Self Control – After discovering AIDA swapped their key team members for LMDs on the last mission Fitz and Simmons find themselves alone with no one to trust leading to a desperate and explosive escape from the Shield base. Meanwhile AIDAs programming to safeguard The Framework takes an unforeseen turn.
So after last week’s ending Coulson, Daisy, Mace and Mack have all been swapped out for LMDs by AIDA with only Fitz and Simmons knowing their secret. That was great but... after due consideration.... I must degree this week is the show’s best ever episode! If you want epic fights, nail biting tension and high drama you’re in the right place. It’s half the episode we expected; a paranoid and claustrophobic affair of fear, suspicion and not knowing who to trust while the key LMD figures press their position of control. Yet the other is an absolutely kick ass action affair as the show drops the subtleties for all out humans Vs LMDs war. If might torch what looked like a promising slow burning setup but it’s so good you won’t care. It’s a clear statement for the show’s quality this season. It could easily have taken the obvious safe route but instead took a riskier option out of a belief in pushing forwards and bettering itself. Jed Whedon (writing and his first time directing this episode) you drink for free in my town. Not only is it an incredibly emotionally charged affair but Whedon lets his inner Sci-Fi geek run wild on screen to some wonderful results. From a play on I, Robot to the best homage to Terminator 2 in recent memory with Jason O’Mara’s really working the Robert Patrick steel faced look out of Mace. Not to mention a few nods to The Wachowskis as Mace and Coulson converse like Agents of The Matrix and the slow-mo blast effects. This episode is an utter delight of geeky fan-servicing that deserves to be watched again and again.
In terms of story the episode doesn’t put a foot wrong. Fitz and Simmons have grown to become the most lovable pairing on the show with meaning and purpose behind their connection; so placing that in danger immediately pulls us into the events. We even get some brief references to their romance as fuel towards their motivation. Next up it’s really well paced from moments of calm and stillness working on the themes of trust in tense, “how do I know it’s you?”, stand offs to intense bursts of drama action with genuine moments of shock and surprise. Then there’s the use of the existing LMD May to show the contrast against these fully self aware new LMDs. For the <insert high number>th time this season Ming Na Wen is outstanding as her character arc this season reaches yet another level of complexity. She’s now the human consciousness within a machine forced to chose a side in this conflict. Her final scene of the episode is particularly special, “Are you afraid to die, because I am”. The smaller AIDA aspects of the story were also nice and efficient covering a fair bit of exposition while still producing some regarding surprises. Everything about The Framework is related well as we see the captured human characters are lined up in their modules like Borg drones with better skin. Finally there’s the midly graphic and the right kind of disturbing exploration of the friend against friend implications. Elizabeth Henstridge gets so distraught over having to go psycho on a friendly face that you just want to hug her until everything goes away. That also extends to the LMDs to as we see them exploiting the emotional connections during combat for some truly shocking moments of cruelty. It makes them feel the more evil and satisfying when any get taken down.
The final montage scene teases plenty of juicy setups (and a few returning faces) of the next “What If...” episode; seeing everyone’s biggest regret fixed within The Framework. It’s being pledged as the beginning of the season’s 3rd story pod (its title carries a spoiler, look it up afterwards) making this week an appropriately weighted finale. The name also implies that we could be spending a lot of time within the reality of The Framework but many aspects of the LMD story look set to continue.... But now the show is on break for 6 weeks! Find yourself something to plug into and pass that time as quickly as possible.