Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S04 E03: “Uprising”

We’ve met the new boss, we’ve met the Ghost Rider, and we’ve seen what the team has been up to since last season, now it’s time to see what these new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are really capable of against a brand new threat – the Inhuman Resistance. Meet me after the jump for my thoughts on “Uprising.”

Miami

Miami is taken down by some sort of electromagnetic pulse, purportedly engineered by a group calling itself the Inhuman Resistance. Yo-Yo is in Miami for a bachelorette party and witnesses the black out just as Mack calls her. When a helicopter drops out of the sky Yo-Yo knows it’s bad. Her friend’s party is going bad as well. They’re on a rooftop but her friend wants to go thirty floors down to find her fiancée. Once on the ground looters with guns approach them with information that there’s an Inhuman there.

There’s too much of a coincidence going on here. How would they know there was an Inhuman here? Access to the government registration lists? A plant within S.H.I.E.L.D.? If so, wouldn’t they know who was there? Paranoia turns partygoers against a sleight-of-hand magician who claimed his skills were a gift. Yo-Yo’s speed in saving the poor magician lightens a tense situation by disappearing the bad guys’ guns, but then, her friend rats her out. Just replace the word Inhuman with mutant and you get the idea.

May

At S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters May is in trouble. One of the gang members initially affected by the ghost has died suddenly, and the same could happen to May. Mace gives Simmons free hand to save her, so she goes to Radcliffe. Mapping May’s brain they find the cause of death in the others – fear – they were scared to death. The touch of the ghost drove her brain permanently into fight-or-flight mode, and with May, you know it’s always fight.

As expected, the power goes out right after the two scientists agree that they have to reboot May’s brain by killing her temporarily. Don’t you just love Silver Age comic book science? I know I do. So May is dead, and there’s no power to shock her back to life with defribulators, so Radcliffe goes to his bedroom and pulls the power source out of Aida. Repowered, the shock brings May back, sans ghost infection. We are left hanging however as Simmons has yet to ask Radcliffe where he got the power source. I think his secret project will soon be out of the bag.

Date Night

The Inhuman Resistance promises to blackout one city every hour until their demands are met. After Miami, they hit London, then Moscow, and then Los Angeles where S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as Quake and Ghost Rider, are. We know how Simmons and Radcliffe made out, so that leaves our dynamic duo. The new team of Quake and Ghost Rider are tracking down the back door of these ghosts by investigating Momentum. Reyes’ uncle Elias Morrow worked for them. In the comics, Uncle Eli is the deceased devil-worshipping murderer who possesses this Ghost Rider’s demonic Dodge Charger. We’ll have to wait to see how that one shakes out, but I bet it’s very similar here.

Los Angeles is in a blackout panic, but The Car, being older than electronics, still runs and Daisy and Robbie are able to save Robbie’s little brother Gabe from looters. Notably, Robbie is a fierce fighter even without flaming help. He might be a nice addition to S.H.I.E.L.D., should things go that way. While Robbie goes out to get meds for Daisy’s arm, Gabe sets her straight that he knows who she is, and wants her out of Robbie’s life. Quake the super-villain is a bad influence on big brother. Nice twist, she’s gone when Robbie returns.

Going Public

This is a win in the end for S.H.I.E.L.D., and enough of a push from Coulson for new director Jeffrey Mace to announce the existence of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. to the world. Other than one villainous Senator, we don’t get to see much reaction to this, but I’m sure not a lot of folks are happy about it, after all, public perception of the organization is that it was infested with Hydra and tried to bring down the US Government in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, doing irreparable damage to them for years.

However, it may also be the first step in the right direction, establishing S.H.I.E.L.D. to its rightful place in the Marvel Cinematic and Television Universes, as a peacekeeping force protecting both normal humans and enhanced individuals, kinda what they were in the Marvel Comics I remember growing up in the 1970s and 1960s. if they can pull this off here in the series, this could be the beginning of linking all of Marvel’s media together, whether it be the small screen, the big screen, or the streaming screen, and I think that would be a good thing.

Conclusion

I’m not sure what I dug more – Coulson, Mack, and Fitz kicking Watchdog ass at the bachelorette party or how cool and low tech ‘Slide Rule,’ I mean ‘Turbo,’ was without his technology. I also loved Yo-Yo’s undercover action. It’s a shame her friend doesn’t trust her now. In this moment it finally feels like the word Inhuman has fully replaced mutant in the Marvel Cinematic Universe lexicon.

As it turns out the Watchdogs are behind the Inhuman Resistance, with some heavy duty backing. Though only we know it, it seems that that backing and information leak is Senator Nadeer, played by one of my favorite actresses, Parminder Nagra from ER and Bend It Like Beckham. Nice to see her get a villainous turn, she can definitely handle it. While there was not much forward motion, and the May subplot seems really pointless in the end, I quite liked this episode with subtle spotlights on Yo-Yo, Fitz, and Gabe, good stuff.

Next: Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire!