While an improvement over the first, Season 2 suffered from a weaker second half. While I overall liked Season 3 even better, I'd be remiss not to say that it has the exact same problem.
Season 3 starts with more and more people getting turned into Inhumans due to the Terrigen getting into fish oil pills. The president establishes a unit called the ATCU, forcing SHIELD to figure out whether or not they're a friend or foe. I really like the ATCU as a foil of SHIELD, they work a lot better than the "real SHIELD" does especially due to just how great of a character Rosalind is. Her chemistry with Coulson is fantastic and I like her morally ambiguous nature. As a result, I am a bit mixed on her death at the hands of Ward. On one hand, it's blatant fridging and a waste of a great character. On the other hand, it really shocked me when I first watched the show and did give the season momentum going into the midseason finale. Similarly to Season 2, this half of the season has a lot of fantastic subplots, like Ward trying to make a new Hydra, May contemplating getting back into the field and dealing with learning her boyfriend Andrew is a murderous Inhuman, and best of all, Simmons being rescued from the planet the Monolith sent her to and working with Fitz to go back and save the person who helped her survive. All of the subplots fit together really well, and it all leads to three really strong episodes to end off this first half.
However, the second half of Season 3 is, once again, not as strong as the first. The main arc is about Hive, who took over Ward, trying to... There thankfully aren't any awful subplots like the "real SHIELD" arc, but I always found Hive to be a pretty dull antagonist. Given how cruel and sadistic Ward has been in the first half, Hive basically just being an Inhuman cult leader just isn't as fun. However, there is a lot to like about this half as well. It's really satisfying to see Hydra finally go down for good, the half deals with the public reaction to Inhumans in some pretty great ways, Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez makes her first appearance, and we have plenty of really great and surprisingly emotional episodes like Parting Shots, Spacetime, and The Team. The final few episodes when Skye gets swayed to Hive's side, while not as good as the ending to the last two seasons, is still a solid and tense way to end the season. Frankly, my other biggest issue with Season 3B is the waste of some characters and plotlines. Hunter and Morse left the show for a spinoff that never ended up happening, but they never actually returned which sucks given how much fun they were this season. And while The Team's big twist was really cool, it does come at the cost of us not actually getting much time to see a full-on Secret Warriors team in action.
This season had some of my favorite episodes in the show to date, such as:
4,722 Hours: This was one of my favorite episodes upon first viewing and I still think it's fantastic. I just love its concept, spending the whole episode with a single character trying to survive on Maveth. Elizabeth Henstridge proves that she can carry an entire episode herself, and I think this episode was at its best when it was just Simmons trying to figure out how to survive. In addition, the final scene where Fitz decides to help Simmons save Will despite believing that she likes him was pretty great too.
Many Heads, One Tale: This show has the best plot twists, I swear. The reveal of Hydra's history and how much it has been responsible for was so well-executed and ties together the whole first half of the season. This episode had plenty of fantastic scenes outside of the ending though, like Fitz and Simmons's first scene, Coulson accusing Rosalind of being a part of Hydra, and funniest of all, the hacking mission that lovingly apes Mr Robot.
Maveth: I definitely remember this episode being a bit of a let-down after the shock-heavy Closure, but Maveth really did hold up a lot more after rewatching. The scenes on the titular planet were brutal and harsh, and there were a lot of big twists between the Will reveal, Ward's death, and the final Hive scene. Even more, it was really cool to see Lincoln and Joey go on their first mission as we get to see the Inhumans really start to integrate into SHIELD.
Parting Shots: Bobbi and Hunter's final episode was already pretty fun, with a neat Deus Ex Machina structure and plenty of moments that showcase the two at their best. But what really pushed this episode up for me was the beautiful final scene, a spy's goodbye, one of the most iconic tearjerkers of the whole show.
Spacetime: This was another episode that I really liked when I first saw it, and I think it's even better upon rewatch! The main plot about Daisy trying to change the future and save an Inhuman is a great standalone story, balancing some serious emotional heft with a surprising amount of humor (I could watch those practice sessions all day), but it also fits in perfectly with her character starting to be a bit more cocky and overly prideful about being an Inhuman. And if all that's not enough, Andrew permanently turns into Lash, the agents learn Ward is "alive", Chloe Bennett gets another great one-take fight scene, Fitz and Simmons hold hands, and Daisy learns of the Shield agent dying in the spaceship, really pushing the season's arc forward. It really is impressive how much happens here.
Ascension: While not one of the show's better finales, Ascension was really tense when I first saw it with all the hype around who's going to die. Of course, it had to be Lincoln (and I'm kinda glad it was), and his death scene with Hive was really great. I also loved the time jump and the LMD hook for Season 4.
Overall, Season 3 was pretty great. It was a satisfying end to the show's big conflict with Hydra, boasting some of the best episodes in the series and plenty of really strong emotional moments. However, once again, its first half was much better than the second, and the loss of certain characters (Rosalind, Morse, Hunter) was a big mistake.
4/5 Stars
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