Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: ABC, agents of shield, entertainment, jason o'mara, Jeffrey Mace, marvel, television, The Patriot

The Director Stands Revealed – Fall Out From Marvel's Agents Of SHIELD

This article will contain spoilers for the Marvel's Agents of SHIELD episode – The Patriot.

.

.

.

.

.

The latest episode of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD promise to reveal Director Mace's big secret, and it delivered on that. But in a way, the secret itself wasn't necessarily the big part but rather the pieces in place around it. But let's look at what else happened first before talking about Mace.

The show's subtitle is now LMD, so the less than completely evil machinations of Dr. Holden Radcliffe (John Hannah) come center stage where we see that he is driven for his desire to get the Darkhold… but he's willing to be patient and play the long game and he truly does not want anyone hurt. That to me is a fascinating twist on the character. He was kind of mad scientist when we met him last year and his reluctance to experiment on the humans to make Inhumans almost seemed like a put-on. But since the only one he is talking to in these scenes is Aida (Mallory Jensen), you have to believe he is genuine. He's not happy with what he's doing to Agent May (Ming-Na Wen) and wants her to feel as little discomfort as possible.

The more interesting things are happening at SHIELD HQ though as Daisy (Chloe Bennet) and the LMD May are spending more time together. At some point you have to believe that Daisy will realize that May is being a bit too sentimental. And one of the things that Radcliffe thought was an advantage with May was that the LMD didn't know what it was where Aida does. But now the LMD May has to know after she got the wound and can see her metal skeleton. And what on Earth is Fritz (Iain de Caestecker) thinking when he downloads Aida's memories into his phone? You KNOW that is not going to end well overall and for the relationship with Jemma (Elizabeth Henstridge).

I have some mixed feelings about the main storyline for the episode. When Mace (Jason O'Mara) was brought in and was basically the old Marvel comic character The Patriot who at one point filled in for Captain America, it seemed really an interesting choice and nice to see them taking a step away from the Inhumans. And then he said he was an Inhuman and that didn't feel right. The Marvel universe is so diverse, but for a show about SHIELD to spend so much time on one aspect of the universe was getting ridiculous. But the Ghost Rider story was enough away from the Inhumans and Hydra that I was okay.

The reveal that Mace is not Inhuman… and not even super powered… put him back closer to the original character. But it also changes the dynamic of the show. Once again Coulson (Clark Gregg) is in charge while Mace will be the public face of SHIELD. That's probably better for the show. But I'm a little disappointed in the full reveal. The fact that Mace was following General Talbot's (Adrian Pasdar) orders should've been enough. Here was a hero who was given a serum to make him powered and asked to run a government agency. But they went the extra step further to take away the hero part. He didn't act courageously in Vienna. He tripped and someone took a picture. Mace showed his courage, walking out to confront the Watchdogs when his serum had run out. He didn't cower, even when wounded. So why take away that part of his backstory? It seemed a little much.

And the fact the serum is not based on the work of Dr. Erskine, but rather the formula created by Calvin Zabo (Kyle MacLachlan) just tells us that something very bad is going to happen in the future because of the serum. But on the plus side, we got to see Coulson use his shield again and that was cool.

Here's a look at next week:

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!