Synopsis of 3×14: Agent Mack and his brother step in when a radical group called the Watchdogs plan to eliminate the Inhumans; Simmons finds a powerful chemical compound.
Rating: ★★★½☆☆
With the loss of such great talent as Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood, you’d really think that this show that I love to hate on would get worse, but this week’s Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD really hit its stride and focused in on two characters who have been lacking any depth this season. Mack, who has kind of been pushed to the backburner — so much so that, he didn’t even really personally say goodbye to his good friends on the team when they left — finally gets brought up to the forefront this week.
With guest star Gaius Charles playing his brother Reuben Mackenzie, we’re allowed a look into the life of a SHIELD agent who has to juggle the job and family. It’s a surprisingly insightful perspective, given the fact that Agents of SHIELD so often just tells one side of a story, touting complexity while telling their story in absolutes.
In addition to that, he’s pretty much the only member of SHIELD’s inner circle to have family that is directly affected by Inhumans — no word on Fitz or Simmons’ family across the pond. With everyone pretty much flying solo, Mack’s attachment to his brother is something that is actually at risk with him working at SHIELD. Yes, the team is like family, but Reuben is actually family. It’s easy to live in the shadows for someone without outside attachments, but Mack is forced to lie to his family about what he does, which can ultimately endanger them should he be pulled into a mission like he was in this episode.
“Watchdogs” allows some general opinion to be pulled into the mix, it’s not just SHIELD vs Hydra, or Coulson vs Hive, or even ATCU vs Inhumans, it’s combating the issue of the unknown. The alien. Indeed, when Coulson confronts hologram-Blake, Blake pokes many holes in the essential function of SHIELD. It’s done nothing to actually protect the world, potentially bringing more terror and endangering more lives in the last few years than it’s helped.
While it’s safe to say that in general the Avengers and SHIELD are trying to do good in the world, one might argue that all the good they’re doing and all the people they’re saving are really just victims of problems that they created. “Watchdogs” does great things with the argument about whether SHIELD is doing good or bad, and it’s one of the most interesting parts of the episode. Hearing Coulson finally get some opposition — and from someone who is just as seasoned in SHIELD — was refreshing.
Especially when it came to the topic of the season, which is SHIELD using Inhumans in their team aka the Secret Warriors. The tit-for-tat that Blake has with Coulson lays the argument out pretty cleanly for the audience, “I signed up to protect the world from these dangerous alien elements.” “We still do that.” “The hell you do. You use them, unleash them, you’ve got those freaks working for you.”
Not only do people have a right to be afraid of the unknown, but up until now we haven’t really addressed the issue of Inhumans to the public. If this is such a widespread issue, someone should be getting in front of this before it comes to an explosive head.
Regardless of the philosophical debate, the episode all culminated in Lincoln “sort of” following Coulson’s orders and gaining his trust by hitting hologram-Blake with his powers but not killing him. Seriously, I know it was a test about Lincoln’s judgement call, but it was kind of a shaky plot line at best. Then again, I didn’t have to suffer through Lincoln and Daisy’s cripplingly lackluster romance, so I guess we’ll take that as a win this episode.
Seeing him get schooled by Coulson was enjoyable in a laugh out loud kind of way. I’ve got so little love for where they’ve taken Coulson’s character that hearing him militantly yell, “Don’t interrupt me, you got it? You haven’t earned that right yet,” incited nothing but laughter from me. What that said to me was that once you get to a certain place on Coulson’s personal list of favorites, you can disobey his orders, interrupt him, go against his plans, and pretty much receive little to no punishment.
Don’t agree with me? Well, let’s just take a look at Daisy this week. She kind of went off the reservation, and decided to use more than a little brute force when taking on the Watchdogs. Talk about taking things personal. Daisy uses her old Skye-hacker skills — I call them Skye-hacker skills, since they so often just default to her using her fists or her Quakes that when she uses the computer it reminds me of simpler times — to seek out allies of the Watchdogs and find out where they are meeting.
And while the Watchdogs are undeniably terrorists and bullies — preying on people’s fears and attacking ATCU bases — Daisy doesn’t do much better in this episode. She’s willing to shake down random people for information about the location of the Watchdogs, while Fitz and Mack watch helplessly as she takes the mission into her own hands.
The comparison of SHIELD to gestapo is heavy handed, but rightly so when Daisy goes and uses her powers on unarmed civilians in order to strong arm tips from them with Fitz tagging along and pointing a gun at them. I want you to keep in mind that she hasn’t really received any reprimand for what she’s done this entire episode. She takes Fitz with her and terrorizes an unarmed civilian in the middle of the street, which I would say is actually playing into all of the negative things people feel about Inhumans.
Her rash decisions continue as they find one of the Watchdog hideouts and instead of obeying Coulson’s orders, she decides to attack the Watchdogs. This sets off a chain of events with Fitz being hit by an implosion bomb. Simply their arrival at the hideout endangers Reuben and Mack, who are forced to fight off the Watchdogs, who assume that Mack is the Inhuman because… he looks intimidating? (I’m not going to say that that logic is stupid or anything but…) Anyways, Reuben and Mack safely fend off their homestead, with Mack victoriously wielding a makeshift shotgun-axe (!!!) and he gains favor with his brother again.
But, when they finally figure out the bomb and get it off, it’s kind of murky about what happens to Daisy. She’s kind of decided her own orders all episode, but I doubt she’ll get anything more than a slap on the wrist for what she did. After all, nothing but the public opinion was damaged. And with Malick puppetting the Watchdogs, I’m sure they’ll end up just being unknowing foot soldiers for Hydra.
So, although I actually really enjoyed this episode this week, it’s up in the air whether any of the discussions held in the episode will actually have any clout when it gets lost within the mysticism that is Hive and Hydra next week on “Spacetime.”