Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4, Episode 12 Review

What is this? Twelve consecutive reviews of Agents of SHIELD? I guess I'm upping my game a little, given how in the past two seasons I've paired episodes up for review. Despite not reviewing the episodes weekly (I don't watch the series weekly), I'm quite pleased that I've managed to write twelve reviews for this season - especially given how much the show loves crafting episodes that rarely stand on their own.
"Hot Potato Soup" sees the return of the Koenigs to Agents of SHIELD - an aspect of the show that's been dropped since Season 2, and even then I don't remember Patton Oswalt being a regular then. The whole idea of the characters is really fun, and I have missed them as regulars on the show, but they've returned to a very different Agents of SHIELD that isn't nearly as fun or upbeat as Season 1 (when the characters were introduced, and featured the most), creating far too much tonal whiplash with their reintroduction. To save my neck any further pain though, the characters are only guest stars this week. It's nice to see Patton Oswalt return, but I can't say I'd be too interested in seeing more of the Koenigs - who now have a weird Mulder-esque brother and a sister...?
We also meet Senator Nadeer's "superior"...who is essentially a Russian crime lord and torturer, who doesn't do any torture because, you know, this show is super dark and everything. Yeah, whatever happened to that "we can do anything we want now we're only super late" thing the series was promising for this season? The actual character himself is rather weak, and it took me a long time to realise that he was the big bad in this season. But, he's got a keen interest in Coulson for Easter-egg-relevant reasons, so...I guess we'll see more of him?
I can't say "Hot Potato Soup" did much for me. It brought back characters that don't fit in the show anymore, it does a big reveal which came across as underwhelming, tackled a rather weak sub-plot with Fitz and Robo-Radcliffe, and saw Coulson and May almost get together...before May then revealed herself as an LMD. It's all a little clunky and doesn't work as well as previous episodes.

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