Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 14: The Devil Complex Review

Keith NoakesMarch 24, 20187978 min

If you would like to read my review of the last episode, click here.

Synopsis: Fitz and Simmons are faced with one of their greatest fears as they search for a way to seal the rift. (IMDB)

Writer: Matt Owens

Director: Nina Lopez-Corrado

Rating: TV-PG

Running Time: 45mins

Airs: Fridays at 9pm on CTV (Canada)/ABC (United States)

Who knew that it would take an appearance by Evil Fitz to make this the best episode of the season so far?

So the rift to the fear dimension is open again. Fitz is still frustrated with figuring out how to compress the gravitonium. He and Simmons were interrupted by an astronaut which presumably was Simmons’ fear (perhaps from her alien excursion). Yo-Yo was still working at breaking in her new arms. Deke was still transfixed on Fitz and Simmons, knowing that they were his grandparents while the rest of the team apprehended Hale and her car. Deke later stumbled onto Fitz reactivating one of the robot soldiers and was then knocked out by Fitz who was wearing his Evil Fitz suit underneath his welding gear.

While questioning Hale, she revealed to Coulson that she was just doing her job. She still believed that Daisy killed Talbot even though that Daisy was an LMD. Hale was trying to save the planet but she didn’t trust Coulson. She urged Coulson to go with her so she can show him what they were contending with, however, he refused. Ultimately, getting captured was her plan all along. When May approached Hale’s car, her driver who was still inside was Creel who had a bomb attached to him. Anton Ivanov, or The Superior, also showed up. He was concerned about the future of the planet and wanted Hale back. Coulson agreed to go with Hale as long as she spared the others.

Ivanov was working for Hale because she had his head in a jar.

Daisy couldn’t find any more research to help Fitz but they now had to concern themselves with a disturbance on the basis. With Daisy gone, Evil Fitz showed up to torment Fitz. Evil Fitz was willing to do what Fitz couldn’t. Meanwhile, someone got shot in another part of the base. When investigating the shot, Mack got shot by the robot Fitz reactivated. Fitz told them that Evil Fitz was back but obviously Fitz knew the most about Evil Fitz so it was up to him. While investigating a camera outage, another robot knocked out Daisy and took her.

When Daisy woke up, she saw Evil Fitz experimenting on her (Evil Fitz performed experiments on Inhumans while in the Framework). He believed restoring her powers was the key and began to remove the chip out of her head. Daisy didn’t want her powers restored but she could use them to compress the gravitonium. Fitz showed up to plea Evil Fitz to stop. Meanwhile, Yo-Yo wasn’t worried about anything happened to her since she met her future self but things could change between now and then. When Simmons showed up, Evil Fitz was gone. There was never an Evil Fitz and it was Fitz all along. Despite this, Fitz still thinking that Evil Fitz was in control, had to finish what he started.

With her powers back, Daisy compressed the gravitonium, got it into the device, and used it to seal the rift for good. Fitz was remorseful for his actions and kept himself away from the others. Simmons pleaded that the evil part of him wasn’t him and that he should ask for forgiveness but Fitz believed he didn’t deserve it. When consoling Simmons about Fitz, Deke shared intimate knowledge about both of them that he learned from his mother. Simmons figured out that he was her grandson.

The last scene of the episode was of Hale speaking to what seemed to be whoever was in charge, someone from the Confederacy … of Hydra?

Overall, this was a great episode that pushed us further to this season’s endgame by showing us who all the players were, bringing back Ivanov. It also gave us a compelling crisis of conscience with Fitz thanks to Elizabeth Henstridge’s strong performance as Simmons and Iain De Caestecker’s strong performance as Fitz and Evil Fitz. There was a lot of Fitz and Simmons here and they definitely delivered. The scene where Simmons learned the truth about Deke was very emotional so it will be interesting to see where their relationship will go from there. Who are Hale’s Hydra overlords and what do they want? Only time will tell.

Score: 9/10

If you liked this, please read my other reviews here and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, follow me on Instagram, and also like me on Facebook.

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