This week’s episode of Agents of Shield had tensions running high, with multiple mini plots being intricately weaved alongside the main arc of the episode which all revolve around everyone’s favourite Kree test subjects: the Inhumans.
Guest starring on Inside Man are two recognisable faces from previous episodes in the show: General Talbot (Adrian Pasdar) and Creel (Brian Patrick Wade). The former has long been at odds with Coulson and the latter was a villain who worked for HYDRA, killing numerous SHIELD agents during his tenure with the organisation.
The episode sees the first global response to the perceived Inhuman threat, a secret meeting between delegates from various countries from around the world meet in Taiwan for a symposium on Inhumans to decide what path to take regarding them. This arc sees the usual suspects taking part in it, minus Daisy, Lincoln, Fitz & Simmons, who all remain behind at the bunker. Oddly enough, Mack was absent throughout the episode.
We see the beginning of a relationship between the ATCU and SHIELD through their respective leaders, Talbot and Coulson, a relationship that gets a rocky start as May, Coulson and Lincoln take down Creel who was tailing Coulson and Talbot (having actually ordered to do so by Talbot). While Creel has a huge role in the comics, his previous appearances in the show weren’t awe inspiring considering that in the comics he’s gone head to head with Thor, the Hulk and many other hard hitters. When Brian Patrick Wade reappeared this episode I was actually lost as to who he was, necessitating in a quick Google search to refresh my memory. Luckily it seems the writers have decided to rectify this mistake by giving him quite a bit of screen time this episode and actually eliciting a bit of sympathy towards him as we hear he’d been brainwashed by HYDRA and had reverted to doing good.
Of course not everyone takes to Creel so warmly; Hunter keeps an eye on Creel throughout the episode going as far as to go off mission to tail Creel and even smuggle in weapons into the symposium leading to the funniest lines in the episode: Bobbi’s “I love you” quickly followed by May’s “I don’t hate you quite as much”. May herself delivered quite a few hard hitting lines earlier when she states that Hunter doesn’t care about SHIELD and only cares about Bobbi, something I think is utter bollocks, considering that Hunter helped Coulson regain leadership of SHIELD last season, going against Bobbi while doing so.
Back to the symposium, Talbot, Coulson and crew solely attend it to uncover Mallick’s agent, with numerous funny moments between Talbot and Coulson, with the former labelling nearly everyone there as a potential spy for the most trivial of reasons. As tensions run high between the delegates with the Russian representative proposing to create a sanctuary for Inhumans in his country where they can live in peace. While it is very doubtful Inhumans would be safe being bunched up, it made me wonder if this could be the Inhuman version of Genosha, the Mutant homeland. Fans can see even more borrowing from the Mutant storyline as it is revealed that Creel’s blood has the potential to be a vaccine against terrigenesis, the process that turns humans into Inhumans by activating their genes. Much like a terrible X-Men movie, this revelation opens cracks between two prominent Inhumans, Daisy and Lincoln, with the former saying their powers are gifts and the latter calling it a disease, stating that some people should have a choice. We also see hints that Lincoln no longer seems to have total control over his powers, nearly killing Creel earlier in the episode and shooting bolts of electricity when angry.
The episode’s namesake is revealed to be Talbot himself who had been blackmailed by Mallick who walks in and besmirches Coulson before ordering both him and Talbot killed. Luckily here’s where Bobbi, Hunter and Creel enter, saving them with May rescuing Talbot’s son who had been kidnapped by Talbot, ending the episode with smiles all around.
But what about Ward/Hive? The past episode portrayed him with a certain disquieting aura, one where you were wary of Brett Dalton’s character but not overly concerned. In Inside Man however we get to see how terrifying he actually is. Convincing Giyera and Lucio (Gabriel Salvador) to fetch him some humans after Mallick despairs at the state of Hive’s weak body. The scene cuts away see Hive/Ward transforming into dust that swirls around the humans as they scream. We cut back at the end of the episode to see the bloodied and smoking skeletons of the victims, with Hive/Ward standing in between them, covered in ectoplasm and doing a solid reenactment of an Uruk-Hai being born in the pits of Isengard.
The episode ends with everyone mending fences, the usual Coulson and May chit chat and the revelation that Bobbi and Hunter are stowed on a plane that is carrying Mallick and the Russian delegate to an unknown destination.
