Deke Shaw Archives - Page 2 Of 2

July 9, 2020

“Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Season 7, Episode 7 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. AHEAD!**

Any story set in the 1980’s has to feature at least a little rock and roll, and the latest episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is no exception: even while murderous robots are prowling the Lighthouse in search of targets and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s digitized enemies are plotting their comeback, it’s hard not to feel at ease with some classic tunes blasting in the background. This is a mostly light-hearted and fun episode of the long-running Marvel series – at least until the aforementioned robots reveal their extensive catalog of weaponry (including circular saws, drills, laser beams, etc) and start killing people in the hallways of S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, leading to a very unsettling game of cat-and-mouse in the dark.

I was hesitant at first, because we pick up right where we left off with Director Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie (Henry Simmons) and Deke Shaw (Jeff Ward) stuck in the 1980’s while the Zephyr One – and the rest of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – zip off to a new time and place without them, and almost immediately we watch as Mack, riddled with feelings of grief and guilt over the death of his parents in last week’s episode, turns to the same methods of coping that Thor did in Avengers: Endgame; stress eating, drinking, failing to take care of himself. But while I was initially worried that, much like how Thor’s grief process was made the butt of several unfortunate jokes in Endgame, Mack’s process would similarly be played for laughs, that wasn’t the case at all. There are no jokes or rude comments aimed at Mack, at least not by characters aware of what’s he going through: there’s only love, understanding and concern, which is exactly what I wanted to see from the other Avengers when they greeted Thor after his five-year long absence. And shockingly it’s Deke Shaw who manages to coax Mack back out into the world.

Now, I’ve never liked Deke Shaw. When he was first introduced in the fifth season, he felt like a cheap, even boring, Star Lord knock-off – and I already don’t like the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Star Lord. He’s had some cool moments and a lot of clever, funny moments during his time on the show. But this is the first time that he’s ever felt truly important to the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. team: while Mack is off the grid, it’s Deke who becomes the leader at the Lighthouse, successfully reconstructing Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and translating him over to a massive computer on wheels, while still finding time to organize a band. Without having to sacrifice any of his unique character traits, Deke has quickly become one of the final season’s most valuable players.

Mack and Deke are joined on their 80’s jaunt by a strange group of new agents: Olga (Jolene Andersen), a Russian Annie Lennox-lookalike with a talent for blowing things up; Tommy and Ronnie (John and Matt Yuan, respectively), twin brothers who come off as thinly-drawn caricatures rather than actual characters; and Roxy Glass (Tipper Newton), who gets stuck with Mack during the robot invasion – that’s not really a personality trait, but it’s all she’s got. There are a couple other new S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as well, but their purpose is solely to be murdered by robots.

Speaking of which, it’s time for a hot take: the robots in this episode, who are basically Daleks (they literally scream “Exterminate!” at one point) with sawblades, are actually better antagonists than all of the Chronicoms we’ve seen in this season so far. Yes, they’re still technically controlled by one Chronicom in particular, the Predictor Sibyl (Tamara Taylor), but she’s just an automated voice for most of the episode, until the very end when it’s revealed that her brain or consciousness or something has been installed in a computer similar to Coulson’s new lodging. Like Coulson, who gets promised a new human body by the other Agents, I’m sure that Sibyl and her Hunters will have new forms soon enough: but for the moment, I’m enjoying this respite. The robots were actually pretty terrifying, and were responsible for some of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s most shocking and gruesome killings in a very long time.

Getting back to that end-credits stinger, however, we have to address the elephant in the room – or should I say, the Malick in the room. Nathaniel Malick (Thomas E. Sullivan) is revealed to still be alive, even after the incident last week where he was trapped under the collapsing roof of his underground lair. He’s back on Daisy Johnson’s trail, intent on draining her of all her Inhuman abilities – I still have a lot of questions about how much of her power he was able to steal, but it’s probably enough to make him a viable opponent in the near future. With Sibyl’s help, he’ll be able to track down the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in no time at all.

