“Agents of SHIELD” gave us a surprise reveal last week as Radcliffe’s own Life Model Decoy was taken into custody. In “Hot Potato Soup,” his LMD gets under Fitz’s skin while the real Radcliffe is busy trying to get himself the Darkhold. The Koenigs, who were responsible for hiding the magical book, are on the run.
Everybody wants the Darkhold
SHIELD has been busy keeping the Darkhold (remember, the book that kicked off the whole Ghost Rider thing) under lock and key to keep it safe. They haven’t used it since saving Fitz, Coulson, and Robbie because it comes with its own set of problems.
Radcliffe wants it for the power, which means all of his LMDs are programmed to want it. Nadeer, the Watchdogs, and the Russian spies all want it to get rid of Inhumans.
I am curious as to why everyone seems to think there’s specifically a way to wipe out Inhumans in the Darkhold. Is this because someone glimpsed it? Or is this because they assume it has everything they want in it?
So much Fitz backstory
On behalf of all the fans who have been wondering just when we’d learn more about Fitz since everyone else had had plenty of backstory revealed, thank you to the “Agents of SHIELD” writers for finally throwing us a few bones. To be fair, a lot of what is revealed about Fitz’s family history isn’t super surprising given what we’ve seen from his character and how he’s become attached to male authority figures within SHIELD.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to have figured that out.
What is important here though is that Radcliffe and Fitz’s father, who abandoned Fitz and his mother, know each other. Why is that important? Because it likely means we’re going to be meeting him at some point this season. In fact, as previously speculated, I’d bet this tease will play into the mysterious third arc of the season.
I am all for more development on the Fitz end of things -- both for his backstory, and his relationship with Jemma, which got a lot more screen time tonight than it has most of this season.
LT Koenig makes her debut
The first Koenig in SHIELD, as it turns out, was the Koenig sister. While I’ve enjoyed all of Patton Oswalt’s versions of the Koenig brothers, Artemis Pebdani as LT might be my favorite Koenig.
She’s tough, sarcastic, and funny. She pulls no punches. And she’s really a breath of fresh air in this episode. More of her, please. Also making its debut in the episode is the Labyrinth, a SHIELD vault that holds all kinds of fancy books. (It’s where Billy hid the Darkhold.) Really, it’s a gorgeous library, and the set looks so fun that I hope it’s not the last we see of it.
Jemma realizes May is an LMD
It’s pretty amazing that Jemma and Fitz are such geniuses, but it took them opening up LMD-Radcliffe’s head to realize that the real Radcliffe also mapped May’s brain and that the May they knew was actually an LMD. Coulson, of course, figures it out just seconds before they call the team. We have to feel bad for LMD-May, though.
She thinks and feels just like May. She believes she’s real. She doesn’t want to betray Coulson. It’s a sad situation all around.
The Koenigs answer an old question
When Billy and Eric were introduced back in season one, a lot of people thought the Koenigs would turn out to be robots themselves. Very much flesh and blood, the writers did give us a bit of a fun fake out tonight as it was revealed they were part of the original LMD program at SHIELD -- as technicians. Looks like the Koenig family really is just that -- a family of SHIELD agents.
The verdict and what’s next
"Hot Potato Soup" had a great balance that has been missing from the rest of the episodes in the LMD arc, and it was so fun!
All that was missing was seeing how Elena would react to the Koenig family.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
In next week’s “BOOM,” we’ll get to see the inspiration behind Aida and meet a new Inhuman as Coulson tries to find the real May.
