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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: What If... [4x16] ✦ Watchalong Reaction & Review (Patreon)

Published:
2025-04-26 17:45:27
Edited:
2025-05-22 17:13:21
Imported:
2026-08
Tags:

Content

Y'all know I LOVE "What If" scenarios, so I saw this title and went AHHHH! And then saw a certain person and went AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. [Direct link here.]

Please enjoy! I love the enthusiasm in the comments on the last episode. Y'all are so fun!

✦ KL

Files

Agents of SHIELD: Self Control [4x15] ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction

Comments

Aldo Gonzales

That’s right. Before we had the What If animated series, we got an episode in this show that plays on the concept of what could’ve happened to the agents if things turned out a different way. We’re now in the third arc of the season. Welcome to the Agents of HYDRA pod. Throughout this episode you’ll find references tied to SHIELD and HYDRA. For example, one of the articles on Coulson’s desk mentioned former agent Felix Blake who would later go on to lead the Watchdogs. The school that Coulson was teaching from was named after Alexander Pierce who of course led Project Insight. By the way, the girl who stepped into Coulson’s classroom while he was talking to Simmons was Clark Gregg’s real life daughter. On a more somber note, when this episode originally aired it ended with an epitaph for Bill Paxton who we knew as John Garrett. He passed away during the last mid-season break.

Christopher simeon

I love how the show takes its history and builds on it continuously. The phase " it's a magical place" from season 1 holds so much importance for Coulson that his subconscious has to remember it. The story of Bahrain gets a different ending and the results are even worse than imagined. In 1x7 When we visit the Hub Simmons teases Skye. She says wait till you see the Triskelion which was funny because it was destroyed in Cap 2. But now Daisy gets to see it under the control of Hydra instead.

Steve Mercier

I am enthusiastic. My exclamation point button just isn't working. HA!

Gary Marshall

I just love how Jemma's character has been developed over the last four seasons and feel like she has used all of her past experiences to become a better person and even better agent. This season has seen her use her smarts to gain power within Mace's SHIELD in order to protect the team as well as becoming a better field agent (my head cannon is that May became her SO after the scenes from last seasons Watchdog episode) and she uses them to great effect in this episode. And her being done with the Framework world, particularly Ward and the kid who tagged her car, is a delight to watch. At a con Elizabeth was asked how she created the voice for 'recently dead' Jemma and revealed that she was really sick during the filming and so the voice was just from being ill! Although Iain told her to say that it was method acting, lol. Which reminds me that Lil also said in another interview that filming 4x15 was really draining after which she flew back to England looking distraught and with some of the fake blood still on her face. She joked that because of that she got a whole row to herself on the plane! Also love the way the show has fun with the title cards...Agents of Hydra being one of my favourites!

Onno Smits

Your face when we learn Ward is _still_ a double agent, even in this world. 🤣 We're in The Framework, and on an "Agents of HYDRA" spin. What a wild path to go down. I'm so curious how this was pitched in the writers' room! 😅 I love the difference between Daisy and Jemma. How Daisy immediately got invested and was trying to save these "NPC" fake people. But Jemma is all just "How fascinating, you are code but have dreams?" and is keeping a very detached view of this virtual world. I gotta mention the music! A completely new score and theme for inside The Framework, which I really dig. Combined with the different colour scheme it's a very unique and slightly unsettling vibe.

Sean Ellingham

Welcome to the Framework! Things are a little different here... 😈 This world is so well thought out by the writers - so many small changes that make so much sense when you think about them: e.g. no smartphones, because they would make it harder for Hydra to control information. Another example is that the Hydra agents don't carry ICERs, because those were created by Fitz and Simmons together - without Simmons, the dendrotoxin the ICERs use doesn't exist, so Fitz creates a purely technological version instead that behaves closer to a taser. So it seems that the consequence of May not killing Katya in Bahrain is the creation of a Hydra dominated society - the Cambridge incident somehow allowing Hydra to take over. As a result, May has hardened in a different way than she did in the real world. Somewhat perversely, this kinda suggests that when they (presumably) make it out of the Framework, this experience will actually be somewhat of a positive for May - it's proof that saving Katya wasn't possible, and that killing her was the right thing to do, which is something that she's never known with certainty before. Elizabeth was ill during the filming of this episode, hence the raspy voice - which works quite well for having her come back from the dead! Her mass grave also looks to have Mike Peterson/Deathlok buried in it, immediately under where she was. It's worth going through the items Coulson has in his folder frame-by-frame - everything is a reference to things/people that we've seen over the past four seasons: e.g. the newspaper clipping about the 'Wilmslow Doctor' is a reference to Cal. Just to clarify, AIDA (or rather her Framework avatar) is the Director of Hydra.

