Agents of SHIELD - 'Among Us Hide...' and 'Chaos Theory'

Punching therapy.

So, here I am back with Agents of SHIELD for a bit, as everything else wraps up.

This episode, it's all about work therapy. With Hunter having endangered Andrew and fucked the kill shot, he's on the bench and May taps Morse to help her bring down Ward, despite her not having a clean bill of health yet. They work on tracing young Von Strucker, who has fled to a friend of his father's, Gideon Malick, 'the man all the others were afraid of,' whom I totally failed to realise was one of the World Security Council assholes from The Avengers. May notes that Bobbi is quick to use non-violent methods and suspects she's getting a little gunshy, urging her to not only get back on the horse, but to punch the horse in the face and kick it in the nads when it's down.

Doughnut therapy.

Conversely, Hunter's anger management issues are subject to some stakeout therapy when he joins Mac and Daisy to tail the ACTU's strike leader, suspecting that he may be Lash. This is not entirely successful, as Hunter hops out the van and kidnaps Mr Man so they can run a blood test, which proves that he isn't an Inhuman at all. This is because, as May learns when they finally reach Von Strucker, who is bleeding out from some HYDRA inflicted injuries after Malick shockingly betrays him, Lash is actually Andrew.

Also, Coulson bonds with Rosalind and SHIELD discover that the ACTU keep Inhumans in suspension while they look for a cure. Ethical debates ahoy.

Therapy therapy (with a view to punching a hole in your heart therapy later.)

So to 'Chaos Theory', in which Fitz stumbles across Simmons' admissions of her feelings for him when she asks him to recover her phone's hard drive, and May goes after Andrew to try to talk him down.

Lincoln comes in to warn the team that he's worked out Lash must be inside SHIELD, using Jiaying's ledger to track the Inhumans. As everything falls together, he also warns them that Inhumans don't shapeshift. Andrew, who was exposed to the Mist because SHIELD can't do a basic safety assessment on the possessions of a known paranoid crazy with access to bioweapons, is still in the process of turning into Lash, but Lash is the person he will eventually be.

Andrew takes May captive and explains that he was drawn to be near other Inhumans, and then to kill them. He insists that he only kills 'bad' Inhumans, although a sharp observer would note that what he means is that he only kills Inhumans that he doesn't know. shit kicks off when Lincoln goes after Andrew, but it all works out in the end and they get him into a containment unit. Lincoln ponders a permanent gig with SHIELD. Coulson and Rosalind knock boots, and it is revealed that she was setting him up for a meeting with Malick.

The villain I don't care about gets his face-to-face with the villain I'd forgotten
about.

Increasingly, I'm convinced that Agents of SHIELD, and in fact a lot of US shows, would benefit from a 10- or 13-episode season, because there's a fair amount of sog and I still have most of the season to get through. In quality terms, more focus is always good, although I suppose that it's less advertising revenue and maybe less appealing for a buying network. As it is, nice-guy metal manipulating Inhuman hasn't been in the series for several episodes, which takes both some punch from the threat to his life and some wow from the control he has learned.

And I still don't care enough about Ward to respect him as the main antagonist.