Agents of SHIELD “Boom” serves up a heavy dose of irony. There are several instances where certain characters get their fair share of karma courtesy of the plot lines on offer. Shockley, after breaking the terrigen crystal developed by Radcliffe, is affected instead of Senator Nadeer as expected.
As a further bit of irony, however, Shockley’s first act as an inhuman is to explode, blasting the horrible Ellen Nadeer into oblivion. This episode shows who Radcliffe based Aida on, a real-life love interest who was dying of a brain tumor.
It was interesting to see that Holden Radcliffe was once, like most comic book villains, a good guy who wanted to use science to save the love of his life from death by tumor. Agnes, the template for Aida, professes to hate Radcliffe for deserting her.
Coulson talks her into making contact with her former love in order to save May. Meanwhile, Shockley’s mission turns him into living bomb. Quake practices on how to neutralize the newest inhuman and Jeffrey Mace learns that the facsimile of the Captain America serum is killing him.
Later, the “leader” of SHIELD will sacrifice himself to stop The Superior from interfering. Mace injects himself with the serum via his new suit and is captured by the Russian big bad.
The very act of using himself as a distraction serves up yet another dose of irony since his inadvertent act of heroism got him the job as a faux Captain America in the first place.
Agnes unsurprisingly chooses to return to Radcliffe when he promises her a Matrix-like existence in his re-created world. She is “downloaded” into the verse where there is no brain tumor. Unfortunately, the woman dies shortly after being loaded into the world.
Radcliffe explains to the Agnes’ replacement (Aida) that it was always going to happen. Her brain, however, lives on in the new re-creation, the same manufactured world that May is currently residing it.
The implication is that May too will die if she is not rescued soon. One interesting point is whether or not a replication of May will live on in this new world even after she has been rescued.
By the end of the episode Shockley is still determined to help The Superior bring down SHIELD and the rest of the inhumans. He escapes from the omnijet, after being shoved into a containment pod and ejected before he can blow everyone on board to pieces.
Mace has been captured by The Superior. Somewhat annoyingly, that Captain America serum does not render him immune to high powered cattle prods.
This is an interesting development in the show. In the Marvel verse Mace does actually take on the role of Captain America for a short while. Daisy, aka Quake, tells Jeffrey that he is not the new “Cap.” One wonders if this spell in captivity will somehow change things for Mace in that department.
As a sidenote, kudos to Mallory Jansen for knocking it out of the park in this episode and the storyline on Phil Coulson and his search for May was spot on. Clark Gregg never fails to deliver.
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 John Pyper-Ferguson as Terence Shockley and Zach McGowan as The Superior.
