The gang is back in the present, someone else is back from the dead and General Hale would like to see the Agents dead!
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Airdate March 2, 2018, ABC Fridays 9pm
Created by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen
Production Company ABC Studios & Marvel Television
What You Should Know:
Previously on S.H.I.E.L.D.: Yo-Yo came face to face with her armless self, Daisy impaled Sinara, Mack skewered Kasius, Deke and Enoch blew up and Flint rebuilt the Monolith and sent the team back to their own time.
What You’ll Find Out:
(SPOILERS AHEAD!) Fade in on a teen girl’s bedroom. A poster of Quake that says “Quake is my hero” adorns the wall. General Hale enters and tells her sassy daughter Ruby to get off her phone and get her ass to class. Ruby asks her mom if she is one of the good guys. The General thinks her daughter is obsessed with Daisy Johnson. She tells the young woman “When they resurface I’ll put an end to this. This whole S.H.I.E.L.D. chapter will be over.”
Cut to the Lighthouse, present day. The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reappear. A video image of General Rick Stoner (Patrick Warburton) tells us this is the Lighthouse, the last bastion against the encroaching darkness. Project: Reclamation is a black ops protocol known only to the highest ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives. Apparently, it was all set up decades ago (the General’s suit is very 70’s) to ensure mankind continues after some impending doom which didn’t come. Then the whole thing was forgotten about.
May and Leopold find some Monoliths wrapped up in storage. A Chronicom steps out of the shadows and introduces himself as Noah. He says the Lighthouse bunker they are in was a place to store unsafe objects. Noah takes Fitz and May to a communications room where the Chronicoms monitor the line between the world and a stranger world. They are currently monitoring several events including an FBI agent, an Asgardian spotted in the city and a beacon of light.
When the other Agents join them, Coulson recognizes the beam of light as something Voss told him about: the beginning of everything that leads to the end of the world. The Agents, except for Daisy, take a tunnel to the town of River’s End.
Back at the Lighthouse bunker, Daisy discovers the Agents are all at the top of everyone’s Most Wanted lists. A familiar face materializes in, coincidentally, River’s End. It’s Deke Shaw from the future, last seen blowing up alongside Enoch the Chronicom.
He goes into a bar and proceeds to get drunk on Zima. He runs up a tab on food and Zima then tries to leave without paying and winds up getting arrested.
Meanwhile, Coulson and the gang make their way to a cloaked Zephyr and take off for the source of the beam. Fitz and Simmons figure out it isn’t being beamed to Earth it’s being beamed from Earth and it’s the same type of beam that Hive used to call the Kree to Earth.
At the bunker, Daisy finds out Deke is here in the present, in jail, and goes to get him.
Daisy bails out Zeke, pretending to be his Social Worker. Zeke says he “was with the Monolith and there was a shard and I turned the machine on and then the rock turned all liquid. And then it, like, buzzing, dizzy, and pushing and pulling but then–bang! Zima.”
Fitz dismantles the beacon and shuts it down by removing a “bimetallic thermal expansion trigger”. Then Piper pulls her gun on the Agents. A group of masked men and a woman in a black costume with a hooded mask burst into the room. Piper tells Coulson the beacon was meant to call them. She says General Hale promised they wouldn’t be hurt. The Agents put down their weapons. The Woman in Black tells the men to kill them. Yo-Yo disarms them before they can comply.
A fight breaks out and the men are revealed to be robots! The Woman in Black uses a metal ring to cut off Yo-Yo’s arms–just like she was seen in the future. Mack grabs Elena up and everyone escapes and returns to the bunker where Daisy and Zeke are.
Jemma, who now adds skilled microsurgeon to her list of accomplishments, goes to work on Elena.
The Woman in Black returns home to her bedroom, the one with the Quake poster on the wall. She unmasks as her mom, General Hale, approaches her. It appears Ruby’s actions were unknown to the General. Ruby says she forced their hand…that the Agents would be forced to seek medical attention. And she tells mom “You promised me, Daisy Johnson.” The beacon, as it turns out, was just a lure. General Hale tells her daughter she’s sloppy…and a disappointment. “This is why you don’t miss classes. At least the beacon will do what it’s supposed to”.
At the Lighthouse, Fitz and Noah are examining the beacon. It’s heating up. Noah tells Fitz and Daisy to run. Then Noah throws himself on the exploding beacon.
Epilogue:
Crusher Creel is jogging when a vehicle pulls up beside him. General Hale says: “I’m putting together a team”.
What This Means For The Future:
Hopefully, Dr. Simmons will be able to sew Yo-Yo’s arms back on. Since Yo-Yo did have her arms while she, May, Robin and the others were in the Zephyr trying to survive Earth’s destruction, this is a likely scenario. Cutting her arms off now seems like little more than shock value. But the writers aren’t always known to pay close attention to continuity. Next week we are supposed to learn more about Coulson’s dying issue. Noah should survive the blast, why else even bother to introduce him only to take him out right away? Will they explain how Zeke survived?
Final Thought: At the beginning of the episode, Fitz says the Monolith transported them through time, not space, which is why they found themselves still in the Lighthouse. When we last saw Deke, he was on the Zephyr in the Lighthouse hangar with Enoch as Enoch reached critical mass exploding and the screen going white. There was no Monolith present. The shard had been taken by the Agents and was used by Flint to rebuild the Monolith. The inconsistencies and contradictions are numerous here. Why do they leave these major questions open to possibly be answered later or not answered at all? And remind me who Piper is! I honestly don’t even remember this character. She appears to be from last season or before. Her reappearance here seems pulled out of the air.
Why did they think they should rip off a scene straight out of Suicide Squad? Was it supposed to be cute? On a positive note, it was great to see The Absorbing Man back. I don’t have high hopes for who will be joining him on this “team” but I would like to see Angar The Screamer and a couple of super villains that we have not seen before but are from the Marvel Comics. No Inhumans. Don’t bring back Daisy’s father. They had a perfect chance way back, in the beginning, to give us Graviton but let it go. Bringing him in now would tie well to the current storyline. I don’t suppose they will bother to give the team a name…that would be too “comic-booky” for them.
Rating: 6/10
For those who have always wanted their own S.H.I.E.L.D. ID here you go!
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs Fridays at 9:00 on most ABC stations. Check your local listings.
Subscribe to us on YouTube, Follow us on Twitter, and Like us on Facebook!
Join our Age of Social Media Network consisting of X-Men, Marvel, DC, Superhero and Action Movies, Anime, Indie Comics, and numerous fan pages. Interested in becoming a member? Join us by clicking here and pick your favorite group!