Yep, you guessed it. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. really threw everyone for a loop when they brought Mike Peterson back as a reformed semi-villain only to blow him up and replace most of his body with robotic parts to transform him into one of Marvel's weirdest and best-loved (if not that well-known) cult characters, Deathlok. He's been forced by the clairvoyant to do terrible things in order to survive and keep his son, Ace, out of harm's way, and every time we see him, Peterson becomes more machine than man with new parts and new orders. The fact that Mike's mind is still more intact than he'd like to admit, despite his declarations that "Mike Peterson is dead!" shortly before stomping on an agent's chest or firing a missile from is forearm, makes the prospect of his character all the more horrifying to consider and fascinating to watch. That the writers and producers are willing to put a character through such torture is proof that the show is capable of being much darker than many gave it credit for in the first half of the season, and despite the patently silly nature of Deathlok, it's really very encouraging to see Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. really throw itself into telling his story. It bodes well for their future treatment of other familiar characters and proves that AoS can work as long as it knows what story it's trying to tell. Well, that and proving that Deathlok is cool as f**k. Finding out what'll happen next with Peterson is one of the major draws of the series right now, and we've a feeling Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't in the business of letting us down any more.
