Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Recap: "Bouncing Back"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

As I settled in last night to enjoy the midseason premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I was hoping that the show was going to answer a pair of questions that were now burning in my mind. For starters, I was dying to get a better understanding of what the hell Ward had become at the end of the last episode, and I was also curious as to what kind of a man Phil Coulson would become after crossing the line and killing Ward in cold blood.

The good news is the show was happy to provide us with answers to both those questions, though Ward's storyline brought forth more questions while answering others, but we'll get to that in a moment. Because what took me by surprise last night was the fact that there was an interesting shift in "Bouncing Back", and well, I'll just say it now...this didn't look or feel like the same show I was watching a few months ago and quite frankly, I liked this change. 

Something about this series feels darker and grittier now and in all honesty I think that comes from the fact that Phil is a changed man. There's a certain edge to him now after putting Ward down and it's a bit of a thrill to see our favorite agent become a little more ruthless and dedicated in his quest to shut down Hydra. After all, watching him wrench information out of a brain damaged Werner Von Strucker was brutal to say the least, but it's clear now that Phil will stop at nothing to find Malick and put an end to Hydra once and for all and I'll be damned if I'm not fascinated to see exactly how far down the rabbit hole we are going to go when it comes to Coulson.  

As for the Ward issue, well...this is the scariest he has ever been. Yeah he was a big time egotistical jerk before, but now...he is literally a monster. Sure the showrunners have confirmed his true identity as Hive, but what impressed me about last night was the performance from Brett Dalton. He has completely and utterly transformed the character, not an easy task to do and it was downright creepy to see Ward's flesh speaking but see zero traces of the man on that face. Not to mention his "need" for Inhumans is disconcerting and I'm curious to see what he means by needing to make other Inhumans "believers" and I know I'm not the only one wondering if he eats them. 

Of course this episode also served as the kickoff to the Secret Warriors storyline and I have to be perfectly honest when I say...that part of the story was just okay. It was cool to see Daisy start to put together her team and give them all the freedom they deserve rather than lock them up in the basement of their base, but let's be honest, it just wasn't that epic of a storyline. Everything that was fascinating last night came from Coulson and Ward, but I have no doubt that the Secret Warriors plot will gain steam quickly. Either way, as a whole I was quite impressed with this episode. It takes guts to give a show this kind of drastic change in the middle of its third season and I'm quite curious to see where everything is going to go. Until next time.

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