Welcome to the Legion!

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Legion contributor Christina Janke is recapping and reviewing Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for us this season. Follow her on Twitter @IntrotoGeek!

Fish oil! It might give you super powers. Results may vary.

A Terrigen bomb went off in the ocean and contaminated the eco system at the end of the Season 2. The result? A new crop of Inhumans start showing up all over the world. Coulson and friends are out there trying to extract as many as they can, but so far, someone has been beating them to it. The episode kicks off with Daisy (née Skye), Mack, and Hunter rescuing a new metal-melting Inhuman, Joey Gutierrez (Juan Pablo Raba). Another, unknown, organization shows up. Their mission is to take down Gutierrez by any means necessary. In this case, shoot him. Team S.H.I.E.L.D. causes a little confusion and extracts the Inhuman with little to no effort.

Daisy and Mack are now partners who are still figuring out who gets to play good cop/bad cop. One thing’s for sure, Daisy is definitely the muscle in this outfit — and Mack misses his ax. While they interrogate and break the bad news to Gutierrez (he can never go back to his old life), Bobbi dons the white coat and fills in for Fitz-Simmons and Coulson tries to figure out who sent that well-armed strike team. Meet Rosalind Price whose mission is to contain and/or neutralize new Inhumans causing havoc in the streets. She works for an organization possibly linked to the Advanced Threat Containment Unit, which was announced by the president at the end of the episode as a response to extraordinary events (i.e. The Battle of New York, London, Hydra taking over S.H.I.E.L.D., and most recently Sokovia).

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Elsewhere, Fitz is avoiding his duties at headquarters and instead is following wild leads in hopes of figuring out what the hell happened to Simmons and how can he free her from the monolith that swallowed her up. His search leads him to Morocco where he is to meet up with a dangerous individual who may be in possession of a certain item that could finally tell him everything he needs to know about the monolith. Fitz’s storyline in this episode really opens us up to the idea that the once awkward genius engineer has some enough chutzpah to grapple with some of the most dangerous men in the underworld. He’s like a mash-up between James Bond and his gadget-making buddy, Q. Or Simon Pegg in the Mission: Impossible movies.

Back at HQ, Daisy and Mack are not at all successful at integrating Gutierrez into the idea that he’s now a super powered human who was born with alien DNA. They need the one guy Daisy knows who’s really good at something like that: Lincoln. That’s all fine and dandy except for the fact that Lincoln left sometime after the conclusion of Season 2 and is trying to lead a normal human life as a normal human doctor. They try anyway and are met with interesting results…

A new villain has reared his ugly head. Fans of the Marvel comics, specifically the Inhumans series, may know him as Lash. If he turns out to be anything like he is in the comics, then S.H.I.E.L.D. will have quite a load on their plate.

Lash is an Inhuman whose way of thinking is in the realm of “Inhumans are superior to mankind, and some Inhumans are more valuable to keep around than others.” He’s a pretty severe guy. Not only does he belong to a backward and cruel society, but he’s pretty much a heightened allegory for humanity and the violence people can inflicts upon one another. His presence will no doubt lay the groundwork for what will happen in Captain America: Civil War, and more importantly, The Inhumans.

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It is revealed in the show that Lash has been the one taking (and sometimes killing) the Inhumans before either Coulson or Price could get to them. This could be his way of culling some of the weaker Inhumans and recruiting those he deems worthy of the alien DNA.

The beats in this episode felt slightly scattered, but writers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen are literally introducing the various avenues this series will be taking. First we have the mystery of who exactly is Rosalind Price and what is her organization’s true directive. Next, we have Hunter getting ready to go off on his own in search of Ward, who is suspected to be rebuilding Hydra. Fitz, while extremely frustrated that his search in this episode came up dismal, is definitely not giving up his search for Simmons. And speaking of Simmons…

She’s trapped on an alien planet!

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

S.H.I.E.L.D. has a bigger and better plane!

Lincoln is disillusioned about all that Jiaying has taught him about his powers; he’s seems uninterested in ever using his powers again, even less so in helping Daisy transition a new Inhuman.

If we’re going to see Daisy and Lincoln (and Lash) use their powers more on this show, there needs to be more than just raising one’s hand and letting post-production do all the work for them.

Fitz hypothesizes that the monolith and is a black hole, dark matter made solid that can warp space-time. Knowing what we know about Simmons now, he’s not too far off. As for the note found inside the relic Fitz risked his life retrieving, which read “Death” in Hebrew, what are the odds in thinking this is less of a warning, and more like…a name?

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Rosalind Price has a lot of fake names, and she’s been involved with some of the top-most government organizations around the world — from the CDC to MI-6 to the CIA. What are the chances that Price is yet another cover name? Like last season, when the not-yet-named “New S.H.I.E.L.D.” popped up, I’m really hoping for another established Marvel organization to pop up. Considering Price’s strike team wielded enhanced and modified weaponry on the field, we could be looking at the start of A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics).

As for Price, she could be Monica Rappaccini, A.I.M.’s top scientist. This version of her seems very well adjusted in the spy game as well. After finding out that Bobbi has a degree in Biology and has been S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s go-to scientist in Fitz’s absence, it’s not entirely unbelievable that Price can be the same.

Or…. the A.T.C.U. could just as easily be the beginning of S.T.R.I.K.E. or S.W.O.R.D., or both.

 

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Christina E. Janke

Christina is the co-host of “Intro to Geek” on Shauncastic and Editor-in-Chief at Agents of Geek. Her love of all things Mass Effect knows no bounds. She also carries an obsession with comic books, video games, and quirky television shows. Her heroes are Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Gail Simone. She hopes to be just like them when she grows up.