REVIEW: Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD Season Three

 REVIEW: Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD Season Three

Originally published in 2016, here are my thoughts on Agents Of SHIELD's third season.

Agents of SHIELD Season Three, it's fair to say, was one hell of a season. Were it not for the fact that a fourth season has been announced this could easily have been a natural end for the show. It saw many exits from the series come to a head (three pretty major) and finally a romance between the show's most beloved scientific couple. I do wonder if this was originally intended to be the last season: did the writers Jed Whedon, Tancharoen, and Jeffrey Bell write it assuming they wouldn't get a fourth run? Who knows but it would have been a good season to go out on.

The third season's story arc largely focuses on the origins of Inhuman villain Hive (Brett Dalton). At the end of last season, we saw Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) absorbed by the large stone structure known as the Monolith. Season three picks up on this plot point and shows that Jemma was transported to an alien planet where she came across stranded astronaut Will Daniels (Dillon Casey). When Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) enlists the help of Daisy's (Chloe Bennet) earthquake powers in order to turn a second Monolith into a portal for him to jump through and rescue Jemma, he is devastated to learn that she began a romantic relationship with Will and intends to free him from the planet. 

As the Monolith had exploded during Simmons' rescue, the pair work together to find a new way to open a portal to the planet. When Fitz and Simmons are kidnapped by Gideon Malick (Powers Boothe), their paths cross once again with Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) and Fitz is forced to use Hydra's own portal system to the mysterious planet. There, Fitz discovers that Will is now dead and the Inhuman Hive has possessed his body. Coulson (Clark Gregg) arrives and shoots Ward, only for Hive to then possess the body of his arch enemy and  recruit a team of Inhumans (Including Daisy Johnson herself (played by Chloe Bennet)) to its cause by placing them under the Hive influence.

If that sounds like quite a mouthful, that's because it is. This is perhaps the hardest season of any show to describe, as the plot is so neatly intertwined that there is never a moment that isn't important to the overall picture. It is also the most edge-of-your-seat season of the show as of so far. There were twist and turns every corner and none of them were predictable. I didn't see Daisy acting under the influence of Hive or Gideon Malick's death. I certainly did not expect that Will would turn out to be dead when Fitz returned to the planet. And none of it feels forced or out of character either. They all make perfect sense and enhance the narrative considerably. It's this deeply unpredictable vibe that sold the latter half of Agents of SHIELD's first season, and continued to make an impression in its second. Agents of SHIELD is a show that has you watching with baited breath for the entirety of its season run; it really does feel as though any number of events could occur at any moment.

The emotional stakes are certainly raised here too. Bobbi (Adrianne Palicki) and Hunter's (Nick Blood) exit in 'A Spy's Goodbye' is surprisingly quite moving if pretty pointless overall given that their exit was largely so the actors would be free to reprise their roles for Marvel's Most Wanted, which in the end wasn't picked up for a series. These were two characters within the show where you didn't realise just how much you would miss them until they were gone. Whilst I was greatly looking forward to the potential spin-off, personally I would prefer to see Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood reprise their roles in an MCU film project rather than in a spinoff of Agents of SHIELD, but I guess the film side have yet to express an interest in giving these characters the big screen treatment.

Lincoln's (Luke Mitchell) death is another particularly sad moment in the season too, even if he was a rather bland and forgettable inclusion within the series. The emotional impact is largely sold by Chloe Bennet's superb performance rather than Lincoln's merits as a character, as you really feel the grief and devastation sink in from Daisy losing a man who had become such a significant figure in her life. You couldn't help but feel sorry for poor Daisy; she always seems to have bad luck with her romantic partners, and it would be nice to see her finally find someone who doesn't either betray her trust or die in the heat of battle (NB: Daisy would finally embark on a slightly more stable relationship with 50s SHIELD agent Daniel Sousa, played by Enver Gjokaj).

