Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 5, Episode 19 Review

The question I keep coming back to with this episode is a very simple "but why?" And how the writers didn't pick up on the fact that they were contriving their greatest plot twist in order to rocket this season towards a finale fans weren't expecting. Any sense of narrative or character arc is forgotten in a short moment that serves to undermine the rest of the season. Thankfully, there's only three episodes left and not much time for any real damage to be felt, but enough time to hopefully retroactively justify such an awkward plot contrivance.

Anyway, "Option Two" is a surprisingly standalone installment of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, mostly revolving around the Lighthouse being attacked by Qovas (yeah, I did have to look that up) and the Confederacy, who are after the Gravitonium. Most of the episode consists of characters running around the locked-down Lighthouse to try and stop Qovas and his men, and from that premise we get some interesting little moments of suspense and even a little sliver of horror - a genre Agents of SHIELD occasionally taps into with great success. However, there is a real sense that the budget's not all there as Qovas and his men look like Power Rangers villains, and I'm finding the Lighthouse set to be a bit boring after a while, especially when I start to wonder if that corridor is the exact same corridor from SHIELD's previous base of operations. There's some good lighting decisions throughout, with the big fire-lit showdown being a particular highlight, but Qovas' men are about as threatening as the battle droids from Star Wars.

Throughout the episode, Talbot's mental state seems to be constantly in question with the episode clearly telegraphing that he really shouldn't be trusted with a weapon only to conveniently provide him with a weapon to stun Simmons with and then proceed to single-handedly inject himself with the remaining 92% of Gravitonium not absorbed by Ruby. Exactly why Talbot does this is a complete mystery to me, let alone how quickly he manages to get the very complicated-looking machine to work. Shouldn't there be safety protocols of some kind on that thing? While I'm sure the writers will attribute this contrivance to Talbot's mental state, it really didn't ring true within the narrative or character, and just felt like the best deus ex machina ending the writers could come up with to stop Qovas' men.

Oh, and Daisy's digging up her mother's grave to give Coulson centipede juice...because that's clearly going to end well. Until next time...

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