AGENTS OF SHIELD Season 4 Episode 14 Review: The Man Behind the Shield


Okay, so we’ve made a huge amount of head way here. It’s about time too since we’re down to only one episode left in the entire pod. The Superior is basically out of play, and we got some answers as to what’s going on. 

The most important thing is easily the fact that even Coulson thinks the Superior is a bad villain. “Cool origin story bro,” he tells him as they’re about to fight. Honestly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. The Superior has been less than interesting over the course of the past few episodes. His story being told in flashbacks, kind of, didn’t do much to change that. 

But the ending seemed to imply that Radcliffe has further use of him? I’m not sure what he can do at this point, since he was beaten pretty badly by Daisy. It also makes him seem like more of a henchman than a main villain, which would make sense for someone as boring as him. 

The flashbacks were fairly interesting, if only because they helped color a bit of Coulson’s relationship with May back when they were both less experienced. May’s poor wig aside, it was nice to see her joke around a bit and actually appear, happy? Their chemistry on the show has always been strong, so seeing them flirt back and forth was nice. I can’t help but wonder how things will change for them once they get the real May back. 

The rest of the episode involved some cool action scenes, trying to track down Mace after his capture last week, and a brief appearance from Radcliffe. We learn the Framework is based off a SHIELD training tool, and that the Darkhold is being used to make it even stronger. I’m still not sure what Radcliffe’s ultimate goal is. 

But the ending might give us a bit of a clue. By the end of the episode, it’s discovered that Mace, Daisy, Mack, and Coulson were all switched with LMD versions of themselves. My assumption is that Mace was switched out a long time ago, so his injuries would look real. The others were all taken somewhere in the middle of the mission, by Aida, I have to assume. 

Is Radcliffe’s goal to put all of his friends in the framework, where he can craft them a perfect world? However noble that may be, he’s funded terrorism, and gotten countless people killed. So that’s bound to come back to bite him. If nothing else this means that by the end, the Watchdogs will be finished, and we’ll hopefully be done with this whole hatred of Inhumans thing.

Written by Peter Freeman, TV & Animation Writer -- Click to read Peter's posts


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