In Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD episode “Uprising,” Coulson, Fitz and Mack are dispatched to Miami to save Elena after a blackout organized by an anti-Inhuman group hits the city. Simmons teams up with Dr. Radcliffe to save May’s life and Daisy meets Robbie’s little brother, Gabe.
A lot of plot threads went on hold this week, notably the whole ghost angle, as Agents of SHIELD got back to an old school episode. The concept of the team working against the odds with big stakes on the line forced to use their wits instead of their gadgets to save the day was a nice reminder of what made the show so great in the first place.
Although, the May subplot and its resolution was fairly disappointing. Radcliffe’s insane idea to kill May so that her brain can “reboot” was about as mad as mad science can get. Amazingly, it worked, but the power failure upped the tension, at first looking like a reason for Simmons to discover AIDA- only for Radcliffe to simply remove her battery to power the defibrillator and life goes on. AIDA so far has been utterly wasted this season and one gets the impression that Ghost Rider’s introduction waylaid the writers’ original plans for the character.
Speaking of Ghost Rider, we get a little more of his backstory this week as we met his little brother Gabe. There was interesting irony at work when Gabe told Daisy to stay away from Robbie because his brother doesn’t need bad people in his life, but the fact that Daisy obliges no questions asked shows more dimension to her character this season. Clearly, she doesn’t want to cause any more harm.
But the big point of the episode is that now, SHIELD is a legitimate organization again in the public eye. Whether the future Marvel movies will ever address this remains to be seen, but it seems to negate the ending of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”- now SHIELD is back and HYDRA is gone, right where we were.
“Uprising” was a downgrade from the last few great episodes. It had cool moments, but the slow burn mentality of the season is starting to catch up with them. Hopefully, next week will amend for this.
Agents of SHIELD airs Tuesdays at 10pm on ABC.
