The Koenigs return to save the Darkhold while S.H.I.E.L.D. grapples with fresh secrets in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×12.
‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ 4×12 recap
“Hot Potato Soup” is a bit of an odd salad of an episode. Part lighthearted throwback, part uneasy contemplation, tonight’s installment of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. acts as a kind of refocusing lens between the past and the future.
The past is represented by the long-awaited (and delightful) return of Patton Oswalt as the Koenig brothers. Tough-minded Billy Koenig is captured by the Watchdogs as Radcliffe pursues the Darkhold. His brother Sam reunites with the S.H.I.E.L.D. crew to save his brother — and recover the deadly tome.
Radcliffe, of course, represents the future in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×12. The borderline-bonkers scientist poses fruitlessly as Billy Koenig’s fellow prisoner, equally at the mercy of the rather bland Russian Superior. (The Superior, it turns out, is called the Superior because he’s really strong and he thinks that’s awesome.)
The Superior is himself something of a throwback, obsessed with doing things the old-fashioned way. That includes information retrieval. But when the Superior moves to torture Billy, Radcliffe’s bizarre Do No Harm instinct kicks in once again. He does not want Billy hurt; instead, he’ll just take all of his memories and find the Darkhold that way!
It seems like a bit of a labored way around the point, but “Hot Potato Soup” is all about setting down those careful steps. Coulson, Daisy, and LMD-May collect the rest of the Koenig clan, including Thurston (a terrible peacenik poet) and Agent LT, the gloriously badass sister Koenig.
While Radcliffe muddles through Billy’s brain, the Superior discloses his personal motivations for hunting the Darkhold. The Russian believes that Inhumans, who have gained power they have not earned, must be destroyed — along with “the thing that brought them upon us.”
More on that in a bit.
Meanwhile, Fitz, Simmons, and Mack are trying to solve the puzzle of Radcliffe’s LMD at the base. It’s here that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 4×12 sinks down into its more arcane depths. Radcliffe’s code seems utterly impenetrable, and the robot slips through Fitz’s defenses with uncanny ease.
Already wounded by the real Radcliffe’s betrayal and frustrated with his lack of headway, Fitz plays presents an easy target. The Radcliffe LMD elaborates on the cycle of betrayal for which Fitz seems to have been so painfully “programmed.” Among these betrayals is Fitz’s own father, whom Radcliffe claims to know from Glasgow.
Whether this is a spectacular coincidence or bald-faced lie; is not immediately clear, and it doesn’t seem to matter.
“Radcliffe” dangles the promise of a message from Fitz’s father while Fitz grapples with memories of the past. Apparently, his father was a belittling jerk who insulted Fitz’s intelligence and abandoned the family. Stung and protective, Simmons tries to console Fitz.
“Who you really are, that’s not programming,” she tells him. “It’s something way beyond that.”
This notion of programming inspires Fitz to (literally) dig deeper into the puzzle of Radcliffe. At the same time, Mack and the robot are debating designation of souls, which, while a worthy topic, seems a bit grand for “Hot Potato Soup.”
Fitz bores into the robot’s head and discovers that Radcliffe’s code is not, in fact, a code; it’s a quantum brain. The perfect, light-based imitation of the genuine article awes Fitz and Simmons, but the critical moment comes when the LMD lets slip that more than one brain has been replicated.
Within seconds, Simmons solves the episodes-long mystery: May, she realizes, has been forcibly replaced.
On the Zephyr, the Koenigs reveal that the Darkhold was volleyed between them in a hot potato maneuver. Billy hid the book in a S.H.I.E.L.D. library called the Labyrinth (don’t you miss those weird S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities?) and has accidentally led Radcliffe right to it.
So the team arrays at the Labyrinth, leaving Coulson and May outside the secret passage. May is twitchy and anxious, but not sufficiently so to ignore her deeply coded urge. She and Coulson make small talk, and then finally kiss — years of companionship and love colliding with future possibility.
It’s also sort of like watching your dad make out with a mannequin of your mother.
But romance falls aside when the Koenigs return with the Darkhold, and May gets her hands on the book. With her purpose revealed, May turns jealous and protective. Coulson quickly clocks her — “May would never betray me,” he says — and Daisy arrives in time to neutralize the LMD.
But when the freed Billy Koenig grabs the Darkhold and stops to aid the wounded “May,” the LMD fulfills her mission. Radcliffe takes the book from his bereft and aimless creature, but declines to take her with him into the next phase of his journey.
“You weren’t built to last,” he says, and leaves to carry Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. into its next phase.
With the Darkhold gone, the team regroups. (It must be said that they take the loss of the Most Important Book In The World quite well.) The Koenigs are revealed to be normal(ly weird) human dudes who once helmed the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s original LMD program; alas, their work is obsolete.
Back at the base, the team burns Aida’s head and the Radcliffe LMD. But they can’t move entirely forward yet; Coulson can’t bear to destroy the May LMD, just in case they never find the original May. Daisy promises they will find her. Coulson looks sad, and a little bit sexually confused.
I guess I can’t blame him.
But “I kissed a robot”-itis may not be Coulson’s number one problem for much longer. The Superior (real name: Anton Ivanov) reveals the source of his obsession to a rather bemused Radcliffe, reaching back to the earliest days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“Every time something strange happens in the world, it is there,” he says. “I believe it is responsible for all of the alien problems on this planet.”
“It” is Coulson. The man in the shadows; the dead, and the living. The lucky, and distinctly un-magical; and now, the target.
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