Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4 (LMD) episodes 13-14 review - BOOM!/The Man Behind the Shield

BOOM!

So… explosions are cool, right?

In this episode, Coulson and Mack have one lead to take down Radcliffe and rescue May, finding the woman the LMD was based on. Meanwhile Senator Nadeer is killed and S.H.I.E.L.D. are faced with a new inhuman threat, one that’s ready to lead them into a Watchdog trap.

So, the main thrust of the episode, the inhuman threat is fairly standard fair. I could compare it to an episode of the Flash, except without all the things that made me stop watching the Flash. What I like is the focus on Mace, he’s been relatively quiet the last few episodes despite showing up now and then so it’s good to see him get a bit more spotlight. His wondering about his place in the group now, especially in the light of the news that the serum that gives him his powers is potentially lethal, is interesting. It’s unfortunate really that nothing about this arc stands out, it was blatantly obvious that he was going to sacrifice himself for something and he did and ended up captured.

So for the rest of the story, that guy I can’t remember the name of has discovered he’s an inhuman with the power of exploding things. He kills Nadeer, thank god, I don’t think I could last another episode with her as the focus. And thanks to cleverness of Fitz, Simmons and Daisy they capture him, leaving only an exploded office and the death of Senator Nadeer to explain.

The Coulson story was honestly the more interesting part of it. He and Mack find the human that Dr Radcliffe modelled Ada after. Her name is Agnes, she and Radcliffe were an item but he couldn’t fix her brain tumour. After Coulson decided to be rude at first, he changed tact and was honest, and it worked. Should’ve started with the honesty tactic, it really worked.

She agreed and made contact with Radcliffe but he tells her that he really does have a way to save her this time and ultimately, she goes with him willingly, leaving the trail cold. It’s an ultimately tragic ending and it goes to humanise Radcliffe and his motivations further. 

He places her mind in a simulated world as her physical body dies, the same world that May is in, although given the ending could be on the verge of escaping. I think an episode really needs to be dedicated to that soon which is good as contrary to my thoughts last week, it does seem like they’re going to try and stretch to the full 8 episodes.

My feelings on the watchdogs and particularly on the superior haven’t changed.

This episode is slower than I expected it to be but it was never too slow and delivered where it mattered as the team seems to do most of the time.

Rating 7.5/10

The Man behind the shield

So the winner of the most misleading title is…

Yeah, you’d presume a title like that would mean the episode has a primary focus on Jeffrey Mace who was Captain America for a short time or something. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. He appears in the episode but I get the impression Aida replaced him with an LMD the entire time.

By now I suspect you’re familiar with my thoughts on the Watchdogs and the Superior in particular. Yeah, they try and give Ivanov a backstory but… like Coulson, I don’t care. The best I can say about that origin is that it gives more backstory for the development of May and Coulson. But it looks like their arc is over for now as they’re just pawns in the master plan of AIDA and Radcliffe now.

It seems Radcliffe has been busy with the Darkhold. His little Framework is piggybacking on things across the globe, making it nigh impossible to track and yes, we find out here it was based on one of Fitz’ designs and Mack acts like a complete pr*ck about it. Thankfully, Simmons is around to provide Fitz a more comforting summary with a scientific perspective of her own.

Ivanov leads team S.H.I.E.L.D. on a scavenger hunt ultimately leading to the main base of operations for the watchdogs. Look, I don’t really have a lot to say about this. The watchdogs are only tolerable in the shadows of other threats. In this case, it’s Aida and she has a plan of her own, that might be Radcliffe’s, I’m not really sure anymore.

So, we end with a few confrontations. Coulson confronts Ivanov and Ivanov does nothing interesting and gets his ass handed to him by Daisy, of course. Think he may still be alive but only just and AIDA probably plans to put him in the Framework.

Radcliffe’s barely in this episode so nothing to talk about there and… I can’t help but feel I’m forgetting something. That ending, holy sh*t that ending, I can’t wait to watch next week’s episode. What? I’m not spoiling

This episode was good but the focus on Ivanov as a main villain didn’t pan out.

Rating 7/10

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