For Mack and Deke, the end of their 80’s adventure comes with some bittersweet emotions. Mack gets to briefly meet a younger version of himself, and slowly begins to heal from the trauma of his parents’ death. Deke comes into his own and discovers a warrior (and fairly talented vocalist) within himself. So even though this episode took us away from the main plotline briefly, I’m glad we got to see it: it gave me a lot of the character development I’ve been looking for from this season – and, of course, rock and roll music, which is never not a good thing.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

July 2, 2020

“Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, Season 7, Episode 6 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. AHEAD!**

Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. finally gave us some answers to some of the burning questions we’ve had since the final season premiere – and at least some of them were actually helpful. If you were wondering what the Chronicom shape-shifters actually want with the Earth, or where Leopold Fitz is in all this chaos, then you’re in luck. If, like me, you were hoping for answers to both these questions that actually feel like answers instead of further riddles to unravel, then you may still have some waiting to do before you actually get what you’re looking for – especially since next week’s episode, by the looks of the teaser trailer, is going to be completely focused on Director Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie (Henry Simmons) and Deke Shaw (Jeff Ward).

Many of the answers we got this week come from an epic confrontation between Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and the being who seems to be the leader of the Chronicom invasion force, a woman known as Sibyl (Tamara Taylor), who calls herself a “Predictor”. Her powers aren’t quite as simple as one would expect: she can’t see the future, but she can see what actions need to be taken in the past to lead to any given future (I think). Coulson and her actually get to have a pretty interesting conversation, despite the fact that she’s not so much an exposition-dump as an exposition-landfill, basically overflowing with information on every topic. For instance, what do the Chronicoms actually want? According to Sibyl, their grand scheme to wipe out the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and conquer Earth isn’t anything personal: they just want to ensure the survival of their species. Of course, that’s in character for a group of sentient aliens who have been shown to be completely devoid of human emotions, but it doesn’t really make for an interesting villain origin story – and Sibyl doesn’t ever explain why they’re only going after S.H.I.E.L.D. and not, you know, the Avengers or something. Nor does she stop to clarify why Earth, out of all the planets in the universe, is the only one where the Chronicoms can live. I was partially hoping she and Coulson would be able to strike up a deal to take down HYDRA together – but that doesn’t seem likely, since HYDRA took a backseat this week and may not come back to the forefront for a while.

Even Nathaniel Malick (Thomas Sullivan), the son of HYDRA leader Wilfred Malick, reveals that he has his own agenda that has nothing to do with his father’s organization. No, his motivation for kidnapping Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennet) and Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) in last week’s episode is pure selfishness: he wants to harvest Daisy’s Inhuman powers for himself, and he’s also come to the mistaken conclusion that Sousa is an Inhuman because he doesn’t age. Last week’s stinger, revealing that the younger Malick was in contact with nightmarish Nazi doctor Daniel Whitehall (an Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. antagonist from the series’ second season), gave me very high expectations: only for me to be slightly underwhelmed this week, when Whitehall was a no-show and Malick only got to wield Daisy’s quaking abilities for a couple of seconds before bringing the roof of his secret lair down on top of himself. But his storyline wasn’t a complete disappointment: Sullivan makes the most out of his small amount of screentime, giving Malick a vibrant, if dangerously unstable, personality; Daniel Sousa gets an opportunity to open up to Daisy while they’re both imprisoned, comforting her with wartime stories; and now there’s some doubt as to whether Daisy has any of her powers left – though if that’s the case, and such a momentous event in Daisy’s life was handled mostly offscreen by a one-and-done minor antagonist, I’ll be very angry: this season has already forcibly depowered “Yo Yo” Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley), and I’m not keen on the idea of another woman having her powers taken from her without her consent.

The only character who has gotten a power upgrade this season is Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), whose ability to read and imitate peoples’ emotions (or lack thereof) is becoming very useful indeed, allowing her to identify Chronicoms and other enemies just by touching them. But this new power comes at a terrible cost: the complete loss of May’s own emotions. I’m still conflicted on how I feel about this: back when Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. had twenty-two episodes in every season, a story arc like this might have had plenty of time and space to expand, and I might have really enjoyed it – in a season that only has thirteen episodes, six of which we’ve now plowed through, I don’t know whether May’s character arc will receive the screentime it desperately needs.

On that point, let’s discuss another subplot that needs to be more adequately explored: Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and her memory issues. Last week’s episode sparked several theories that Simmons, who appeared to have some sort of device plugged into the back of her neck, might be a Chronicom or LMD (Life Model Decoy), but it has now been revealed that that device, which for some reason is nicknamed “Diana”, is simply meant to suppress Simmons’ memories of Fitz. Specifically, her memory of where he is, a question that fans have been asking since he vanished last season. Simmons tells Deke that Fitz is in an exposed location, and that if the Chronicoms find out they’ll kill him – so in an effort to protect her lover’s life, Simmons has removed most of her memories of him and placed them in “Diana”, where she hopes they’ll be secure. This, obviously, doesn’t actually answer the question of where Fitz is, but I’m sure we’ll find that out when the Chronicoms inevitably hack into “Diana” and extract Simmons’ memories.

