One of the very best surprises of last night’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., titled No Regrets, was definitely seeing B.J. Britt again.
Even though we had an unexpected tragic ending to the episode, seeing Antoine “Tripp” Triplett alive and well was nothing short of incredible. He used to be one of my favorites back in Season 2 and I was just as devastated as Skye was when he died.
In another solid episode, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. delivered a compelling story and I absolutely love how they are developing the Framework narrative.
It gives the actors a chance to stretch out and reinvent their own characters, but it also gives us a chance to see old faces, such as Tripp and even give old super villains a fresh start, like Ward.
But last night’s episode showed us that Ada is willing to do anything to keep everyone inside the Framework, so she can keep playing puppet master and living her life in the digital world as a normal human. A wicked, super evil human, but a human nonetheless.
Again, what she has done to Fitz is despicable, but at the same time, it’s not really all on her. Like she told Daisy, she just took their one biggest regret and everything just went from there.
So in Fitz’s case, it was his poor relationship with his father and how he never lived up to the man’s expectations. In the Framework, we see him seeking his father out for advice and they seem to be really close, even if the man’s moral code is not exactly right.
However, even though he’s been completely brainwashed, Fitz still showed some shred of remorse over killing Agnes in cold blood. So there is still hope for our sweet, awkward scientist. As much as it’s completely delightful to see Iain DeCaestecker be evil, I miss my adorable Fitz so much.
Seeing him beating up Daisy was hard to watch, but our girl is strong and she took it like a champ, because she knows she’ll find a way out. In fact, Ada’s biggest mistake was putting her and Dr. Radcliffe in adjacent rooms where they could talk, because now the scientist has given Daisy a way out of the Framework.
While all that was going down in the Triskellion – and we’re assuming that’s where they’re still holding Daisy and Radcliffe – Simmons decides to come clean with Mace and Ward and tell them all about the Framework and how none of that is real.
Her scenes were absolutely incredible and I am really digging her interactions with Ward. Elizabeth Henstridge is such a talented actress and she is doing an amazing job at being conflicted about Ward. After all, in the Framework, he seems to be a cool guy, but the hatred she has for him for everything he did and all the pain he caused is still too overwhelming.
When she says, “I can’t even look at you”, it shows just how deep her feelings go, but Ward just kind of breaks it down, especially when he apologizes for whatever his other self did, and he looked so earnest and sincere, that it’s hard not to like this good version of Grant Ward.
Meanwhile, Mace is working on a plan to extract one of his agents from a Hydra Enlightening Center. Ward is not happy about it, because that means more time that his Skye spends in the enemy’s hands, but Mace is the leader and the Patriot and he is the one who calls the shots.
He recruits Coulson to help him with the mission and the good professor is getting better and better at this whole secret agent thing. It looks like he’s almost completely back to normal, even though he still retains his Framework persona and false memories.
When they get to the Center, they quickly find the agent – and Hydra was keeping him and other people in cages, like they were dangerous animals – and guess who that agent was! Our beloved Tripp!
I had already seen BJ Britt’s name in the opening credits, but I had no idea he was going to have such a big role in the episode. They get Tripp out, but when they’re on their way to the bus, Coulson sees a guard taking one of his students to a building, so he decides to go after him and save him.
And that’s where all hell breaks loose. It turns out that it was a brainwashing room for kids and it’s awful. It was very reminiscent of LOST and how Dharma used to brainwash people, and it was just as horrible.
Mace and Tripp go after Coulson, but they meet a juiced up May on the way there. Fitz injected her with a super strength serum – much like Mace used to take in the real world, and the Patriot and the Cavalry have an epic show down. Hats off to Ming Na Wen and Jason O’Mara, who did an unbelievable fight sequence.
After the fight, May calls for reinforcements because the serum is already wearing off, so Fitz calls for a missile strike on the building Mace and everyone else is.
The buiding starts to collapse, but May decides to go in to check that the Patriot is really dead. When she’s making her way up the stairs, however, she runs into the kids who were being brainwashed and are now running out scared, and that seems to jump start something in her brain.
Then when she gets up there and sees Coulson and he yells at her to snap out of it, it seems like everything just clicks into place for her.
In the end, Mace stays behind to hold up the building, so everyone can get out safely, but he perishes when it all comes down on him.
Most shocking moment:
There were two particular shocking scenes in last night’s episode for me.
1. Up until last night, I wasn’t really sure what would happen if someone died in the Framework. Would they just get another life, like we had seen happen to May during the simulations? Or would they also die in the real world? Sadly, we saw Director Mace die in the Framework and in the real world, which just added a whole new level of danger and urgency to their mission to get out of this hell hole.
2. Until that last scene, I didn’t know if May had fully woken up or not, but having her walk into Daisy’s cell, ask if she was an Inhuman and then promptly throw a terrigen crystal at her had my jaw drop unceremoniously to the floor. I also hope they have some kind of protection against it in Hydra, because she would be just as affected by the crystal and I really don’t want May to die.
But hey, next week we are going to get our Quake back and it’s going to be awesome. Can we keep decent Ward and Tripp, though? Is there any way to do that? Please? Pretty please?
Check out the promo for next week’s episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1QJNF3crIQ
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Tuesdays at 10/9C on ABC.