In this episode, it’s Egotistical Villain Hour! Yay.

Let’s discuss Bad Blood.

Note: This review will contain spoilers!

Quick recap:

Romanoff and Barnes sneak their way into the Holt gala to have a word with the man of the hour, only to find him waiting for them both – and that’s not the only unpleasant surprise, as they find out it was Holt who bailed Viscose out of jail in Chicago. And with him now here in Geneva, the matter of him facing a trial has gone out the window. But that’s far from the most pressing matter at hand because Holt admits to being the one who arranged the assaults and the theft of their blood samples, not to mention being responsible for whatever made them sick – right before that second wave catches up with Natasha…

Let’s talk about villains for a minute. Because this one should be ticking every item on my hate list. He’s waiting for Romanoff and Barnes at the gala, like they actually had invitations, and speaks to them as though he did something mildly inappropriate one time instead of, you know, arranging to have them assaulted and infected and otherwise physically violated to obtain samples of their blood. And now he’s … willing to explain everything and give back the stolen samples like this is all just some unfortunate misunderstanding?

Except he’s insisting on doing that on his terms, at a time and place of his choosing. He doesn’t even bat an eye when Natasha collapses right there at the table. Oh, and he’s got Viscose seemingly at his beck and call because guess who paid his bail and pulled him out of Chicago, thus ensuring he won’t even stand trial?

I should be hating everything about this guy. And I do, on sheer instinct. He is every super-rich, super-entitled walking ego that ever owned a corporation. Sure he’s into healthcare and philanthropy, but … call me cynical but that doesn’t help his case as much as it seems like it should. Nobody is perfect, and somebody as apparently golden as Holt is surely going to turn out to be 100% bad news. Right?

So what the hell is he playing at?

Is it just me? I mean, I will admit that it took me a significantly long time to really warm up to Tony Stark in the MCU. But something tells me this guy is no Tony Stark.

WHAT IS HE DOING.

I honestly can’t decide whether to remain cautiously suspicious or just give in to the twitchy rage over here. So hats off to the writers, I guess!

On the (relative) plus side, even though it’s not good that Natasha’s gotten sick again, the eternal shipper in me is hoping we can at least get one good reversal of the care-taking scenario with her and Bucky before they have to deal with this guy again.

MY EMOTIONS ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE WHAT IS THIS STORY DOING TO ME.

Next episode please!