More familiar faces pop up in Gemma and Daisy’s quest to try to save their friends from the living nightmare that the Framework has become. But who can they really trust in a world where HYDRA rules?

Last week’s reveal of exactly who is running HYDRA in the alternative reality created by the Framework may not have been the world’s greatest surprise (indeed there were others within the episode which topped it) but this week makes up for it with some utterly dumbfounding moments.

Yet again, it’s difficult to mention much of what occurs without getting into spoiler territory – suffice it to say, they’ve thought through this ‘Agents of HYDRA’ arc well, and rather than just giving us ‘evil versions of all the good guys’, the show is taking pains to give us three dimensional alternative versions of many central characters. What this does is give the opportunity for actors to really have some fun and show their range playing stuff which is way outside their normal arc.

Clark Gregg is obviously enjoying playing a quirky, middle-aged schoolteacher character who couldn’t be more unlike Coulson in so many ways, while still having that same easy charm and slight awkwardness that we all fondly recall from those early MCU days. This is the guy you could remember fanboying out over meeting Steve Rogers in person for the first time, only without the lethal special agent skills to back him up.

Ian de Caestecker is also clearly relishing the opportunity to play a different type of Fitz to what we are used to. The show plays with the audience here, leaving the viewer quite unsure as to exactly what to expect from one moment to the next. It’s almost as cruel to us as fans as it is to Simmons as she watches a man she loves seemingly lost to her by reason of the new reality in which she finds herself.

Other familiar faces pop up in slightly off kilter ways and it all adds up to a feeling of new life being breathed into a show that’s now well into a fourth season – impressive in and of itself. There are niggles – not the least of which is how anyone is managing to sneak around in an artificial world created and presumably utterly controlled and overseen by one individual. That said, in an imagining this ambitious, there are bound to be the odd moments where a greater than usual suspension of disbelief is required, and they certainly don’t spoilt the overall impact of what we are watching beloved and not so beloved characters go through. Indeed, only a show this well established could really get away with a plot like this one, and the writers are clearly making the most of that fact, freed from the shackles of having to particularly gel with anything going on in the wider MCU.

Verdict: And I thought last week was dark! An episode which really commits to exploring the theme of an alternative reality in which the bad guys won, not just by giving us ‘mirror’ versions of characters but really exploring in depth the question of what people will do and how far they will go when the rules are changed. Deep stuff. 9/10

Greg D. Smith