With the Ghost Rider storyline wrapped up, it's time to move into the
second subset of Agents of SHIELD
Season 4, subtitled 'LMD'.
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| Also, Senator Nadeer takes her brother off somewhere quiet and offs him for becoming an Inhuman. |
In 'Broken Promises', Aida continues to hold Agent May hostage and
attempts to break into SHIELD HQ to steal the Darkhold before it can be taken
away for disposal. When the LMD Agent May tries to stop her, Aida turns her
off, but it's clear that this May thinks that she is the real deal. Aida gets a
fair way, but ultimately Fitz cuts off her access to the system and Mack cuts
off her head. Fitz and Simmons have a bit of a bust up over whether this is a
glitch in a worthwhile programme or – as Mack insists – robots are bad. Mack
and Yo-Yo's banter about technohorror movies is adorbs. The big reveal is that
Aida – the real deal, the decapitated one was a duplicate – is still operating
under instructions from Radcliffe, who wants to get hold of the Darkhold for
his own reasons, although he is clearly freaked out that Aida has jumped to
murder to keep their plans secret.
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| Coulson and Mack decide to go dutch. |
'Patriot' puts the arc on the backburner for a week. Aida and Radcliffe
have to contend with the real May, who can't be contained in a soothing
simulation because of who she is. I'm putting even odds on next week being set
largely or entirely in May's subconscious as she navigates a more violent
simulation to break out of her sedation again. Elsewhere, a Watch Dog sniper
takes a shot at Mace during a medal ceremony for Quake, and then his Quinjet is
shot down. Mack and Coulson are forced to protect the director when it turns
out that he isn't an inhuman at all, but given superstrength by Project
Patriot, a sub-Captain America supersoldier drug(1) which is currently wearing
off. Mace comes through by ballsing it out and pretending to be badass, but
after confessing that even the initial act of heroism which brought him to
prominence was an accident, cedes operational control back to Coulson.
LMD is currently proving a less interesting arc than Ghost Rider, if
only because bad robots have been done before. The fact that Aida is still
working for a largely well-meaning Radcliffe has mitigated some of the more
obvious courses, but I remain sceptical that this will go to any really new places.
Also, Fitz is talking to Aida's severed head, which can't be good.
The cyber-war hots up in Person
of Interest's final season, and I am more than ever convinced that I liked
it best as a procedural.
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| It's that man again. |
In 'Shotseeker' a technical consultant is in danger as he begins to
suspect that an automated system for distinguishing gunshots from other noises
in public audio feeds has been got at to ignore certain incidents. Obviously it
is Samaritan doing the getting at in this case, using Shotseeker to steer
emergency responses away from inconvenient crime scenes. Fusco takes note of
the fact that, while murder is way down, suicide and disappearances are up, and
begins to press to be read into the secret even as Samaritan takes note of him.
Also getting on the radar, Elias' accountant Bruce is pushing to find out who
arranged the hit on his friend, only to be taken to meet with Elias himself,
who was saved by Team Machine and put into hiding. Elias warns Bruce to back
off their new enemy. Meanwhile, tests against a clone of Samaritan show that in
any open conflict, the Machine is doomed to lose, and Harold ponders the
possibility that the Machine should be creating its own code now.
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| The upbeat ending where all of our characters realise that they're going to die alone. Woo. |
'A More Perfect Union' sees the Machine throw up a marriage licence, so
Harold and Reese infiltrate a wedding - Harold as an overseas uncle and Reese after netting an invitation while acting as the hen party stripper's security guy - where possible horse-doping, social
climbing and Harold's Irish accent provide more than enough reasons for murder.
Also, Harold gets to sing. Back in the city, Fusco continues to track missing person's
reports, using a room with no surveillance, and discovers a cache of bodies in
a condemned sewer tunnel. Unfortunately, at that moment the tunnel is destroyed
with explosives, trapping Fusco – and worse, Bear – in the collapse.
In an unrelated C-plot, Grier shows Shaw the people he claims Team Machine
overlooks who are still deserving of 'adjustment'. Later, Samaritan's analogue
interface – still creepy – explains that only Samaritan can prevent mutually
assured destruction, before blowing up a Russian embassy and allowing the nuke
to rain down on what turns out to be another simulation.
So, yeah, I'm not so into the Samaritan thing since Samaritan became able
to completely control Shaw's perception. Something about it has taken the show
that one step beyond its day after tomorrow SF premise and now it feels a
little silly to me, I think. It's all subjective, of course, and the bulk of
the show is still good, but this appears to be my breaking point.
Expect a slowing of TV Roundup in the future, as I am becoming a full
time Dad, which is bound to impact my TV viewing. On the other hand, my partner
is also moving in, so we may yet catch up on Arrow and The 100.
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