Hive Revealed

After teasing it out for half a season, we finally got our first good look at Hive in all his tentacle’d glory. It’s a neat reveal, and even on a TV budget, the effects hold up pretty well. It’s kind of a bummer that after this one sequence Hive morphs back into his Grant Ward-shaped default state, but I also understand that having a full CG creature walking around for a half hour just isn’t practical and even if they tried the effect wouldn’t have looked as good. Coulson’s trick with the hologram is also fun, but if I’m going to make a geeky nitpick, it’s disappointing that he credits the trick to former agent Blake rather than Loki. He’s not wrong – Blake did pull that gag back in ‘Watchdogs’ – but in the Marvel universe, Loki pretty much owns the make-your-enemy-run-through-an-illusory-version-of-yourself-trick.