Producer: ABC Studios
Writers: DJ Doyle, Jed Whedon
Director: Gary A. Brown
Featuring: Chloe Bennet, Nick Blood, Iaian De Caestecker, Clark Gregg, Elizabeth Henstridge, Luke Michell, Adrianne Palicki, Henry Simmons, Constance Zimmer, Brett Dalton, Powers Boothe, Blair Underwood, Ming Na-Wen
Release date: USA: OUT NOW! UK: Early 2016 (Channel 4)

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 continues to be a smart, exciting spy thriller set against a superhero backdrop and, thankfully, not the other way round. Episode 8 title “Many Heads, One Tale” refers to shadowy evil group Hydra which has a much older and richer history than previously known. The episode’s underlying theme, however, is couples.

At the episode’s center is Director Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Advanced Threat Containment Unit Director Rosalind Price (the wonderful Constance Zimmer). They slept together but do they have feelings for each other? Can they trust each other? Their dialogue is noir and machine-gun quick. “We really have to figure out other ways to flirt,” says Coulson.

Lovers Bobbi Morse/Mockingbird (Adrianne Palicki) and Lance Hunter (Nick Blood) infiltrate Price’s headquarters and Bobbi plays FBI straight man to Hunter’s rude techno-geek disguise, Daisy talking him through it like a cyberpunk Cyrano de Bergerac.

Gemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Leo Fitz (Iaian De Caestecker) have mastered their now-awkward chemistry and when their feelings finally explode it feels very private and real. “You dug through a hole in the universe for me,” says Simmons in an emotional moment.

The final couple is increasingly psychopathic and sadistic Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), who proves again why he is tough to kill, pairing up with Hydra remnant Gideon Malick (a smarmy Powers Boothe).

In the end the far-flung threads come together in a fun, exciting, elegant, intelligent and uncomplicated way. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues to prove that a spy story doesn’t need a chase scene to be exciting or melodrama to be interesting and, therefore, not to be missed.

Reviewer: Joe Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker