Maximus sends forth more of the ‘regular’ population of Attilan to assist Auran in her mission. Tibor tries to find an opportunity for the rebels to take advantage and seize back the throne from the usurper. The Royal Family go looking for Crystal so they can go home.

Last week, I ended with a plea to Marvel to do the decent thing and put this show out of its misery. This week, it almost feels as if they heard me.

Seriously, stuff actually starts happening this week, though not in a way that suggests we can look forward to a second season following the wacky hi-jinks of the Attilan Royal Family and their wayward little brother.

But even given that, it’s still bad. Laughably so. For starters, let’s talk about the monologuing. There was a point a few episodes back where Maximus, having cajoled Crystal into agreeing to his demands, then inexplicably said it was good she had acceded, so that he didn’t have to make her do as she was told. By the standards of anyone, this was dumb. By the standards of a supposedly Machiavellian schemer of a prince, it was unforgiveable. Well, whoever wrote that obviously had another hand this week, when Maximus actively says something horrific about someone basically being disposable in front of someone very close to them and then carries on as if everyone is still utterly convinced of his good intentions.

It gets worse, we then have two people talking amongst themselves plotting against Maximus while standing all of fifteen feet away from him, in front of him and his guards in the same room and then they just carry on talking to him as if all was hunky dory. Genuinely, I am not sure that the people writing this dialogue have ever actually seen real people interact.

And that’s just the basic dialogue crimes. Then we have the character inconsistencies. Lots of them. Black Bolt goes from mild-mannered to straight up wanting to kill people in no time at all. One particular villain has a complete personality change after being spoken to by Karnak for ten seconds, and all round there’s a sense like the writers have been told it’s time to up the ante and force a conclusion within the remaining few episodes because nobody’s coming back for another season. Everything feels disjointed, moments that should carry heft feel unbelievably forced, and there’s another semi-romance that pops up which might as well have been signposted.

Meanwhile, Louise, by far the most likeable character in this sorry mess, gets sidelined completely. Oh, and there’s an unnecessarily cruel payoff for one minor bit part character which just feels malicious, and a climax that falls utterly flat because it’s out of nowhere, makes no sense and again feels forced.

Agents of SHIELD took time to bed in. But it also gave us characters who, even when it was slow, were engaging to watch. This just feels like an irretrievable mess at this point. It gives me no pleasure to say it – MCU fan that I am – but this is easily the shonkiest episode of the worst TV series they have ever produced since beginning this shared Movie/TV universe.

Verdict: An appalling waste of the time of everyone involved. I really hope the series ends with everyone going back to Attilan and staying there, and then Louise gets transplanted over to Agents of SHIELD for Season 5. 1/10

Greg D. Smith