Agents of Shield - Season 4

[bbjeg]

Watched it again. If it was Radcliff's plan to get knocked out by Aida, the plan should of been knock out Fitz first, then he could act like she hit him. She hit him hard enough to fly across the room. That's not the best of ideas if you ask me.

Android, not cyborg. A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a living being with robotic parts -- e.g. Deathlok, the Borg (hence the name), the Six Million Dollar Man (adapted from the novel Cyborg), RoboCop, Darth Vader, etc.

I meant android. I'm fully aware what a cyborg is.

Radcliffe's primary goal may not be to directly hurt people

At least one agent was killed (prior to this episode) and I'm not sure if the two agents that went with Fitz and Radcliff were killed but they were definitely hurt. Radcliff seems to not care about collateral apart from May. Maybe she's being held in case he needs a hostage.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Watched it again. If it was Radcliff's plan to get knocked out by Aida, the plan should of been knock out Fitz first, then he could act like she hit him. She hit him hard enough to fly across the room. That's not the best of ideas if you ask me.

What makes you think that was the real Radcliff?
He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would put himself in harm's way if an LMD can do the job for him.
And he proved he can manufacture these things on a whim.
He had a second Aida ready in no time, the May LMD seems made on relatively short notice.
I wouldn't be surprised if the team finds a secret manufacturing site with who knows how many unmolded robots.
It would be incredibly stupid of him not to have his own LMD model.

 

[Christopher]

He had a second Aida ready in no time, the May LMD seems made on relatively short notice.

Or, he planned ahead and both were made in advance. I don't think the Aida we saw at the end was a replacement for the one who was destroyed; I think the Aida destroyed in the base was a duplicate to begin with, a sacrificial lamb so that the SHIELD team would think they'd destroyed Aida when they actually hadn't. That is, after all, the original purpose of Life Model Decoys in the comics.

 

[Velocity]

Mad Rad must crazy good at his work to be able to create androids that can pass so completely as human that even a May android wasn't immediately found out.

 

[Christopher]

Mad Rad must crazy good at his work to be able to create androids that can pass so completely as human that even a May android wasn't immediately found out.

That's where the "Life Model" part comes in. It's also par for the course for comic-book and sci-fi androids going back to Metropolis.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Or, he planned ahead and both were made in advance. I don't think the Aida we saw at the end was a replacement for the one who was destroyed; I think the Aida destroyed in the base was a duplicate to begin with, a sacrificial lamb so that the SHIELD team would think they'd destroyed Aida when they actually hadn't. That is, after all, the original purpose of Life Model Decoys in the comics.

Didn't she call the destroyed one her predecessor?

 

[Christopher]

Didn't she call the destroyed one her predecessor?

I didn't catch that. Did she?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I am not entirely sure. I could misremember.

Edit: I double checked. She said "your previous model had the book/darkhold in her hand."

 

[bbjeg]

Does that mean the updated one has the new brain the original Aida designed?

 

[Christopher]

Does that mean the updated one has the new brain the original Aida designed?

Oh, that makes sense. Like the premise of the technological Singularity -- when computers get so advanced that they start designing their even more advanced successors, and so on.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, that was interesting. Looks like they have a new logo screen for the LMD arc and everything.

I'm pretty disappointed that Radcliffe and Aida turned out to be bad guys-- although if Aida isn't a real AI, she can be whatever you want her to be. Luckily she and Radcliffe are "just good friends."

Looks like RoboMay thinks that she's really May, which is interesting. It means that her flirting with Coulson is based on real May's feelings, but I have to wonder why they made her unaware that she is a duplicate.

Daisy was being a bit unfairly snarky to Mace, considering that she did go all rogue and break the law and destroy billions of dollars in property and so forth.

Mack's robophobia was strangely hilarious-- he's got a death-by-robot rider on his health insurance policy?-- and I loved his ongoing banter with YoYo. "You'd make them watch Terminator: Salvation?" "They brought it on themselves."

Now I wonder what Radcliffe really wants and how long he's been after the Darkhold. Did this just start when he got a look at it a few episodes ago, or was he previously aware of it? And is he just looking for eternal life or is there more to it? And does he have other LMDs waiting in the wings? Maybe this is turning into the plot some people expected for Westworld-- he's going to replace everybody.

The most puzzling question for me remains, when was May-bot created? Does Radcliff have a 3-D printer in the basement that could have knocked one out so quickly after May went to pick up Aida (to read the Darkhold)?

He's pals with Robert Ford.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Makes sense that Robo-May doesn't know she is an LMD.
She is based on real May's brain scan.
Which means she wouldn't still act as May would even if she were self aware.
She'd be pissed at Radcliff though.
Pissing off May is a bad idea already, pissing off May with robot strength is having a death wish.

Mack lives in a world which almost got destroyed by Ultron. Of coooourse he has a death by robot insurance policy! makes sense.
Just like every building owner in New York should insure against alien attacks and Hulk rampages or even cleaning of webbing residues.

 

[Christopher]

Just like every building owner in New York should insure against alien attacks and Hulk rampages or even cleaning of webbing residues.

Spider-Man's webbing biodegrades after about an hour, so that shouldn't be much of an issue.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Yes, I wasn't entirely serious about that.

 

[Star Wolf]

I think it was when May was dying and they used Radcliffe's lab to save her. I read something in an article about the May LMD's mind being based on a scan of May taken when she was dying. Radcliffe's presumably been making plans for a while. And I don't think May was swapped out until midway through the last episode before this one, the finale of the Ghost Rider arc. There was a bit early on where May was sent to Radcliffe's lab to do something pertaining to Aida, then we didn't see her for most of the episode, and then she showed up at the end. I think that's when the swap was made.

I agree I think the scenes of Aida building a brain was her uploading the May LMD

 

[kitik]

small spoiler for the January 31 episode (that everyone will probably know about thanks to previews anyway)

Spoiler: Hot Potato Soup

Patton Oswalt is FINALLY coming back to the show, and the Koenig's will "reveal their family secret". Right in the middle of the LMD arc. Go figure.

I can't wait for Coulson to spoil Radcliff's plans with a hair-club-for-men moment.
Radcliff: how did you know she was an LMD?
Coulson: I know. Because I am one.

 

[Velocity]

Radcliff is possibly an LMD himself because he probably made one of himself "to live forever".

 

[bbjeg]

I don't know. If he was a LMD with superior everything, you'd think he wouldn't care for the Darkhold. I guess he could just be greedy for power but if Aida could walk into Shield headquarters and access it's grid, Radcliff, who already had access, could get Iron Man's specs and become godly through science.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Makes sense that Robo-May doesn't know she is an LMD.
She is based on real May's brain scan.
Which means she wouldn't still act as May would even if she were self aware.
She'd be pissed at Radcliff though.
Pissing off May is a bad idea already, pissing off May with robot strength is having a death wish.

But since RoboMay is a robot, he'd still have control over her. It seems it would be in Radcliffe's best interest for her to be consciously loyal to him.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Yes, but what I mean is, that she wouldn't be May then and SHIELD would probably notice.
I think the point was to 100% copy her brain.
I don't believe he knows how to change it without risking to completely mess up her personality.