Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 3, Episode 14 Review

Oh, Agents of SHIELD, you were doing so well...
This week the agents faced threats from an anti-Inhuman group known as the Watchdogs after an attack on an ATCU building, while Mack was trying to spend some time with his brother. It was a little odd to see that Mack's brother Ruben didn't even get acknowledged as such until after the opening title card, meaning that as an audience who didn't know this character was or his connection to Mack - made even more difficult by the fact that the two actors look nothing alike.
If you didn't see where this episode was going from the opening five minutes, I'll assume you enjoyed this episode much more than I did. Maybe I've watched too many serialized American TV shows but the entire plot of this episode was just filled to the brim with cliches. One of the main characters re-united with family member (probably brother), family member is having a hard time, family member reveals his/her support for the antagonists of the episode and family member finds out the main character's secret, being at first annoyed they weren't told and then accepting them (probably asking another main character about them). It's a selection of cliches that make up one giant TV trope that I honestly don't care for. I've seen it done so many times and so rarely with any actual originality that this episode was pretty much doomed from the start.
Oh, and the anti-Inhuman group felt a bit too on-the-nose for me, and any moral conflict was ruined by the inclusion of a Hydra alliance.
Titus Welliver made a welcome return in this episode after being attacked by Deathlok in Season One (who else remembers this I have no idea), but making him the villain of the episode - and judging from the ending, future episodes as well - felt like a major misstep. Felix Blake was a fun character in the Marvel One-Shots and in Season One, but bringing him back as the villain just didn't work for me. He was evil...just cos. The writing for his big reason speech didn't really justify this sudden change in character at all.
Overall, "Watchdogs" proves to be the most forgettable and average episode of Agents of SHIELD in quite a while, filled with lost of cliches, a poor choice of villain, an admittedly cool nod to Marvel's Agent Carter and Daisy looking like the bad guy just because the writers wanted her to. Urm...out of character much? That pretty much sums up this episode come to think of it. 6/10

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