The thing that has made Agents of Shield outlast a lot of Marvel offerings is the quality of the writing and it was on full display here, from the pacing to to the dialogue to the understanding of the characters, this was a top notch table setting epsiode. Each character arc is paced to happen quickly and it makes it feel like a lot is going on, but at the same time it doesn't out pace understanding.
We saw a lot in this episode. At the start of the episode we see the ship with Enoch and a frozen Fitz blown up.
Then we see that the Shield team has been split with a team of Gemma, Daisy, Davis and Piper leading a group in the search through deep space for Fitz. Then we go forward a year and see a dispirited team where its just those four as everyone else has split. Their search leads them to a refueling station, we also see that Daisy's powers are much more focused and we find out that half of the Ship that Fitz was on was bought by the owner of the fuel depot and hope soars as they think they've found Fitz.
Meanwhile on Earth, Mack is firmly the leader of Shield with May and Yo Yo as the main agents. We learn that Mack has thrown himself into being the best leader that he can be and in a nice moment we see him receiving instructions from a Coulson hologram. We also learn that this team is long on muscle and short on brains so Mack and May recruit Andrews old college professor to rebuild the Shield Academy (Remember that one kids?). We also have learned that someone is building reality distortions along Lay lines and we also see what appears to be humans coming through portals with one getting stuck.
During that emergence we see the Shield team in the air hesitate to fire to save civilians and it costs them as they are shot down. The mysterious people meet up and talk about preparing for Sarge's arrival and they have to blow up a museum to make way for him.
Meanwhile out in space they recover Fitz's chamber but Fitz isn't there and Gemma while morning it finds a clue that leads to the planet that made the chamber and she wants to go there, but the rest of the team is dispirited and they want to go home.
At that point they're discovered by a consortium destroyer.
Meanwhile back on Earth they have found the human encased in concrete and he wakes up long enough to tell them that Pachakutik is coming.
Now if you google that word, this is what you get
Spoiler!
achakutic, from the
Quechua language, is originally a concept associated with
pre-Columbian Andean cultures, meaning "a change in the sun", or a movement of the Earth which will bring a new era.
[1] In its original context, it was associated with the type of
creation myth found in much of the pre-Columbian Americas in which the present World had undergone several previous cycles of creation and renewal, and the present age was likewise part of such a great cycle;
pachakutic referred to the completion of these cycles and the coming of a new era.
This leads to two confrontations
In space the Destroyer discovers the Zephyr, and Daisy orders a jump back to earth. But Simmons has other ideas and jumps to the planet in deep space from her crew, now there's a possibility that they won't be able to jump back to earth.
Meanwhile on Earth May and Yo Yo arrive at the museum that the nameless humans are planning to blow up and they succeed in opening up a portal and the GI Joe mobile command center arrives, and we get the first glimpse of Sarge who is mistaken for the now dead Phil Coulson who ruthlessly guns down a Shield agent and remarks "Shield never heard of it" after the agent exclaims that he's a shield agent.
At the end of the episode we see Fitz in a lab speaking an alien language
This was a episode to set the table, we have to remember that there are only 13 episodes this year so this is the likely start of a singular storyline.
Like I said this was a zippy episode, it wasn't as light as previous episodes especially with the crew in space who are beaten down and dispirited. But the dialogue was strong, for the most part the effects and visuals were really well done, and we end with a lot of intriguing questions.
Random thoughts
- Love Simmons reminding the crew that they don't need to whisper because sound doesn't carry in space when they're hiding from the destroyer.
- The debate over what to call the anomalies was great with Yo Yo reminding everyone that they used that word last year.
- In two seconds of seeing Sarge we know that he's not Coulson at all. Just the character acting of Clark Gregg made it clear that this is not a nice man.
- There was a one year time jump in this episode, the question now is are we going to see the snap of Thano's finger or have we moved into an alternative universe thanks to last year?
- Doctor Benson is going to add a interesting dynamic to the team as he seems to be a reluctant, dour heavy drinking old guy with no interests in chasing boogeymen.
Welcome back Shield