The Chronicoms are becoming ever so slightly more interesting as the season progresses, this week entering a new phase of their evolution: now, rather than just being able to steal faces, they can also steal personalities. This does make them more formidable, but it also essentially just turns them into LMD’s, which we already dealt with several seasons ago. Until we get to see them actually adapt into three-dimensional characters, I will continue to say that the Chronicoms are the weakest part of this season, which has up until this point proven to be pretty good.

But let’s see what happens. As I mentioned earlier, it looks like next week’s episode will follow Mack and Deke (who got separated from the rest of the team and are now stuck in the 70’s, where they must spend a considerable amount of time, considering that next week’s teaser trailer shows them in the 80’s, Mack now sporting a sizable beard and Deke wearing something indescribably hideous), but when we reunite with the rest of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I expect to have clear answers to a number of my own questions: does Daisy still have her powers? Did LMD Coulson actually get destroyed in the explosion he set off under the Lighthouse to destroy the Chronicom hunters, or will he be back, as May confidently assured her teammates? Will HYDRA return as well? How will the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. learn to adapt to their next problem? Only time will tell.

Episode Rating: 6/10

June 11, 2020

“Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, Season 7, Episode 3 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. AHEAD**

The seventh and final season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is suddenly delivering on everything I wanted it to: not only are the tie-ins to the Marvel Cinematic Universe abundant and cleverly constructed in the third episode, but the character work is excellent, the writing is mostly superb, and the setting – Area 51 in the 1950’s, at the pinnacle of the Space Race and America’s obsession with aliens and UFOS – is utilized wonderfully.

From the moment the title card appears, changed to fit the new historical period and accompanied by some classic eerie sci-fi music, I knew I was in for a good time. And yes, this season is still suffering from a few flaws – mainly, that the exposition is often, though not always, delivered through straight-up monologues of boring, nonsensical information that never fail to stop a dramatic scene in its tracks – but the good far outweighs the bad this week. The episode, titled Alien Commies From The Future!, leans heavily into comedy and has no problem poking a little fun at itself, or the tropes commonly associated with the 50’s. Sleek, “All-American” diners in the middle of the desert; the threat of “Stalinites”; CIA coverups. It’s all there, and it all works.

Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) are, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, the comedic MVP’s of the week – it’s surprising because they rarely ever get paired up with each other, but it’s also unsurprising because whenever they do, they have brilliant banter. Do you remember the scene on the train all the way back in season one, when they pretended to be a father and daughter on vacation? The scenes they share in this episode have shades of that hilarious interaction.

But the drama and the social commentary, though subtler, is handled surprisingly well. In particular, there’s a scene in which Coulson is rambling excitedly about all the great things happening in the 50’s, only to have his teammate Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennet) shut him down with a gesture toward the back of the aforementioned diner, where it’s hard to miss the signs indicating segregated bathrooms. Race relations come up again later in the episode, when the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. capture a Department of Defense official for interrogation, only to discover he’s a nasty bigot and is more threatened by the idea of spilling secrets to a Black man than he is by the thought of betraying his country. So they send in Deke Shaw (Jeff Ward), who, after some grumbling about “stupid white privilege”, does in fact weasel information out of the prisoner. The prisoner in question is released by the end of the episode, and gets his just desserts – running, screaming, through the desert and rambling about communist aliens.

On a more personal note, there’s drama and comedy to be found in the interactions between Simmons and one Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj). Simmons, in order to infiltrate Area 51 undetected, riskily disguises herself as none other than Director Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Peggy Carter, only to run into Sousa, Carter’s former work partner and post-Steve Rogers love interest. Though I would have liked to have seen Carter turn up in the flesh (and there were rumors that she would, or perhaps still could), Simmons frantically trying to keep her cool as she figures out that Sousa isn’t buying her disguise is possibly just as good a scenario. Sousa doesn’t have very much to actually do in the episode – his role is limited to following the Agents around and trying to figure out who’s working for what – but it’s nice to see him reprise the role he had on the short-lived Agent Carter series. Next week’s episode will apparently also star Sousa, as the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. have to decide whether or not to save him from HYDRA assassins.

Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) and “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) are also featured prominently in the episode, as they are tasked with breaking into Area 51 – it’s never actually explained how they do that, but I digress – and stopping a Chronicom suicide bomber from activating some sort of nuclear explosion. But May is suffering from severe trauma and breaks down in a rare moment of vulnerability for her character, while Yo-Yo is apparently still unable to use her Inhuman superpowers. They do defeat the Chronicom eventually, but their fight with her is brutal, claustrophobic and punchy: significantly grittier than May’s usual, elegantly-choreographed action sequences.

The Chronicoms are still just there. What are they even trying to do at this point? We get a little hint, as a new Chronicom leader is introduced early in the episode, but everything still feels slightly confusing: why don’t the Chronicoms infiltrate multiple timelines simultaneously, forcing the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to spread out? Why do they even care so much about S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway? There’s still far too many questions about them, and not enough answers.

But let’s not end it on a negative note: I loved this episode. I’m a little nervous to see what happens next week, since I don’t like the idea of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. watching from the sidelines as Daniel Sousa is killed, but I’m also cautiously optimistic: Daisy Johnson almost had Wilfred Malick killed in the 1930’s – could she rescue Sousa in the 50’s? Could she sneak him onboard the Zephyr One, and they could fly off and have more adventures? Sign me up for that spinoff.

Episode Rating: 8.8/10

May 28, 2020

“Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Season 7, Episode 1 Review!

Returning to the beautifully messy, Marvel Cinematic Universe-adjacent world of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a seventh and final season is already proving to be a wild and unpredictable ride, filled with plenty of fun character beats, clever jokes and even a couple of callbacks. Already, the story is moving along at a better pace than season 6, though it also appears to be suffering from a couple of that season’s same problems. As the Agents move backwards through time and space to try and prevent a hostile alien takeover of S.H.I.E.L.D., they encounter a wide variety of characters – some taken straight from the pages of Marvel comics, others borrowed from history books – along with a number of uniquely dangerous scenarios that require them to be on top of their game.

Unfortunately for the team, their leader and only guide through the past is currently having something of an identity crisis. As you may remember from the season 6 finale, the team made a decision to resurrect the recently deceased Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) by planting his preserved consciousness into the synthetic body of an LMD robot. And though our first glimpse of LMD Coulson was as his smiling, chipper old self, it quickly becomes apparent that all is not well with him – Coulson, despite agreeing to help the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. one last time, is clearly angry at them for bringing him back from the dead: it’s been a recurring problem for his character, as the other S.H.I.E.L.D. members (and, ahem, the showrunners) can’t seem to let him rest in peace. LMD Coulson is seen struggling through panic attacks as his old memories flood his systems with past pain, trauma and guilt. He also ominously tells Director “Mack” (Henry Simmons) that when all is said and done, he will “reevaluate” the situation – dialogue that seems to forewarn more trouble for his character in the near future. It’s easy to imagine that everything will come down to his choice whether or not to die and stay dead – already, the premiere is hinting at possible conflict as LMD Coulson remarks during fight scenes that being a nearly indestructible robot has its perks after all, and he seems very happy being back in his element, leading the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on a romp around 1930’s New York City, fanboying over historical figures and relishing the opportunity to dabble in the origins of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Apparently, not too much dabbling is strictly allowed by the rules of the series’ time travel mechanism, which appears to be rather different than the one presented in Avengers: Endgame. Though it hasn’t been explicitly stated what will happen if the Agents mess with historical events, everyone – and particularly super-genius Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) – strongly advises against it. In Endgame, tampering with history didn’t really matter too much, since the Avengers were simply creating alternate realities with every Infinity Stone they stole and every character they accidentally almost killed.

As one would expect, however, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. don’t really have much of a choice when it comes to changing history, as they find themselves in a number of predicaments that require drastic measures. Surprisingly however, it’s not the team’s newest recruit, time-traveling business entrepreneur Deke Shaw (Jeff Ward) who causes these predicaments (despite Mack specifically singling him out and ordering him not to try and file any patents in the past), but rather one of the team’s most senior members, Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennet). Johnson was somewhat sidelined in the sixth season, but here she is already back in form – even encumbered by an impractical dress, she still has excellent fight scenes, making ample use of her Inhuman powers, and her confident wittiness provides a nice foil to Coulson’s steady flow of awkwardly timed “dad jokes”.

