‘Agents of SHIELD’ season 3, episode 10 (winter finale) review: Coulson’s killer (and heartbreaking) move

Coulson -Over the past couple of weeks, the entire cast and crew of Marvel’s “Agents of SHIELD” have hyped up a winter finale like no other, one with shockers that are so big that they will leave your head spinning.

Once we started to see the alien city, we were starting to understand why. This was only made worse when we learned that Will was not really Will anymore, and that Grant Ward may have finally made one move too many. In a stunning move given his trajectory on the show Coulson killed Ward, a man he once cared for and trusted greatly. Images of Rosalind played through his head as he did so, knowing that he had lost someone dear because of this man’s actions. There was no turning back, and nothing else that could be done for him in order to leave Maveth with Fitz. The entire journey brought them to this place, and Phil finally felt as if he could move forward … or could he?

In what has become a true staple of modern broadcast television, “Agents of SHIELD” just couldn’t bear to kill a major character off. Ward somehow resurfaced at the end of the episode, standing in front of Gideon Malick’s car looking all undead and paralyzed.

The explanation here seems to very much be that Ward is the new human host for the creature on Maveth, and this could prove to be dangerous and complicated for all parties to come. What we wonder is just how much of Ward’s memory and soul he has access with. Our guess is that it’s quite a lot, given that “Will” was able to at least put on a facade for a while.

Even though we cannot say that too much happened beyond all of the great Grant Ward drama at the end of the winter finale, we still have to say that this was a great, emotional episode. We just hope that we are setting up something with Brett Dalton’s character to make this later sort-of-no-kill something that doesn’t feel like a cop-out. Grade: B+.

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