5.17 Discussion Thread (Spoilers)

I have had to stream off ABC.com once.  Worked okay, but you need access to one of a half-dozen services.  (Used my Mom's DirecTV account. )

Problem is you can't bypass the commercials.  Ugh....

I think that confrontation was inevitable, and it will lead to bad things. I fear it will pit family versus humanity.


Nobody has ever convinced me that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane isn't stupid. Then too, I quit flying decades ago. But if you have a quinjet, you turn on the cloak, land, and WALK OFF THE PLANE. What's wrong with that?


Actually, in my early notes, I was sure Deke was going to die, and it would have been the fault of the three invincibles because they disobeyed orders and weren't there to save him. Instead, we find out Deke wants to put his mouth on Daisy's mouth and move it around a lot. I suppose that's the better of the two outcomes.

But it's something else Mack has against the three.


Yeah, I don't think he was in the preview, so he could have died. Right after the writers finally make May tell Coulson she loves him.

I'd give that as much chance as Steve Rodgers living through Avengers 4...


How many didn't watch MASH growing up?

So, Hale pins Ruby to the wall and asks, am I going to have to force you. It's obvious that Ruby can easily take her down, so what kind of unrevealed control does Hale have over her? It's not instant, or she would not have allowed Ruby to lock her in the room.

Oh, and that damned tag scene...worst (best) one ever.. I think they got us all with that one!

I am glad that, unlike last time, Simmons took a parachute with her when she jumped out of a plane. Like some of you, I do not understand why they did not simply wait for the plane to land and walk out.

Two of the characters have superpowers. It might help if they remember that they have their superpowers. Why would Daisy resort to fisticuffs when fighting Ruby when Daisy could easily take Ruby out with her powers? I know that Elena's arms hurt when she uses her powers, except when she used her powers in the last episode, but she did not know that at the beginning of the episode. She could have easily scouted the facility. Of course, one of Fitz's dwarfs could have done the job as well if they had time to grab them.

I am surprised that Fitz, Simmons, and Elena found the facility on the first try. When Fitz said that he had three locations in mind, I assumed that the first two would turn out to be duds.

I assume that the robots at the facility had some leftover programming that kept them from doing actual harm. Fitz and Simmons were standing with far too little cover at too close a range for any competent shooter to miss them. When they were not standing, they were hiding behind tables that were too thin to provide cover. The tables might provide concealment, but the robots had automatic weapons and more than enough ammunition. At least Fitz and Simmons did not try to punch robots like some other characters have done. Any collision between a fist and a metal head would be very bad for the fist.

Fitz is smart enough to know that time loops and traveling backward in time require a fifth dimension and that a fifth dimension makes alternate timelines possible. Even Talbot referred to the fifth dimension.

What exactly does Ivanov think is going to go into the chamber: his disembodied head or an LMD? He obviously does not know about the future if he thinks that Elena will die only once.

This episode reminded me of "T.A.H.I.T.I." in that the character in peril was too beloved by the writers to die, but I was not necessarily rooting for the character to survive. I can imagine real-life surgeons watching the scenes thinking, "I spent four years as a pre-med student, four years in medical school, and five years of residency working excruciatingly long hours and accumulating debt in the six figures just so I can do something that apparently can be done by someone with modest training as a field medic with a mechanic assistant."

I did not expect Talbot to be brainwashed. I viewed that as being Whitehall's thing even though Ward brainwashed Bakshi. However, I also saw dog murdering as being Garrett's thing until we learned a couple of episodes ago that it is standard at Hydra Academy. I did see a strong possibility that his family would be compromised and thought that it was a mistake for Daisy to offer any method of communications other than Talbot recording a message to be delivered to his family at some time. Hydra easily could have pulled the same trap that Raina pulled on Mike Peterson: hold his family hostage. Talbot already showed in "The Inside Man" that he would sell out the team to save his family.

Is Coulson also brainwashed? If not, why not? Does brainwashing require a person to be in a certain state, one that can be achieved by a few days without a cot, a chair, and without Cap'n Crunch?

A few episodes ago, I wrote:



I am glad to say that she has been listening to me. After a twelve episode run (episodes 2-13) in which she failed to finish in the top five characters with the most dialogue in any episode, she finished in the top two for three of the last four episodes.