacy of plot and how each one empathizes with their original host. May, commiserating with Coulson while simultaneously trying to shoot him, and Radcliffe’s baiting of Fitz where the LMD tries to pull a Holden on him were highlights of the season.
The Koenig’s manage to help out to a degree but then blow it by giving the Darkhold to the wrong person. By the end of the episode the book has been lost, May is still MIA and The Superior believes, mistakenly, that Phil Coulson is behind all the issues in the Marvel-verse.
“Hot Potato Soup” had its fair share of laughs. The whole “who took my puppy” gag which prefaced Radcliffe’s realization that the Koenig they had in custody was the wrong one was truly funny.
Patton Oswalt killed it in this episode. Playing three versions of his character effortlessly and making each one funny, tough and “special.” The Quake crush was hysterical and it was fun to see Oswalt raising a little Koenig.
(Sidenote: Loved the opening scene in the arcade and the self balancing hoverboards. The sequence then turning into a brief shoot em up with the Russian baddies being confused about their target was the perfect followup.)
The May LMD storyline actually had us feeling sad for the fake May and the LMD Radcliffe was revealing, unlike’s Agent May’s “clone,” it knew it was not the “real deal.” This storyline just gets better and better. The fake Holden even knows about Fitz’s problems with daddy…
Agents of SHIELD airs Tuesdays on ABC.
CAST:
- Clark Gregg – Phil Coulson
- Ming-Na Wen – Melinda May
- Chloe Bennet – Daisy ‘Skye’ Johnson, aka Quake
- Elizabeth Henstridge – Jemma Simmons
- Iain De Caestecker – Leo Fitz
- Henry Simmons – Alphonso ‘Mack’ Mackenzie
- Natalia Cordova-Buckley – Elena ‘Yo-Yo’ Rodriguez
- John Hannah – Holden Radcliffe
- Jason O’Mara – Jeffery Mace
- Mallory Jansen – Aida
Guest starring Patton Oswalt as Sam/Billy/Thurston Koenig, Artemis Pebdani as LT Koenig, John Pyper-Ferguson as Terence Shockley and Zach McGowan as The Superior.
Mikes Film Talk 