'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Recap: 'The Devil Complex'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

​You know, it really has been quite a while since Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. delved into darker territory and that’s not exactly a terrible thing. After all, the Framework storyline was downright brutal through and through and I don’t think any of us were upset when that came to an end. But, I think we all knew deep down that eventually the series was going to toy with the darkness once again and last night’s episode, ‘The Devil Complex’, did just that, but this time around the story changed things up, by delivering its bleakness in stunning, outright jaw dropping fashion.
 
Which quite frankly, fascinated me because at first, this episode seemed pretty by the numbers, with Coulson and a small team chasing after General Hale to figure out what the heck she is up to and of course, things went south with this plan real fast. Because Hale expected a confrontation with S.H.I.E.L.D. and she brought along Creel to ensure her safety and eventually she brought Android Anton into the fold and really, she wanted one thing when it came to this encounter, to have Phil Coulson come back with her for reasons unknown and well, rather than let trouble or pain find his team he agreed to the terms and the simplicity of the episode didn’t end there.
 
Because back at the Lighthouse, there was trouble with the Rift as usual since another Anomaly escaped into our world and it briefly harmed Jemma and another agent before finally being put down and well, the appearance of that apparition left Fitz beside himself. Because he knew the answer to this mess would involve compressing down the Gravitonium so it could it fit into a new device to seal the Rift, but the answer as to how to make that happen continued to elude him. But, bigger problems fell into his lap while he pondered on this matter, because Evil Fitz from the Framework appeared in the Lighthouse, giving Fitz and the team plenty of pause and his arrival meant bad news for Daisy.
 
For the good doctor set a trap for Daisy, and for a moment there he appeared to be resuming his awful experiments on Inhumans and that’s where the episode took quite a left turn. Because Evil Fitz, did not hail from the Rift, HE WAS FITZ! Yes, that’s right, Leopold snapped and assumed his Framework identity in order to give Daisy her powers back so that she could in turn compress the Gravitonium and well, despite the conflict within his soul over doing something this bold, he went through with it, and seemingly sealed the Rift, but let’s be honest…nothing will ever be the same between Fitz and the team after this.
 
Plus, as an added shocker, we learned that Hale is working with an alien group known as the Confederacy in order to accomplish something sinister and to top it all off…she’s Hydra. Freaking. Hydra. So, yeah, this one ladies and gents, was simply epic through and through. I love the twists and turns that this episode took and that the series finally took the time to properly address the fact that what happened in the Framework would definitely jack up someone’s psyche. When all is said and done however, this episode is a game changer and I will be counting down the minutes to next week’s episode to see where all of these revelations and surprises take us. Until next time.

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