Hive revealed his true face, Daisy and Lincoln had a revelation, and then everything went to Hell in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3×16.
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,” proclaims Satan in the first book of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It’s a potent statement, an empowering one, but the words speak as much of failure as they do of victory. Fittingly (though I admit, I never thought I’d be linking this show with a 17th century religious poem!) Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3×16 has a firm grasp on both sides of Satan’s duplicitous coin.
Because as in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Marvel’s “Paradise Lost” is brimming with characters reigning over their own personal Hells.
An un-brief list:
Coulson is stuck in a purgatory of regret, as the consequences of his actions on Maveth come into sharper and more awful relief. The Director admits that he “crossed a line” in killing Ward, but it seems that until now, he had not quite understood the nature of that line. In the context of “Paradise Lost,” what happened on Maveth was greater than one transgression; in that hellish place, motivated by revenge and hate, Coulson crossed over from the side of the angels.
And now, with the literally demonic consequences revealed, he understands that he hasn’t yet truly returned.
Daisy’s Hell in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3×16 is not one of her own making, but a painful one all the same. Daisy is trapped with the horrible foreknowledge of the loss of one of her teammates, and frozen with indecision on whether or not to share what she knows. Unburdening herself to Lincoln is probably the right move for her own peace of mind — after all, misery loves company isn’t always a bad thing. But with so many concerns lining up in rapid succession, I’m not convinced that Daisy is going to be enjoying much calm any time soon.
Lincoln lives with the specter of his personal failures — alcoholism, violence, and rage — which led him to nearly kill an unnamed ex-girlfriend in a car crash. From this Hell, he was literally lifted to salvation by the Inhumans, only to find that he had placed his faith in false saviors. Now, fear of his past (and his own depths) has kept Lincoln in a bind of secrecy and shame.
While the long-awaited revelation of Lincoln’s dark past is somewhat underwhelming considering just how long its been awaited, there is no question that his confession to Daisy dovetails beautifully with the themes of “Paradise Lost.”
Our new “friend” James (that’s got to be his last name, right?) has set himself up to reign over his own miserable kingdom of landmines and dust. Much like Satan from Heaven, James was expelled from Afterlife on account of bad behavior; like Satan, James is a creature of lust, still frustrated by his inability to join the ranks of powered Inhumans.
Ironically, it is probably his own self-exile in an arid, fish-free climate that has stopped him from coming into contact with Terrigen, but I don’t expect that to be the case for very long. James, with his brash, angry tendencies, is strongly reminiscent of the Inhuman JT James from Marvel comics, who just happens to go by the brilliantly fitting moniker… “Hellfire.”
(Don’t you just love it when the pieces fit together?)
And where to start with Gideon Malick? A man who once seemed poised to play Beelzebub to Hive’s Satan is now revealed to have fragile loyalties and a tenuous faith. It is no coincidence that the Malick family’s devotion to Hydra is explicitly cast as a ritualistic religion in an episode that connects so deeply to John Milton’s religious verses. (Fun fact: Some say that Milton, who was blind when he dictated the ten books of Paradise Lost, believed that his work was a direct inspiration from Heaven itself.)
Nor is it an accident that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3×16 traces the winding path of Malick’s faith. His father’s hidden skepticism, shaken loose by Daniel Whitehall and embodied by the chipped white stone tucked inside a copy of Paradise Lost, turned Malick’s youthful devotion into a quandary of faith. Fear of his beliefs being false… and fear of what would happen if they were, in fact, true.
And so it is Nathaniel who is betrayed by his belief and his brother; it is Nathaniel who is pulled into the hell of Maveth, leaving Malick to spend the intervening decades in his own purgatory of the spirit. He seeks the creature beyond the portal, raises his daughter to zealotry in Hydra’s name. And yet, he also lingers in doubt, continuing to slip his cheating white stone into the ceremony.
But it is Hive’s return — allegedly meant to herald a Savior-esque ascension into greatness for his faithful — that truly drags Gideon Malick into Hell. “God” is not exactly as advertised, and the many-headed monster who he now believes will kill him murders his fervent daughter, in his brother’s name.
(I mean, if that’s not Biblical as… well. You know.)
Now Malick is now truly in Hell, bound to the being that brought him there. Only one question remains: Is there a chance he might rebel against Hive, his personal Lucifer, and choose to serve in Heaven (a.k.a. S.H.I.E.L.D.) instead?
As for Hive (also known as Alveus — in the Latin: “Hollow” or “Beehive,” oooooh), his parallels to Satan flat-out state themselves. Created by the Lord the Kree to lead the legions of Heaven Inhumans, Alveus revolted against his makers and led his people to… well, it’s not entirely clear. (Neither, incidentally, is the purpose of that super weird Kree sphere which Daisy and Lincoln let’s-face-it-pretty-much-steal from James.)
What is clear is that, like Mr. Lightbringer, Alveus was cast out from the ranks of the chosen into Hell. Now he has returned, Inhuman Jesus and the Devil all in one Grant Ward-looking package. Like the evil serpent in Eden, he lures Stephanie Malick to destruction with sweet words (“This leader of yours must be a real charmer,” Mack tells Guiyera.) Hive wears more than one face, and steals the memories of others. He consumes life and flesh, he… I mean, you guys get what I’m saying, right? Hive = Satan. It’s thematic. You get it.
But just in case you were thinking, “This is great and all, but what does it have to do with the end of the episode, in which Guiyera gets loose on the Zephyr and crashes it into the base and Simmons isn’t responding and this is all really very bad???”
Hang on. I gotcha covered.
As promised, Hive has made a “true believer” out of Guiyera, and the metalbending Inhuman breaks out of his powerless little hell to do the work of his savior. “Those who are worthy will inherit a better world,” he tells Mack; clearly the “meek” have no place in Hive’s coming order.
With his powers, Guiyera pulls the Zephyr One down from the heavens, and into the kind of Hell that comes home. Destruction, chaos, enemies at the gates of S.H.I.E.L.D.; heroes are desperately needed.
Luckily, they happen to know a few.
But though our inherited instinct is to call Daisy, Lincoln, Joey, and Elena “Secret Warriors,” I prefer another name. In the light of “Paradise Lost,” I prefer to call them angels.