My favourite thing about the season though is how experimental the episode '4,722 Hours' is compared to other instalments of the show. The entire episode bar the last five minutes focuses on Simmon's time on the alien planet and Clark Gregg doesn't even appear in the story at all. Yet it works so well precisely because it breaks from the traditional format of the show. It was refreshing to see a Simmons-centric episode ; it doesn't even open with the traditional titles which makes it even more unique as an Agents of SHIELD episode. The episode explores new ground; that of the theme of survival, a topic that is significantly more the territory of the superhero series Arrow than it is Agents Of SHIELD. I liked watching Simmons struggle to survive on this strange new world and I hope the fourth season features more experimental episodes like this (NB: As it turned out, it did. The Framework arc was very experimental). Elizabeth Henstridge is at her best in this episode too; never has she played the role of Jemma quite like she does here, with so much heart and conviction.

Another of my favourite elements about the third season is Hive. Hive was a fantastic villain for the SHIELD agents to face and is in my opinion one of the greatest MCU villains to date. It's amazing how Brett Dalton plays both Ward and Hive; both have subtle differences and neither seem too similar to the other. He effortlessly plays them both and it's a shame both Hive and Ward are now dead. Hive feels like a fitting challenge for the agents and it was hard at times to see just how they could stop him - which made it all the more engrossing to watch.

 In both the comics and Agents of SHIELD, Hive is effectively a drug or a parasite, meaning that when characters are under its influence it's essentially the equivalent of taking cocaine or LSD. This creation in Marvel Comics is a very dark and original idea for a super-villain and one that works extremely well in a modern setting. Drug abuse is a very common issue in the world at large, and this is a great way to tackle it with a comic-book twist. My only problem with Hive is that its true form looked a bit too similar to Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies:

It's a shame they couldn't have used a more unique design. Even in the comics he looks a little different to Pirates' Davy Jones:

The six months later scene didn't quite work for me either. Like the Monolith sequence in the second season, it feels a little too forced and tacked on to be anything other than a scene engineered to get people talking. It doesn't feel natural at all and raised far too many questions that don't really make a ton of sense. Why would Daisy become a goth when she has shown no interest in that type of culture (NB: In the fourth season it seems less that she's 'become a goth' and more that her new look is to show in her appearance how much Lincoln Campbell's death has affected her on an emotional level)? Why would Coulson step down as director of SHIELD? He IS SHIELD. Unless they can get Samuel L Jackson back at some point, I don't see the point in Coulson no longer being director (NB: The idea does work considerably well a few seasons' down the line, when Coulson later makes Mack (Played by Henry Simmons) SHIELD's director). 

On the other hand, It was nice to finally see Fitz and Simmons become a couple in this season. This was a relationship that had been teased far too often and yet frustratingly never seemed to get anywhere. It has taken far too long for these two characters to become romantically involved. I hope they keep the pair together and don't try to split them up (NB: Fitz and Simmons later get married and raise a child) as they really are perfect for each other and their romantic relationship is one of the strongest points of the show. Hopefully we'll see them get married at the end of the fourth season (NB: This later happens in the fifth season, although because time is rewritten at the end of Season Five this wedding never actually takes place for the Fitz currently residing within the MCU). The perfect way to end the show if the next season ends up being the last (NB: It doesn't; the show will later go on for four further seasons) would be Fitz and Simmons driving off into the sunset in Coulson's flying car Lola. Let's have a happy ending for Agents of SHIELD please and see the show end on a high.

Overall, Season Three is probably the strongest season of the show so far. It features some emotional agent departures, one of the best MCU villains in Hive and finally Fitz and Simmons becoming a romantic couple. The entire cast are at their very best here too: Clark Gregg is brilliant as a Coulson filled with a thirst for revenge towards Ward, Chloe Bennet is great at playing a Daisy under the influence of Hive, Elisabeth Henstridge is phenomenal as a Jemma Simmons who has spent ages trapped on an alien planet fighting for her survival and of course Brett Dalton as both Ward and Hive provides two excellent performances which feel identifiable as two separate characters. The 'six months later' segment however feels very tacked on and Hive's uncanny resemblance to Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean is all too noticeable.