One of the questions raised by the end of the previous episode was, quite simply, how would Team Coulson adjust to the loss of major fieldwork experts like Bobbi and Hunter?  This installment starts to address that question directly, both in terms of the existing agents and those who have been waiting in the wings.  The result is a strong showing for Mack and a sufficient one for Lincoln.

 

 

As mentioned in a previous review, the Watchdogs were originally a xenophobic domestic terrorist group in a storyline that ran in the late 1980s for Captain America.  In essence, the concept has been updated to focus on metahumans, specifically Inhumans, as a direct result of the events from the MCU films.  It’s a great way to tie lots of concepts together, and it serves as insight into elements of the societal mindset leading into Captain America: Civil War.

 

Mack is a character that needed a bit of exploration, and the timing was just about perfect, given his strong reaction to Bobbi and Hunter’s departure.  Despite being saddled with a cliché of a younger brother (Ruben is predictable throughout), it was a reasonable vehicle to communicate the notion that the Watchdogs aren’t just a post-Hydra product of distrust.  Rather, in a somewhat interesting commentary on current politics as well, the Watchdogs are feeding off a groundswell of anger and suspicion amongst an uncertain populace.

 

 

What the generally cookie-cutter familial plot does, however, is demonstrate how all these wars between SHIELD and Hydra and their allies and proxies end up expressed among the common people.  None of this semi-covert activity takes place in a vacuum.  Events like the Battle of New York aren’t confined to Hell’s Kitchen, and disasters like Sokovia become a symbol of fear.  Inhumans are caught in the middle of that tension, not at all unlike the mutant storylines of the X-Men franchise.  (And Simmons’ discovery will continue to fuel the obvious parallels between Inhumans and mutants as the season progresses.)

 

The emergence of the Watchdogs puts Daisy in an interesting philosophical position: does she continue to play by the rules set by those who fear her kind, or does she start pushing back on those constraints to play by her own rules?  It’s an interesting question raised in the same episode that Lincoln starts to learn some valuable lessons about the chain of command and the bounds of operational autonomy.  This is likely to add to the tensions already growing between Daisy and Lincoln of late.

 

 

If Mack and Lincoln started showing promise in terms of their ability to work in the field, Daisy took a few contrasting steps backward.  A lot of what happens in the latter part of the episode, especially to Fitz, is entirely her responsibility.  But that’s all for the good, since the writers had to address the lingering question of the team’s viability and the conflicts that could and should start to emerge after all the recent shakeups.  It may not have been the obvious way to explore Bobbi and Hunter’s departure, but it was a logical direction to take.