Who can be trusted?
Full spoilers for Marvel's Agents of SHIELD continue below.
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD's "L.M.D." storyline is coming to a close, and it offered one heck of a twist to usher in that plot's conclusion. It's been heavily hinted that more SHIELD agents than just May and Radcliffe would get the L.M.D. treatment, but more than half of our core cast? Though not entirely unexpected, it is surprising.
That twist was a nice capstone to what was otherwise a solid episode. The hunt to find Mace ran parallel with flashbacks about an early mission Coulson and May went on together, way back when she was still clearance level 3. Agents of SHIELD has been pushing the Philinda relationship hard this season, and from this flashback sequence we're supposed to think the two of them might have ended up together sooner had she not fallen for Andrew Garner.
While that believability likely depends on just how much you have been shipping those two characters (or not) over the years, the heavy romantic subplot actually fits really neatly into the rest of the story. We know Radcliffe was manipulating peoples' emotions to try to get their L.M.D. versions to execute his orders, which is part of how the May replacement worked so well. So by bringing Coulson along on a mission that triggered memories of his romantic history with May, he was primed and ready to have an especially sentimental L.M.D. version of Coulson take the L.M.D. May out of cold storage and reactivate her inside of SHIELD.
For all that that facet of "The Man Behind the Shield" worked well, I remain continually underwhelmed by the Superior. I've been a fan of Zach McGowan from Black Sails and The 100 and he's doing good work here, but his villainy never packs the punch it needs to. His motivations feel very petty and small scale within the realm of Agents of SHIELD, and I've found this culmination of the Watch Dogs story arc to be pretty lackluster. Even the motivations for his vendetta against Coulson was a let down.
This is likely all just set up to show that he's been a pawn in Radcliffe and/or Aida's evil Darkhold plan the whole time, but it still feels like a wasted opportunity for a character. Though Aida darkly promised that his storyline isn't finished yet, I still can't imagine what would dramatically rescue his character development going forward.
Still, everything became a lot more impactful once the twist at the end of the episode was revealed. With the events in Russia being wrapped up fairly neatly, the reveal that Simmons discovered a gap in time where Aida replaced Coulson, Mace, Mack and Daisy with L.M.D. versions of themselves was smartly written and well executed. I appreciate that Agents of SHIELD is now doing a satisfying job of keeping us in the dark about Aida and Radcliffe's full plans and motivations without feeling like it's spinning its wheels.
Agents of SHIELD has a tendency to have fantastic premieres and finales for its various story arcs, but often has a difficult time sustaining the twists and turns throughout the meat of the season without the plot getting lost in the process. Breaking Season 4 into three pods has helped alleviate that issue by each shorter story arc being more direct and tightly written. The "L.M.D." storyline started to get a bit off the rails, but hopefully by defeating the Superior and bringing everything back to SHIELD headquarters we're being set up for a strong conclusion (and set up for whatever is coming next) next week.
The Verdict
Agents of SHIELD offered a well-executed twist in the penultimate episode of its "L.M.D." pod, successfully swapping many of its major characters with doppelgängers of themselves to set up a fun game of "who's real?" and "who's not?" As interesting as the L.M.D. plot as been, the Superior/Watch Dogs storyline never fully came together during this second pod of Season 4, with the Superior especially being very underwhelming. With the story now back at SHIELD, hopefully the conclusion of Aida and Radcliffe's mission packs a solid punch.
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