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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Collision Course, Part 2

"People fantasize about doing something heroic, but in the end they save their own skin."

In the conclusion of the two-parter, the agents defeat Sarge, save the day and have a party. But it can't be over that easily, can it?

A big salute to the hero of the episode, Daisy, who was pivotal to saving the day not once, but twice. In the season promo released months ago, there was footage of Daisy with the atom bomb. It wasn't clear in the trailer what the device was nor what Daisy was doing with it, but after the first break of the episode, when the bomb was about to go off, I thought to myself how ridiculous it would be if she contained the blast from an atom bomb. She isn't that powerful. Instead, the resolution was smarter than me: Daisy created a force field around the bomb to protect it from shock waves so it wouldn't go off. So. Freaking. Clever. Way to go, girl.

She again saved the day when she destroyed all the Shrike, disintegrating them like she did the roaches in "Orientation." Cue Snowflake's "are all the females in your planet this powerful?" However, for all the complications it presented, "Collision Course, Part 2" provided a neat resolution quicker than necessary. Is there a force field that could burn Elena alive? Let Pax the Big Mouth tip her off about it. Are there thousands of Shrike that could spread and infect the planet? Let them all concentrate in the same area and have Daisy kill them all. It's not that the conclusion of the two-parter was a let down, but by not giving more time for the complications to develop, the episode lost some sense of urgency and tension.

Nevertheless, the episode succeeded on many fronts, and one of them was the defeat of Sarge. He has been so arrogant since his first appearance that seeing him put down was very satisfying. He lost on several accounts here. On the "war of words," like Mack said, he lost to Izel. Then he sabotaged his own leadership. He began doing that last episode, when he left Snowflake to bite the dust. Now he lied about her whereabouts, had his lie exposed, killed Pax for the sake of getting the mission done and then lost the support of his last ally. I see the killing of Pax as a turning point: Sarge is so close to Izel, so obsessed with taking her down, and somewhat shaken by these people that recognize his face as being someone else's, that he loses sight of the long game. In the span of a few hours, he loses all the members of his crew, and it's all on him. Finally, he loses the fight against Mack, both the physical one, in a strong fight scene, and the moral one, as Mack's patient leadership style finally pays off and has him land on top.

Sarge and Izel's argument brings some facts to the table and raises new questions. Sarge says that Izel killed his family and erased his memories, but she laughs off his lack of memories, stating that when they met he already didn't have any. This all smells of Sarge being another version of Coulson, albeit which one I don't know. Is it from another timeline? The fear dimension? Maybe this is our Coulson, and the deal with the Ghost Rider wasn't that he would die, but that he would become this heartless galaxy-hopping evil-chaser person, and he hid that from everyone because letting them think he was dying would be less painful (I don't think that's it, though, because if not properly done it could betray Coulson's emotional journey in all of season five). Whatever Sarge really is, now that May shot him in the head, it seems that we are about to find out.

Intel and Assets

- Jaco was the other big hero of the episode. He didn't take Izel down, as he thought he was doing, but he destroyed all her new servants. I liked his arc in these past couple episodes, and him bonding with Yo-Yo and going against Sarge made sense. Good writing there.

- So Izel possessed Davis and then she possessed May, is that it? For a second there, I thought Davis had been possessed by the Shrike and was gone. Thank God that wasn't it.

- It's made clear that, even though Izel doomed Chronyca-2, Sarge was the one who destroyed it.

- To the surprise of zero people, Mack and Yo-Yo are back together. Keller was, indeed, an afterthought.

- When she thought they were going to die, Daisy ran to May's side and held her hand. I loved this so freaking much.


- When she heard Sarge's voice, Simmons recognized it as Coulson's. That's attention to detail, I like it.

Quotes

May: "Three minutes 'till collision. How is it looking?"
Daisy: "Like we have three minutes to live."

Daisy: "You just described an atom bomb."
Snowflake: "I hear it's pretty."

Snowflake (re: Daisy): "Are all the females in your planet this powerful?"
May: "They are."

Simmons: "I like you.
Jaco: "It's because I'm likeable."


Good episode. Three out of four averted explosions.
--
Lamounier

2 comments:

  1. Yay for Daisy! She's been a bit on the back burner this season but at least she got to do some cool stuff. Although I think the Snowflake/May line afterwards was a bit on the nose.

    Jaco was cool. Although he probably could have just chucked that bomb through the portal rather than needing to sacrifice himself.

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  2. Lamounier, it did seem too quickly resolved. I really liked what they did with Jaco, loved everything Daisy did, and enjoyed seeing the whole team reunited. Including Mack and Yo-Yo, although, as you said, it was predictable.

    I was also glad that Sarge was defeated. He was so unlikeable. I'm looking forward to hearing whatever the answer is to Sarge's existence. Or non-existence.

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