Option Two

All its audience may have been at the movies seeing Infinity War, but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. still had a new episode last Friday. It was a rather tight hour, with the bulk of our heroes all together in a single plot line.

Trapped in the Lighthouse thanks to Coulson's impatience over menu options, the gang had to stave off an alien siege from quasi-vampiric monsters that attack in darkness. After weeks of being used only as comic relief, Deke swung sharply into more dramatic territory -- he was the one character who really knew about these aliens, and that little bit of knowledge was terrifying to him.

Though most of the episode was spent running from monsters, there were still moments throughout that were about character more than action. A real rift has emerged between Mack and Yo-Yo. His staunch moral compass won't allow for Yo-Yo's handling of the Ruby situation. It's a well-constructed storyline, as both of them seem to be acting consistently with their histories, doing what they'd do and reacting as they'd react. It's separating them in a plausible way, not an artificial, it's-TV-so-we-have-to-do-the-"will-they-won't-they"-thing way.

While there was also fun repartee between Coulson and May, and Fitz and Simmons, the episode really belonged to Talbot. Lost in a sea of guilt and brainwashed uncertainty, he decided he had to do something to atone. Never one for small measures, his solution was to infuse himself with the gravitonium, becoming the potentially world-cracking problem it has been feared Daisy or Ruby would become. It seems unlikely that exposing Talbot to more crazy is going to counteract the crazy he was already dealing with, so this sets up a serious problem for the gang. (One it seems could sustain more than just the three episodes we have left, but we'll see how they handle it.)

I'd give this episode a B+. It was in many ways mostly setup, but the atmosphere of the thing, and the depth of what it did setup, made it a solid hour in my book.