[7.6/10] I gotta admit, I am just tired of the Tyler Durden twist. It’s done well here, and Iain De Caestecker does a great job at playing both sides of Fitz, but I’m just exhausted by the “they were the same dude the whole time!” routine.
It serves a good purpose, showing that there’s a darkness in Fitz that can’t be elided, that is a part of him, whether he’s “The Doctor” or not. Thematically it works. And it’s clever to have the misdirect that this presence is a manifestation from The Fear Dimension, pulling the rug out from under the audience at the very end.
But something about it just didn’t work for me. Maybe it’s the tiredness of the trope. Maybe it’s that, even with the indications of Fitz’s darker side after The Framework, it feels a little out of character (though at least the show gives us the handles that Fitz is massively underslept and at the end of his rope). It’s at least tense and more than a little disturbing when Fitz comes to and yet still chooses to extract Daisy’s power-dampening chip. (Her delivery “I will never forgive you for this” is especially distressing, and the show doesn't skimp on the gore of him yanking that wire out of her skull.) It just feels like the show going for shock value and emotional punch when both are undercut by my instant roll-eyes from that sort of twist.
The rest of the episode is hit or miss. The “I faked you out” “No I faked you out!” bit between Coulson and General Hale is a non-starter full of clichés. Lord knows I didn’t need the return of Anton. I like doing the all-star baddie thing, and I’m certainly a sucker for continuity and callbacks, but at this point, it’s verging on the “too cute” territory, and bringing back weak characters from last season isn’t exactly winning me over.
That said, I’m intrigued by Coulson going into the belly of the beast as he’s de facto kidnapped by General Hale, and I like the notion that Hale is essentially restarting Hydra with the help of someone implied to be Kassius’s dad or grandpa or something along those lines.
Otherwise, I like that the show is taking the slow path with Yo-Yo’s recovery, and showing her frustration with the learning curve for her new limbs. I like that Fitz’s greatest fear is implied to be the astronaut from Jemma’s journey to the blue planet coming back. May and Coulson’s conversation about whether he’s going to go away with Hale is cute. And I appreciate how the show slow burns the mystery of exactly what’s going down, even if I don’t love the answer.
Overall, an episode whose reach exceeds its grasp a bit, but which is at least going for interesting things and putting on a showcase for one of the show’s best performers.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2018-05-13T04:02:14Z
[7.6/10] I gotta admit, I am just tired of the Tyler Durden twist. It’s done well here, and Iain De Caestecker does a great job at playing both sides of Fitz, but I’m just exhausted by the “they were the same dude the whole time!” routine.
It serves a good purpose, showing that there’s a darkness in Fitz that can’t be elided, that is a part of him, whether he’s “The Doctor” or not. Thematically it works. And it’s clever to have the misdirect that this presence is a manifestation from The Fear Dimension, pulling the rug out from under the audience at the very end.
But something about it just didn’t work for me. Maybe it’s the tiredness of the trope. Maybe it’s that, even with the indications of Fitz’s darker side after The Framework, it feels a little out of character (though at least the show gives us the handles that Fitz is massively underslept and at the end of his rope). It’s at least tense and more than a little disturbing when Fitz comes to and yet still chooses to extract Daisy’s power-dampening chip. (Her delivery “I will never forgive you for this” is especially distressing, and the show doesn't skimp on the gore of him yanking that wire out of her skull.) It just feels like the show going for shock value and emotional punch when both are undercut by my instant roll-eyes from that sort of twist.
The rest of the episode is hit or miss. The “I faked you out” “No I faked you out!” bit between Coulson and General Hale is a non-starter full of clichés. Lord knows I didn’t need the return of Anton. I like doing the all-star baddie thing, and I’m certainly a sucker for continuity and callbacks, but at this point, it’s verging on the “too cute” territory, and bringing back weak characters from last season isn’t exactly winning me over.
That said, I’m intrigued by Coulson going into the belly of the beast as he’s de facto kidnapped by General Hale, and I like the notion that Hale is essentially restarting Hydra with the help of someone implied to be Kassius’s dad or grandpa or something along those lines.
Otherwise, I like that the show is taking the slow path with Yo-Yo’s recovery, and showing her frustration with the learning curve for her new limbs. I like that Fitz’s greatest fear is implied to be the astronaut from Jemma’s journey to the blue planet coming back. May and Coulson’s conversation about whether he’s going to go away with Hale is cute. And I appreciate how the show slow burns the mystery of exactly what’s going down, even if I don’t love the answer.
Overall, an episode whose reach exceeds its grasp a bit, but which is at least going for interesting things and putting on a showcase for one of the show’s best performers.