User Reviews

Shield comes back to us with an amazing episode. Everything from the character moments, to the writing and even the effects were incredible.

The several different story lines in this episode were well written and seamlessly blended to make a fun, enthralling piece. The best part about these story lines is that they all take place at around the same time so that it seems much more cohesive.

Each character that their own great moment. May had a good episode where she had to go alone through a bunch of situations. Her torture scene was awesome as she basically shrugs off being stabbed. Simmons was hilarious as she over prepared for her lie about her being Coulson's daughter in order to blend in. Ward had to deal with the fact that Coulson knows about he and May. His scene with him trying to turn on the holotable was pretty funny cause I didn't really think about how difficult it actually would be. His entrance into the villa where he takes out a bunch of bad guys was pretty awesome. Fitz had a good time as he showcased his great American accent and had to deal with being in the field again, albeit without Ward their to back him up. Coulson was fun too as he had to deal with Simmons' elaborate, embarrassing lie. His time with Ward in the field was fun too as they have to figure out what happened to the train. Finally, Skye was really important as she had to deal with the fact that she was an 0-8-4, she found out the Mike was alive but truly a weapon for the Clairvoyant and she was shot in the gut by Quinn. They are going to have to try and save her so maybe this is going to link up to how Coulson was saved.

The effects for Mike's prosthetic leg was pretty good. It was really cool to have the Stan Lee cameo. I also really like The Incredible Hulk reference when Coulson said that he could make Ward guard Blonsky's (The Abomination) cryo cell.

+ Very good writing and pacing + Character moments + Deathlok! + Stan Lee cameo + Abomination mention

Final Score: 9.4/10

Despite enjoying the episodes prior, this is where the team dynamic really started to come together in my opinion, throw all that together with a unique pacing and concept, important character moments and a Stan Lee cameo and you've got the best episode of the show to this point.

The intensity of the episodes keeps rising and this is the rollercoster on which intensity reaches a climax. Each character's own story on the train is played out in turn and it works beautifully to build mystery and intrigue throughout. The episode has many great elements: the ingenious plan to locate Quinn which gets us hyped, amazing ninja action sequences from May, the disturbing return of Mike Peterson and the bloody ending. It is hard to believe afterwards that in was all contained in just 40 minutes.

It's one of those "hanging on a thread" story lines where the plan goes awry and every team member has to improvise. It's interesting to see how they handle it. Meanwhile, the clairvoyant becomes even more sinister as we get the impression he is in no hurry to kill any of members of Coulson's team. Implying that whatever his plan, it goes far beyond simply creating soldiers for personal use without the nuisance of Shield on his back.

So yeah, just a shame some of the later episodes weren't as good as this one.

This episode felt really good, just really. Exotic location: OK. Exciting fight scenes: they're here. There were scenes where I thought, "what just happened there" and a flashback appeared which satisfied my curiosity. Stan Lee pops up in a cameo. Coulson is going through a bit of a mental crisis due to Skye and his own memories of Tahiti (that was something carried over from a previous episode). And Agent May and Agent Ward are having some relationship tensions . Lots of storylines come together here. There are humourous touches but not many: the scene with Jemma acting upset about her father was funny. I'd nearly recommend to watch this first if you are about to start watching Agents of Shield for the first time and then work from episode one or continue from episode fourteen.