The members of the team who actually get to wander through the streets of Great Depression-era New York – Coulson, Daisy, Mack and Deke – also get a much-needed makeover, trading in their sleek black S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms for historically-accurate outfits, haircuts and accessories. Daisy complains about having to get rid of her purple highlights, but her resulting 30’s look, complete with delicate white gloves and a fancy fur stole is far and away the premiere’s best. Mack comes closest to matching her retro vibes, though he himself notes that the sight of “a black man in a fine suit” attracts more attention from passerby than he had hoped.

The action back on the team’s ship is significantly less interesting and much less stylish, but Agent “Yo Yo” Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) has a number of touching, heartfelt moments while debating whether she wants to even try and fit in with the times if it means having to hide her mechanical arms, which she had grown to accept and be proud of, behind new, eerily life-like prosthetics. But for the most part, she and Simmons are forced to stand around and watch while the helpful Chronicom Enoch (Joel Stoffer) patches up Melinda May‘s (Ming-Na Wen) wounds from the season 6 finale.

A few other characters show up and either help or hinder the heroes’ journey. In particular, I have to give a shoutout to Patton Oswalt, who returns to the series to reprise his role as Koenig, the mysterious man with a seemingly endless number of identical siblings. Here going by the very appropriate codename “Gemini” and working as the proprietor of a speakeasy, this Koenig bears little resemblance to his descendants (apart from, you know, being identical to them): he’s rude, demanding, and a bit sexist. But he also hires a young man named Freddy (Darren Barnet), who proves to be of much greater significance to the story than one would guess.

And that’s my cue to start talking SPOILERS!, so if you haven’t seen the episode, turn back now.

Yes, as it turns out, the Freddy who is working as a waiter at Koenig’s bar is in fact Wilfred Malick, a.k.a. one of the key members of HYDRA, the organization that would go on to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. soon after its foundation and, eventually, rip it apart from the inside – and it’s Freddy who is the reason why the Chronicoms have invaded 1931. But as Coulson and Daisy realize at the very end of the episode (in an exchange which, unfortunately, was already revealed in the trailers), the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. now have to save HYDRA in order to save S.H.I.E.L.D., because without the one, the other cannot exist. The symbiotic relationship between the two covert groups has never been more fascinating.

But watching S.H.I.E.L.D. history unfold in front of our eyes is twice as much fun when its intertwined with real history – and Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. perfectly mingles the two by leading Coulson and his team on a red herring mission to rescue then-Governor of New York Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Joseph Culp) from what they mistakenly believe to be an assassination attempt by the Chronicom aliens. Though they quickly realize they’ve made a mistake, they fortunately get to have a delightful little conversation with Roosevelt (who, in Marvel canon, founded the organization that would later become S.H.I.E.L.D.). It’s heartwarming to see how much the team idolizes him – in particular Coulson, who ends up helping the Governor into a wheelchair and is subsequently sworn to secrecy.

The episode’s biggest weakness is the Chronicoms themselves: the emotionless alien lifeforms whose mission to root their opponents out of history still feels pretty vague – tying everything back to the irreversible connection between S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA is the right call, as the series began with that and ultimately should end with it as well: I just wish we didn’t have the Chronicoms right in the middle of the conflict, as I don’t know whether this thirteen-episode season will be able to balance so many storylines. Now, substitute the Chronicoms for the Kree and then I might reconsider, because at least the Kree have had connections to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a very long time – but these aliens, with their face-stealing technology and imperfect attempts at replicating humanity, feel very random. All except Enoch, who doesn’t really seem to have much stake (if any) in the fight between his civilization and the human race.

The episode’s last-minute stinger, however, brings the focus back to Enoch – though only as a way of showing us that Melinda May, who had been unconscious for the entire episode, is awake, and has escaped from her hyperbaric chamber. Judging by the glimpse of her face that we get as she watches Enoch from where she’s hiding in the ceiling fixtures, it looks like she’s having some issues of her own – she probably hasn’t quite gotten over the experience of being tossed through a portal into a demon dimension just yet. But as much as I’d love to see her deal with that pain as slowly as she needs to, I also don’t want the series to spend any more time addressing things from season 6 than it absolutely has to, if that’s at all possible. Even the mere mention of the Shrikes from last season made me want to cringe.

Overall, I hope the final season can improve. I had fun with this episode – the writing was good, and characteristically clever, but the heart wasn’t fully there. I want episodes that focus heavily on character development, rather than on time-travel mechanics and Chronicom politics. Namely, what I don’t want is another season 6: a season that gets so wrapped up in trying to outdo everything that’s come before, that it forgets to be fun and exciting. At the moment, season 7 could still go either way.

Episode Rating: 6/10