Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S6E01: Dead Again, Live Again

Daisy-Quake, Jemma, Davis, and Piper are trekking through space thanks to the Confederacy’s jump drive and an upgraded Zephyr in search of Leopold Fitz’s other body which is frozen in a pod somewhere. Last season, Fitz’s other body was tragically killed but, hey no problem because they know he has a body headed to the future to save the Agents after Quake nearly destroys the Earth and since that future has been erased there’s no need for the Fitzcicle to go there.

Back at the new headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D. the not so new Lighthouse which we spent most of last season in, Mack is observing some kind of activity on the view screen and has at least 4 quinjets out looking for something. Somewhere on a basketball court kids are playing until their ball shatters like porcelain and turns into bats (or birds, they’re flapping too fast to tell).

A big, burly guy named Jaco (an appropriate sounding name for a Big Burly Guy) steps through a concrete wall on the basketball court via some type of portal. But when his buddy, Tinker, attempts to follow him he gets stuck, partially phased through the concrete. Ouch…poor Tinker. As one of the quinjets piloted by May (natch!) approaches, Jaco fires some kind of energy ray at the ship and sends it spinning…wheee!

With Jaco gone, May and Agent Keller return to the Lighthouse, er, S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters. Inside, the new group of Agents and Director Mack are talking about someone/thing causing what one Agent dubs “reality warps” (because they used up “anomalies” last season according to May). Agent Keller brings up some babble about “ley lines”. Mack goes to consult a hologram of Coulson. When May joins him, we find out that it’s been a year since Coulson died.

This is where it gets interesting if you care about things like, oh, say continuity. Last season on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. it was mentioned that Thanos’s ships were on their way to Earth. So it must be presumed that the Infinity War has been fought, half the population of the universe has been dusted (except for S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents apparently) and we are now in the five year period covered in Avengers Endgame. As is their way to say the show is set in the MCU (we’ve had appearances from Nick Fury and Lady Sif) nothing is said about Earth losing half its population and heroes. To cover his ass, Joss Whedon was interviewed saying “We were scheduled to come back in the summer but we didn’t know if they would change their mind and air season 6 before Avengers Endgame“. Yeah, OK Joss. So there won’t be any mention of what happened in Avengers Infinity War and Avengers Endgame. And I call bull. Infinity War had come out and the events in that movie could be addressed without giving away anything in Endgame except one year had passed. Now, back to the review…

Meanwhile the Space Agents run into some English speaking aliens in another galaxy who it seems have salvaged what was left after the ship carrying Fitz’s pod and Enoch was cleaved in two. They torture the leader of the aliens to get to the pod but when they do…surprise! It’s empty. No Fitzcicle.

At S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ it’s revealed that Mack and Yo-Yo are no longer together and she is now covertly seeing Agent Keller (but May might know). In a bar, May and Mack meet with a man named Benson who is having a drink in memory of his boyfriend who has died (a perfect spot to say the man was dusted). Mack wants Benson to gather some minds so they can start a S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy to train new agents.

The Space Agents decide it’s time to head home from deep space. Simmons argues they need to go deeper to where she believes Fitz has gone. During the argument an alarm sounds indicating the presence of a Confederacy ship.

Two more people join Jaco and they head off to Muncie, Indiana to blow up a museum. S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles race to the scene but are too late to stop the museum from going boom. As the dazed Agents struggle to recover, the Big Ass Truck comes barreling out of the smoke.

May, lying on the ground and trying to get her senses back, sees a man step out of the truck. A man who is not Coulson but looks a hell of a lot like him!

Epilogue:

In deep space, a worker on a space ship turns around…it’s Weird Eyed Fitz!

It’s more or less business as usual for the show. I like that they finally put S.H.I.E.L.D. back in business and have introduced some new characters. Jeff Ward (Deke) has joined the cast but is not seen in this episode. It would be nice if Benson and Keller stayed around. I’m really tired of the “Agents in Space” theme…the show is silly enough without putting in outer space stuff that just pushes the bounds of suspension of disbelief too far. The Zephyr wasn’t constructed for space and you can’t just turn a few screws and throw in an alien teleportation device and say the Zephyr is ready for deep space exploration. And then there’s the fact that everywhere they go there’s breathable air and aliens who speak perfect English. Bring everyone back to Earth and leave space for Captain Marvel.

Hulu, which is now fully owned by Disney, has ordered a Ghost Rider TV series. Just as Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider  was portrayed by Gabriel Luna in the Ghost Rider arc in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season four, Luna will again play the character for the new series but it won’t actually be the character shown on S.H.I.E.L.D. but rather a new interpretation with no connection to his previous appearance. My stomach is already turning. I mean, why wouldn’t they want to consider this a spin-off of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? If it looks like a Spirit of Vengeance and drives like a Spirit of Vengeance it’s the damn Spirit of Vengeance! If they wanted nothing to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. they should have gone back to the Johnny Blaze version (which I would have preferred anyway). This is just going to confuse people. But worse yet, this isn’t the only supernatural Marvel character getting his own series on Hulu. Helstrom (their spelling) is another series they are doing that I normally would assume was about Daimon Hellstrom The Son of Satan (who has also gone by Hellstorm when they wanted him to be more super hero like). It’s described as Daimon and Ana Helstrom are the children of a notorious serial killer and they go about tracking down the worst of humanity. By Odin’s blood, give me a break! I have been very vocal in all my Marvel reviews that I despise leeching off a character name and then ditching everything about the character and making up their own shit. Daimon Hellstrom’s was The Son of Satan who rejected his father’s path and became a priest/exorcist. He has a sister named Satana who embraces their father but often is at odds with him. Give me that show and call this one something else. You’ll save a lot of money in royalties.