Sean Ellingham

Clark Gregg's daughter's appearance is next episode, not this one

Aldo Gonzales

D’oh!!! I did it again!!! I’m so sorry.

Yoshi1990

The darkhold has really messed up AIDA. And seems to have shown her how she can truely feel emotions. Or some how get around her programing. The book has shown that it turns its readers against each other. So I don't think Radcliffe has any power here. The only power he had was in the real world. And AIDA eliminated him. Interesting that last episode Simmons said if you die in the framework, you die in the real world. Radcliffe said he built this world to get around death, to save lives. And AIDA said this place had to be rebooted multiple times. So I think she changed some peramiters. I want to binge watch these last few episodes now to see where this goes... but I won't.

Steve Mercier

So, you might want to go back and watch the last 10 minutes or so...they reveal who the Director is...

Movies with KL

Sorry, I can have my dumb moments sometimes! 😂😂

Movies with KL

I hope you've been having fun watching for the first time too! Now I think AIDA has changed plenty too.

Ray H

You had the opposite reaction to Ward than I did. I was so pissed 😂 even when he dies, he doesn’t go away 😭😭

MichaelA

Aida is following her direction, but twisting it. The foundation of the framework was to fix an issue in the persons past that will allow them to live there happy and free from that pain. She has taken a monkeys paw kind of approach to this, she is fixing that issue then manipulating the outcome of that fix/how it is fixed into the world she needs it to be and to become the people she needs them to be - for whatever her intentions are. As long as she fixes that issue, and they then live in the world, she has technically followed her programming. Nothing then stops her doing her own agenda, as Radcliffe didnt know she had her own agenda to stop it.

Thadman

"THIS guy? AGAIN?? UGH!" 😆

Movies with KL

So brutal. I have no theories as to how this ends. 😂 And I love it.

Thadman

I love that epic cliffhanger with Coulson and Daisy in the car and HEY! Coulson finally remembered Daisy's ACTUAL name.😂 If Coulson was my history teacher, I might've enjoyed history class more. The fact that he's just a history teacher here is interesting because he was studying history in college when SHIELD came and recruited him and makes sense from the get-go, why he's such a fanboy for Steve Rogers, why he has all these old school gadgets as collectibles and why he was happy to give those congress people the historical tour of the base and telling them about Peggy Carter. Dude LOVES history. The great thing about this show is how all of the stuff that previously happened to the characters builds on their development and why you can see the biggest changes in Daisy, Fitz and Simmons because they were the newbies when this all started, but you also see it in Coulson and May. They don't change into totally different people, but they do grow and add on those experiences into who they become. Mack and Yo-Yo you see it also, but we haven't seen them as long, so the changes to them aren't as stark. Sometimes characters will do things that we don't agree with, but it's always understandable considering what the characters have previously been through along with who they were before. They don't have characters do anything..."out of character" just to create drama for the show. The drama for the show comes FROM the previous experiences they've been through, in conjunction with new trials and tribulations.

Cyrinil

I don't think it's evident at all that Aida is rigging the simulation in any way other than inserting herself as a person. Pretty sure the whole Hydra world is just a consequence of the changes made in the past.

MichaelA

Personally think it was pretty clear, but that's just my interpretation of course. There is more that supports it, but I cant say any of it as it would be spoilers so I can't give you anything else to explain my thoughts unfortunately.

Chris Elkins

Seems Aida has probably rewritten a bunch of the framework after takening out Radcliffe, she has her own self improvement goals, to become more human. Seeing the team being different charcters is interesting... Evil Dr Fitz... Hardcore Hydra May, Softcore Teacher Coulson...Good Ward double agent man lol. Very scary world not what Radcliff had in mind for sure.