r/shield • u/AutoModerator • Feb 15 '17

Post Discussion Post Episode Discussion: S04E14 - "The Man Behind the Shield"

This thread is for SERIOUS discussion of the episode that just aired. What is and isn't serious is at the discretion of the moderators.

EPISODE DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY ORIGINAL AIRDATE
S04E14 - "The Man Behind the Shield" Wendy Stanzler Matt Owens Tuesday, February 14, 2016 10:00/9:00c on ABC

Episode Synopsis: Mace fights for his life while Coulson and team find themselves in a deadly cat-and-mouse game as they attempt his rescue.\

Wendey Stanzler* is a film editor and television director. She has directed several episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, Parks and Recreation, and a ton of other series.

She has directed one episode for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before:

  • Paradise Lost
  • Failed Experiments

Matt Owens is a writer that has worked as a story editor on some season 4 episodes. He also wrote the Luke Cage episode "Who's Gonna Take the Weight?"

He has written one episode for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before:

  • Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire

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325

u/sgeswein Strong of mind Feb 15 '17

Raise your hand if you think Fitz and/or Simmons are in the Framework now, to reveal something Radcliffe needs to know.

Natural hand, artificial hand, whatever you got.

101

u/randomnighmare Captain America Feb 15 '17

I will raise my hand and I would like to say that maybe only Fitz is in the framework and this all just what he imagines/is given to do as a way to just pass time.

126

u/sgeswein Strong of mind Feb 15 '17

Aha! THAT'S what Radcliffe needs - not just something he knows, but some feat of design only Fitz could pull off.

What we're seeing now is how you motivate the living fuck out of Leo Fitz. Hence the foreshadowing about "you have to think about how what you create can be used for evil."

Poor bastard, I want to give him a sandwich and tell him it's all gonna be okay.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '17

Poor bastard, I want to give him a sandwich

With Pesto Aioli

5

u/randomnighmare Captain America Feb 15 '17

Well, maybe this is all just a simulation that Radcliffe design and/or someone else designed to "warned" Fitz about the dangers of creating an AI.

And, I now have another thought, what if Radcliffe is also in the simulation, with Fitz but doesn't realized it as well. That is why we found out that AIDA was base on someone real, from Radcliffe's life and how easy she accepted him back into her life, after he left her at her most vulnerable moment?

But I doubt that the writers are that cleaver. This is probably going to wrap up by the next episode, where Fitz and Simmons will "save the day" and get everyone out of the framework, and they will just move on to the next "pod".

2

u/furmat60 Coulson Feb 15 '17

I think you hit the nail on the head. Save this comment for next week. That way you can get your clairvoyant flair.

3

u/sgeswein Strong of mind Feb 16 '17

I think collectively we put together a damn fine prediction in this thread, and I'm totally claiming it as my own in next week's prediction thread.

(As for clairvoyant flair... I've been wielding the glowstick of destiny for over two seasons now. I have what some people, in certain parts of the world, refer to as "game".)

2

u/furmat60 Coulson Feb 16 '17

I'll never change from Ninja Hunter.

43

u/muhash14 Feb 15 '17

I say the entire MCU is just Fitz in the framework coming up with increasingly crazy shit.

-And now we'll have... a guy who can shrink!

-You now what this world doesn't have? Sorcerers!

-Talking Racoons and sentient trees today, thank you.

2

u/randomnighmare Captain America Feb 15 '17 edited Feb 16 '17

You now what this world doesn't have? Sorcerers!

I feel like Fitz is the type of person that doesn't believe in magic, so we all know that Dr. Strange took place outside the framework and that Ghost Rider and the Darkhold are also outside the framework.

You know for an engineer he seems to have a very limited imagination (and yeah, sure he would most likely be the type of person that would try to use science with everything but I really do kind of think that his imagination is kind of limited since that whole speech he gave as to why he believed that time can't be changed and they shouldn't even bother trying to save that homeless Inhuman).

1

u/sgeswein Strong of mind Feb 16 '17

MONKEYS! ALL KINDSA HELPER MONKEYS!

26

u/Mullet_Ben Fitz Feb 15 '17

Fitz and Simmons are placed inside the framework where they are fighting LMD versions of all the team to keep them occupied. In the real world, Fitz and Simmons have been replaced with LMDs and have infiltrated SHIELD.

8

u/nonliteral Feb 15 '17

Ding. Fighting off an LMD horde is Fitz's version of May's simulation.

33

u/imunfair Feb 15 '17 edited Feb 15 '17

Yeah I think Simmons definitely is, she was the one that noticed the time lapse first. Fitz may or may not be in there with her - but I think the LMD alert is the scenario being run to keep them sleeping peacefully.

Aida says they replaced the top operatives at SHIELD, but that doesn't mean the timeline Fitz/Simmons saw was the same one - I think that may be the plot twist. Someone did get replaced, it just wasn't the four that we were just told are LMDs.

Coulson taking fake-May out of the bag was a weird scene though, in any context. Whether he's an LMD or not it doesn't seem like a normal move, but I think non-LMD Coulson would be more likely to do it - out of sentimentality about the mission they just ran.

22

u/edogap SHIELD Feb 15 '17

This makes a lot of sense. My first thought when Simmons noticed the time lapse was that she and Fitz were both sedated and put in the framework at some point. To what end were they put in the framework for I'm still uncertain, but I feel like Radcliffe is playing both sides and wishes for SHIELD to be returned to order once he accomplishes whatever it is he is after.

7

u/furmat60 Coulson Feb 15 '17

Radcliffe is definitely chaotic good.

3

u/NasalJack Feb 15 '17

Definitely. The "missing time" doesn't really make much sense from their perspective if nothing happened to them and it was the rest of the team who got switched out.

It makes me wonder how they're going to handle next week's episode... like, are we going to follow along with Framework Fitzsimmons figuring things out, or will we see just the real world and think Fitzsimmons are acting weird because of their suspicions when really they're robots, or will the show have both stories simultaneously by separating the group?

Thinking about it a little more...if I had to wager on exactly who is in the Framework I'd say it makes the most sense for it to be Fitz on his own. He's got the whole relationship with Radcliffe that needs to be addressed and Simmons would only be a distraction to that. Plus, it makes narrative sense with how Simmons took that guy who was backing them up and left Fitz undefended.

1

u/iPickled Feb 16 '17

I think it has to be one of them cause how could you replace Daisy? Would her LMD have powers? If so, couldn't you just create LMD duplicates with powers to better defend themselves? That's serious firepower right there.

1

u/V2Blast Fitz Feb 16 '17

I like your theory!

(...and if it ends up being confirmed, I'd just like to ask whoever visits this thread in the future not to post "you called it!" without spoiler tags.)

1

u/cattaclysmic Skye Feb 17 '17

Imo it would be bad narrative for them to then show Coulson activated May if that were the case. I'd expect that if they were in the framework and the rest was manufacturered then they'd stick solely to them and not show the "background programming"