‘Hot Potato Soup’ Plot Summary:
Radcliffe (John Hannah) kidnaps one of the Koenig brothers (Patton Oswalt), forcing the Koenig family to team up with Coulson (Clark Gregg) to get their sibling back before he discloses the location of the Darkhold.
Marvel teased the Life Model Decoys for a while before introducing them. Besides the name drop by Tony Stark in The Avengers, Marvel also made comic fans wonder whether the Koenig brothers were a line of androids or just identical brothers. And it still is. I’m not sure what the largest number of identical siblings is in real life, but we’ve seen four different brothers in the show so far. This episode messes with the viewers only to say that they’re not robots, but I’m still not convinced.
Regardless, they’re all basically Patton Oswalt if he were a secret agent, except for the fourth brother, who’s a standup comic. So he’s even more Patton Oswalt than the rest. His appearance in this episode starts out weak, with him just quoting and referencing movies. We get it. You like Star Wars and Back to the Future. Who doesn’t? But I did enjoy the new dynamic between the brothers and the LT Koenig (Artemis Pebdani), their sister. And I almost can’t believe that S.H.I.E.L.D. got away with mentioning Black Widow/Quake (Chloe Bennet) fan fiction.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t keep us waiting. A lot happens this week. May’s (Ming-Na Wen) LMD kisses Coulson only to betray him minutes later, Radcliffe gets his hands on the Darkhold, and Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) learns that Radcliffe knows his father. Oh, and Russians want to kill Coulson. Those Russians are pretty scary. The moment where the leader walks in adds great tension. The Russians do feel kind of out of place, like they’re from another show, but we don’t know everything about them yet.
I’m finding surprisingly little else to say about this episode, despite so much occurring. We’ll have to just wait and see how the plot develops. I will say that May becoming an official love interest puts her in more danger than being in Radcliffe’s custody does. But she’ll no doubt live longer enough to reunite with Coulson. If she doesn’t die in the near future, their relationship will have a huge impact on show.
And considering what we saw the Darkhold do in the first half of the season, just imagine what Radcliffe will do with it now that he has it. He could become a real supervillain.
This week’s installment might not be the best of the season, but it lays the groundwork for what’s to come. And while the humor is hit or miss, it delivers one very memorable moment of comedy.
