In a darker episode of “Agents of SHIELD,” May tries to escape from Radcliffe and AIDA’s clutches, while Daisy travels to Washington D.C. to sign the Sokovia Accords. Coulson and Elena embark on a covert mission which ends with a shocking reveal.
“Wake Up” was cleverly laid out in terms of plotting. We get two seemingly disparate storylines this week- one of SHIELD getting their ass handed to them as Nadeer busted them for trying to spy on her and another of May trying to escape from AIDA. Turns out, both plots intersected in the episode’s clever finale, in which we discovered that Radcliffe is a SHIELD mole for Nadeer and has May trapped in a simulation to keep her busy.
There was more misdirection this week, with the audience attempting to guess who Radcliffe’s second LMD was, but unlike previous episodes, the red herrings this week were far to obvious. Mack disappears during a mission and everyone is supposed to think he’s an LMD, but it turns out he was consoling an ex-girlfriend after their late daughter’s birthday. It was a more emotional moment for Mack and also brought him and Elena closer together.
There was also an attempt to convince the viewer that Fitz was the LMD, but that was a red herring too. This entire episode was full of switches and “Aha!” moments and really, only a few worked. The reveal that May’s escape was another simulation was truly shocking and the finale’s extreme reveal that May’s newest simulation rewrites a dark moment in her life is not only an interesting callback, but a brutal moment in and of itself.
“Wake Up” was a tension and suspense filled episode with not a lot of big payoffs, but it was a darker edge to the show that we rarely see. With the season plugging along nicely, these experimental episodes are really furthering the show in a cool way.
“Agents of SHIELD” airs Tuesday nights on ABC.