Agents of SHIELD - 'The Team' and 'The Singularity'

Secret Warriors.

Another mini-binge for Agents of SHIELD, leaving me with, IIRC, four episodes of Season 3 to get through.

Daisy and Lincoln activate the Secret Warriors Initiative, calling in Yo-Yo and Gutierrez to assault HYDRA's base and rescue the rest of the SHIELD team, currently besieged in the rear compartment of the Bus. This they achieve in swinging style, but the victory is marred as a captured Gideon Malick reveals to Coulson that the ancient Inhuman - Alveus, or Hive - can control other Inhumans through the use of his parasites. The team lock down the base and try to contain the Secret Warriors, which utterly destroys Gutierrez and Rodriguez's willingness to be a part of it, even when Lincoln is unmasked as the traitor. Lincoln is secured, only for Daisy to reveal to him that she is the infected party. When he refuses to leave with her, she steals the Kree orb and a box of Terrigen crystals, smashes up the hangar with her powers and then flits to meet up with Hive.

"Do we always wear lab coats?"

In 'The Singularity', SHIELD struggle to recover. Lincoln - strapped into a 'murder vest' just in case - accompanies May and Coulson to contact Multiple Redhead. She turns out to have already been suborned by Hive, to the point that she is willing to shoot one of her own duplicates rather than let her be captured. Although clearly rattled, the 'original' Alisha assures Hive that she feels grand. Still one step ahead, Hive and co then visit lippy Australian James to retrieve the other part of the Kree orb, which Hive says is the only thing that can destroy him (although my money is still on Lash being the anti-Hive.) They also turn James into an Inhuman with the power to make things explodey.

Fitz, Simmons and Mack infiltrate a transhuman club in search of dodgy scientist Holden Radcliffe, who might just be able to cure Hive's infectees (or 'Daisy' as Coulson calls them, until May pulls him up on his hypocrisy for treating Lincoln as expendable and Daisy as untouchable.) They make a good sell, but then Daisy and Hive show up to nab Radcliffe. They both insist that they don't want to hurt anyone, and Daisy tells Fitz that she doesn't need saving, or pity, anymore. Hive channels Will's memories to get at Simmons, who shoots him several times, because she's awesome. Although acknowledging that it is a line than can never be recrossed, Fitz and Simmons have sex.

D'aaaw. Please don't kill them.

Coulson and May find James's trailer booby trapped, but are saved by Coulson's new toy; an energy shield built into his hand. It is very cool. Alongside all of this, the ATCU sweeps up what is left of HYDRA, but it seems small potatoes now, as Hive gathers and grows his army, and uses Malick's money to buy a small town to house them in.

Hive is really, really creepy. Not as creepy as Kilgrave, perhaps, but in a similar way and not just slightly. His combination of mind control parasites and pulling up the memories of the dead is bad enough, but his subjects also seem to be inspired to do things, as if being directly controlled; Daisy, as soon as she is zapped, knows that she needs to retrieve the orb. This suggests a level of genuine 'hive mind', although notably Hive did not know that Daisy was no longer calling herself Skye, which suggests that the link may be transmit only, or entirely one way. Any which way you slice it, I have an intense dislike of anyone who drugs people into being their friends/family/army; it's the same problem I have with ALIE in The 100, whatever you may say about the whole 'nuking the Earth' bit.