S4:E21 - Jess and Jared recap and discuss “The Return."
We get into the penultimate episode of this...third of the season, but also, since it's the *final* third, the penultimate episode of the season in general! A long-absent non-Framework'd May and Coulson must reunite while fighting off an army of Ivanov-bots (Anton Ivanov? A.I.? *Really*, S.H.I.E.L.D. writers?) The Zephyr's literally on fire but Daisy, Jemma, Yo-yo and Davis fight the impending disasters and manage to pull through. Fitz is disoriented as the newly (In?)human AIDA teleports them to some picturesque beach. AIDA continues to mess with Fitz's brain by compounding his guilt, reinforcing that he made all his own choices in the Framework. Yo-yo yells at Daisy for leaving Mack behind, but understands why she had to let him make the choice, though against Daisy's request, really wants to jump into the collapsing Framework to try once more to pull Mack back out. While fending off the Robo-Russians Coulson finds deflecting May's questions to avoid addressing his feelings for her, and how he told them to Robo-May, more difficult than fighting off the scores of attacking androids. May kicks the crap out of a ton of A.I.vanovs in a hallway/doorway shot while Coulson holds his own, and it's freaking rad. Ivanov floods their facility at this point, though as Jess points out, what was he waiting for? Though, we maybe cracked the character's essence: he's really bad at planning/illogical/maybe just stupid. Fitz tries to reason with, and teach AIDA, who's almost infant-like emotional state combined with her Inhuman abilities leaves her exceptionally dangerous, though he manages to appeal to her growing empathy and she saves Mack with her teleportation. Jemma has no patience for either AIDA or Fitz and has them immediately taken into custody. May is told about Robo-May's sacrifice as they return to the base, and place AIDA & Fitz into the containment capsule as they pass an emotionally poignant fallen photo of Mace's heroic moment in Vienna. May and Coulson try to explain to Jemma what their Framework lives were like, and what they mean to them, in order to process what Fitz has become, but can't handle it, and Daisy and Yo-yo hit the nail on her head, explaining that she both worries about who Fitz is, and who he may love. We see Fitz try to let AIDA down gently, even relating himself to Ward. But as misguided as she is, and as immature, AIDA simply cannot deal with his rejection, and goes berserk. Talbot shows up and makes Jared's day when he tells Coulson to "shut his robot mouth, or I'll have my men weld it shut for you!" The superpowerful AIDA uses Lincoln's electricity to bust out as Coulson tries to convince Talbot he's not an LMD. AIDA cuts a swath through the playground to get to a fleeing Fitz who barely manages to escape on the Zephyr to a conflicted Jemma. There she comforts an emotionally destroyed, sobbing Fitz, and Yo-yo does what Daisy begged her not to before, and goes after Mack in the Framework. AIDA gets her emotions going by briefly smooching and then totally destroying the bodies of some of Ivanovs LMD duplicates, and Ivanov offers to help her gain control of this world as she had in the Framework.
Talbot and his team abandon the ruins of the Playground, seeing no trace of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team or AIDA and her LMDs. An inter-dimensional gate left intact turns on and opens, with Ghost Rider stepping outside. As the episode closes we see Yo-yo strapped to a table in a Framework Hydra facility, falling apart at the seams.
And other than our fictional law enforcement agency, fuck the police. Now as always, Black Lives Matter. You can visit https://blacktrans.org/donate/ for ways to help take a stand for racial justice, human rights, social change, and Black and Transgender equality.
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