The penultimate episode of Season 4.
Full spoilers for Marvel's Agents of SHIELD continue below.
As a title like "The Return" promises, the penultimate episode of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD: Season 4 was all about how our favorite SHIELD agents readjust back to the real world. But after the success of the Framework arc, the transition back to reality wasn't as much of a high point as what came before.
Typically Agents of SHIELD is ramping up the action in its final episodes of the season, but because of the exit from the especially strong Framework storyline, this Aida and Superior-centric arc wasn't as compelling. The most interesting elements of the storyline once again gravitated around the question of characters' humanity, with Aida's emotional roller coaster becoming the backbone of the episode.
Mallory Jansen has been given a lot of great material to work with this season, and getting to play the emotional spectrum of someone experiencing everything from love to heartache for the first time was especially effective. Unfortunately, it was a bit too much condensed into one episode and lost some of its impact because of that. I was hoping for more than just one episode for Fitz and Aida to deal with the repercussions of the Framework storyline in their normal lives.
But as much as Aida yo-yoed to evil very quickly, her exploration of what it meant to do good for the sake of empathy was very interesting. The same goes for Fitz, who found himself grappling with the weight of what he'd done in this alternate life. Again, I wish this episode had more time to allow these characters to wrestle with the fact they lived an entire other life over in this artificial reality, and try to figure out what that means for them. Instead, it feels like we're brushing past it pretty quickly.
Beyond Aida, I've been pretty disappointed in Zach McGowan as the Superior this season. He's never come off as threatening, and that is especially the case in this episode where there are endless versions of him to attack May and Coulson. I never was concerned for their lives, but also didn't doubt they'd get past him. As compelling as Aida has been as the villain, Anton Ivanov is a character I could have done without.
Fortunately, the core characters' emotional work did help save this episode. Yo-Yo finding out about Hope, Coulson and May talking about their missing time together when they were L.M.D.'s and that tearful scene of Simmons and Fitz just sitting together all were great character beats. While a lot of this episode was spent reminding the audience of what happened before all that time in the Framework -- oh yeah, they were L.M.D.s and of course Talbot would come after them and think they all went rogue in their time away -- those moments between our favorite SHIELD agents remind us of how far they've grown.
And then, of course, the kicker is that Ghost Rider is back. As much as we've all been anticipating his return all season, Agents of SHIELD: Season 4 feels pretty far removed from where it started, and even the Darkhold is pretty much a non-entity despite the fact it's been mentioned in almost every episode. So I'm curious to see how everything ties together in next week's finale. Hopefully Agents of SHIELD can pull out one more awesome finale after the great ride of the Framework storyline.
The Verdict
After the high of the Framework storyline, coming back to the real world in "The Return" felt like a bit of a letdown. There are a lot of high stakes and enemies to be defeated here -- namely Aida and Anton Ivanov -- but there is a shadow cast over them just because of how impactful the Framework arc was. Still, there were some really interesting character moments with Aida that I wish had been stretched out more, and some impactful moments with all the lead characters.
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