‘Agents of SHIELD’ season 4, episode 15 review: The Brett Dalton surprise; Framework follies
If there was one action that we would use to describe everything that we saw tonight on “Agents of SHIELD,” it is a jaw hitting the floor. This. Was. Crazy. Was it fun at times? Sure. Did it make complete sense? We’re not altogether sure on that.
Still, the twists that we saw at the end of the night were on another level, and some of the riskiest that we’ve seen the show take on since the very beginning. How else do you explain a twist that involves everyone entering the Framework, Aida seemingly separating Radcliffe from his body further, and Aida also giving Anton a free body that she can use to do his bidding while storing his mind somewhere else.
Was all of this effective? For the sake of shock value, absolutely. This is a show that is playing to its base, and it absolutely did that by paying off so many stories. This episode is not going to recruit many new viewers — they’d be completely lost — but for those who have been watching and really care about these people, this was satisfying and then some. Also, it gave you a wonderful twist with Grant Ward. When Daisy Johnson awoke in the Framework, in her attempt to retrieve all of her friends, it turns out that she was with him! Meanwhile, Coulson was now a teacher, and Fitz seems to be some sort of playboy.
Maybe you can compare the Framework to Earth-2 or something else if you really want it to; we don’t care about the similarities between this twist and any other on TV just because it’s going to be fun to see Clark Gregg, Chloe Bennet, and the rest of the cast in this setting. It’ll allow them to do some incredibly-fun, interesting things, and we hope that the show slow things down now and chooses to tell a methodical story more so than something that looks to tie up every loose end all at once.
Oh, and as crazy as the episode tonight was, the video below via Marvel’s official Twitter page has us as excited as anything else — Ward is back for his fourth incarnation! We like to think that this version is different than any other.
No doubt, “Agents of SHIELD” may have gone a tad too twisted tonight for anyone’s good, given that the story was somewhat hard to follow. It made up for it by telling a satisfying ending, and setting the stage for a conclusion to season 4 (and possibly) the series like no other. Grade: B.
To look more at the future of the series, you don’t have to look any further than the link here. (Photo: ABC.)