The Inhumans that appear in the Marvel comics and now have become fairly prominent on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has never been overly exciting. I always looked at them as a lower version of the X-Men. However their integration into the overall story arc for SHIELD and perhaps even within the Marvel Cinematic Universe has made them more appealing. Warning, spoilers ahead…
The one thing that the winter finale titled “Maveth” needed, was more in the way of action. It was surprisingly lacking considering all the pieces that were put in place from the previous episode. With Coulson making his way to the other dimension to hunt down Ward and save Fitz. And then you have Mack who is acting Director in Coulson’s absence, and has his hands full with Hydra as Daisy has a team of Inhumans at her disposal to help fend them off and keep whatever is on the other side of the portal where it belongs. Sounds great but overall it fizzles.
All indications were that this mid-season finale was supposed to bring a closure to the Coulson-Ward war. And in some ways it does but the showrunners cheated. Even the big SHIELD vs. Hydra showdown was, well, I’m still waiting to see that happen. The long and the short of it is this. Fitz finds astronaut Will Daniels as he promised to Simmons but we soon find out that Will was killed by “It” the ancient monster that lives on that dimension. It took his form to fool the others. Fitz ends up killing the creature using a flair gun. Meanwhile, Coulson and Ward finally square off and it was a little lackluster and anti-climatic. In the end, Coulson kills Ward with his bare artificial hand. Or did he? And yes, you read that right, Coulson showed no mercy and killed Ward. It will be interesting to see how this affects him going forward. With Ward “dead”, Coulson and Fitz make their way to the portal.
Back in our dimension, May, Bobbi and Lance wait to see if Mack, Daisy and the rest of the team have Coulson and Fitz back safely. Not overly surprising, they are all reunited. Fitz comforts Simmons who realizes that Will didn’t make it. Lots of hugs and congratulations go around. The SHIELD team looks to have scored a major victory. Now, cut to Hydra boss Gideon Malick, who had escaped the siege on his complex and is heading to unknown location by car. His car comes to a stop when he sees Ward standing in the middle of the road. Remember that “It” creature from the other side. Well, what ever it is, the organism survived and has a new host body in the form of Grant Ward. You just can’t keep a bad guy down.
I’ll be honest I wanted Ward to die so we can move on. He has become too much of the central bad guy and it’s not that Brett Dalton is a bad actor, it’s just that his conflict with SHIELD and in particular Coulson, has been going on for the better part of three seasons. Ward has become a bigger threat and harder to put down than some of Marvel’s worst villains. And after watching a character like Killgrave on Marvel’s Jessica Jones, that’s hard to believe. But I digress.
I called the showrunners cheaters because we were led to believe a final showdown and resolution to the Ward story was going to take place. They cheated because there was no finality to Ward’s story, only an evolution of it. A little disappointing overall but the big picture is, that season three has been this point, quite entertaining and I do look forward to its return in March. When it does return, we need to see more of the Inhumans and we need to see how Coulson deals with an “improved” Ward to faceoff against.
May the Dork be with you,
JPB
The Dork Knight
