Another IMDb user recently commented, on a prior episode, why can't they all be this good? Because you need to bake the bread before you can eat it.
In my other reviews I have commented on what I call "P2K4" (Pawn to King-4) episodes, designed mainly to move the chess pieces around the board so there can be a payoff later. All TV writers use this technique but if you study the writing in Angel and Buffy (which may earn you credit in some schools BTW) you will see that La Famille Whedon does more of this than other writing teams.
This wonderful episode is NOT a P2K4 story. It is a payoff. And what a payoff! Equal parts action, pathos, horror, sci fi, spy fiction, and a near-perfect use of the flashback technique in a TV drama. (I wish the writers at Arrow would learn from that, but they seem to have passed the point of no-return.)
Can a one-hour TV drama get any better? The story of how Agent May got her nickname could have been an episode by itself. But this series doesn't do "easy." You also get Skye's reunion with her mother who "never ages" (nor does Ming-Na Wen, but that's another review); a bunch of new spanners in the works for Coulson; lots of closeups of Chloe Bennet's face (fine with me); a mountain that moves at will; a woman who can bend a car; and a sweet, very young girl who goes insane and has to be put down like a dog, and an agent who turns a small-town washroom into a video hub. And even at that I think I left some important stuff out. But you get the idea.
Not boring.
Here's the deal -- if you find better written or more entertaining TV elsewhere, don't bother with this review, go watch it.
In my other reviews I have commented on what I call "P2K4" (Pawn to King-4) episodes, designed mainly to move the chess pieces around the board so there can be a payoff later. All TV writers use this technique but if you study the writing in Angel and Buffy (which may earn you credit in some schools BTW) you will see that La Famille Whedon does more of this than other writing teams.
This wonderful episode is NOT a P2K4 story. It is a payoff. And what a payoff! Equal parts action, pathos, horror, sci fi, spy fiction, and a near-perfect use of the flashback technique in a TV drama. (I wish the writers at Arrow would learn from that, but they seem to have passed the point of no-return.)
Can a one-hour TV drama get any better? The story of how Agent May got her nickname could have been an episode by itself. But this series doesn't do "easy." You also get Skye's reunion with her mother who "never ages" (nor does Ming-Na Wen, but that's another review); a bunch of new spanners in the works for Coulson; lots of closeups of Chloe Bennet's face (fine with me); a mountain that moves at will; a woman who can bend a car; and a sweet, very young girl who goes insane and has to be put down like a dog, and an agent who turns a small-town washroom into a video hub. And even at that I think I left some important stuff out. But you get the idea.
Not boring.
Here's the deal -- if you find better written or more entertaining TV elsewhere, don't bother with this review, go watch it.
