‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ | S05E16
When Coulson’s away, his agents will… well, you’ll see.
After a HYDRA-centric episode, ‘Inside Voices’ finds our agents tempting fate and toying with destiny.
With Coulson still MIA, Daisy’s up next in the chain of command but no-one ever said taking over the reins to S.H.I.E.L.D. would be easy. The growing tensions within the team, spidering out from Fitz’s recent actions, lead to a death-defying taste test, unlikely allies, and one hell of a flashback for the show’s superfans.
SPOILER ALERT!
After obtaining the gravitonium, Hale has Creel test it out by absorbing it, and all while Ruby looks on, worried that she’ll be deprived of her birthright. But upon touching the “living substance”, Creel gets hit with sporadic, haunting flashes of Franklin Hall (who we last saw getting sucked into said gravitonium in Season 1). Creel later pays Coulson a visit, where he learns that Hale is actually torturing Talbot instead of treating him; that shocking revelation is enough to get Creel on Coulson’s side. Together, they take down a nearby robo-guard and set out to rescue their mutual friend.
Elsewhere, Daisy has drawn young Robin Hinton out of hiding to see if she might have any idea about Coulson’s whereabouts. But Robin, unfortunately, is in some kind of depressive state. She’s stopped talking and drawing, and her last illustration was of her future death, as seen during the show’s Lighthouse arc.
Now in a remote corner of the underground HYDRA base, Coulson and Creel find Talbot. Setting off alarms throughout the base, they manage to make it to the room holding Hale’s Chitauri device – only to bump into a suited-up and Chakram-wielding Ruby. Creel stays behind to hold her off while Coulson and Talbot successfully use the device to escape and transport themselves to… a snowy somewhere with mountains.
With Daisy and May gone, Simmons and Yo-Yo hatch a plan to break Fitz out of his cell. The trio are convinced that they’re “invincible” after seeing how far they survive into the future but Mack, who’s been left in charge by Daisy, isn’t having any of it. To prove it, Simmons says she’s going to demonstrate by drinking three random cups of clear liquid: some of them are filled with water, and some of them are filled with poison. There’s no possible way of knowing which is which, but Simmons is convinced that she’ll be fine since she lives long enough to give birth to Deke’s mother. Regardless, the experiment is terrifying for both Mack and Fitz – especially once the third cup causes Simmons to convulse violently. Mack gives in and releases Fitz so he can help save Simmons, but in a turn of events, Yo-Yo takes the opportunity to lock Mack up instead. That’s right, it was all a ruse! Simmons is fine (side note: she’s gotten much better at lying), and the invincible three set off to take down Hale.
Once Robin re-connects with May, who she now sees as her real mother, she starts drawing again and finally gives Daisy what she’s been looking for: a drawing of Coulson and Talbot standing in front of some snowy mountains.
Finally, this week’s post-credits scene took us back to a ‘lost’ scene from the season one finale. Remember Raina (Ruth Negga) and Ian Quinn (David Conrad)? With the gravitonium in tow, the pair are travelling in the back of a van when Iain expresses his gratitude for being given the rare element. Raina, however, reveals that he’s mistaken; unlocking the crate and allowing the metallic goo to consume Ian. Now we know what Creel meant when he described the gravitonium voices as “they”.
This was a fun, but non-essential, episode. A whole lot may have happened, but very little of it advanced the current arc’s narrative or raised the stakes.
The clear highlight of the episode, however, was its post-credits scene. It's hard to believe that ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ managed to tie up a loose plot thread in such a satisfying way, four years later. A clear nod to the show’s superfans, Season 5 continues to thread in material from its earlier days; it'll be exciting to see what they come up with next!
It may have been a middling episode, but ‘Inside Voices’ made one thing abundantly clear: the team have never been in more desperate need of their leader.
New episodes of ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ are updated weekly on Amazon Prime Video.
