After several “high stakes” missions, Agents of Shield took a little bit of a lighter tone with “Face My Enemy”. The result was a mixed back of epicness and forced conversations.
On the plus side was just about everything Melinda May. From her going undercover with Coulson to find a painting with the mysterious writing on it, to her actually smiling, laughing, dancing, and scaring the crap out of her co-workers, it was a lot of fun. Also, May vs. May? Epic! How did Coulson say that again?
“I can’t believe I’m the only one seeing this.”
The fight scenes were great, and May going wrestler on her doppleganger was classic. I also liked how Coulson realized how May wasn’t May because of her reactions to the “contingency plan”. Some people might’ve brushed that off, but not Coulson!
Ironically, the shortest story of the bunch had the biggest impact. Fitz’s continued struggle with his condition and finding his place on the team with it was great. I like how he acknowledges that Simmons is a figment of his mind, and that when he picked up the bottle from Hunter she went away. And though small, it was nice to see how talk full sentences without lapsing. Don’t know if that’ll continue, but it was nice.
The ending was also great, with Coulson forcing May to say she’ll kill him if he becomes like Garrett. And Whitehall showing up and threatening Raina was also cool.
Sadly, other parts of the episode didn’t match up. Though the undercover op was cool, there were many awkward moments that could’ve been avoided. And thank goodness Talbot wasn’t Hydra. Though it would’ve made sense on some levels, it was much cooler to do the facemask reveal instead.
And what was the point of the Skye/Tripp storyline again? It just felt like a waste to me.
In the end, “Face My Enemy” was a decent episode that gave us some moment we’ll no doubt forget. But it wasn’t the best, and there were things that could’ve been taken out to make it better.
Maybe the next episode should be May fighting herself for an hour…
Todd Black
Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!
Nerd Comments