‘Agents of SHIELD’ Season 5 flames up…finally

'Agents of SHIELD' Season 5 flames up finally 2018 images

It can be frustrating when you want something to burn, but it burns slowly. But when it finally does burn bright, it’s satisfying. That’s the case for Agents of SHIELD. You may recall my lukewarm reception for the show’s current season, but the show has stepped up a notch with Fitz and Daisy being more badass than usual and Kasius and Sinara becoming more three-dimensional. Spoiler alert for those not quite caught up with the show.

Things begin getting more interesting in Episode 5: Rewind where again we see Fitz doing whatever he can to get his friends and especially Jemma back. It’s a welcome setting to be back on Earth in the past because the Lighthouse was becoming claustrophobic. We get to see what happened after the diner where Fitz gets captured by the military and deduces that the team was abducted by aliens.

This happens in a span of six months where he contacts the long-missing Lance Hunter through covert messages hidden in ranting mails about soccer games. Lance breaks Fitz out, and they track down Enoch, the alien responsible for sending the team into the future. Enoch is your budget Watcher since the Marvel may have other plans for Uatu and his race. Though it could have been interesting if he was the same race as Uatu.

Enoch takes care of Robin, an Inhuman girl who can tell the future, last seen with Daisy in the last episode of Season 3, and that Robin’s drawings are part of a prophecy that guides his actions. Enoch tells Fitz that he may have to use his old space capsule to travel through time and space to save his friends. Fitz and Hunter break the device out of the same base they’ve broken out from with a big flying bonus. Fitz uses the device which is actually a cryogenic chamber meaning he’s going to the future the long way around. This episode punches a hole into the MCU continuity though as it suggests that the smashed-Earth future is absolute. Where the heck was everybody to prevent it and why oh, why has SHIELD become more legendary that the Avengers? Well, there’s a paradox in there somewhere.

The next episode, Fun and Games is where badass Fitz gets to work as Boshtok the Marauder. This is where he reconciles his conflicting personalities to aid his friends as he needs to be as ruthless as Kasius himself which actually works. We get two tournaments for this episode. May versus the precognitive Inhuman Ben, and Daisy against Sinara, the female Kree with the balls. The story also steps up as Tess gets killed off for hiding a new Inhuman, the geokinetic Flint; Ben gets killed for lying during an interrogation and Grill gets killed by Flint to save his new friends from SHIELD. Kasius’ brother arrives to add more complications and has Sinara battle Daisy in the ‘crater.’ Daisy wins and Fitz makes his move to save Daisy and Jemma and make their escape.

agents of shield past returns for WILLOW HALE, CLARK GREGG

And lastly, episode 7, Together or Not at All, where the entire team is finally reunited except for May who was sent to the surface to die after losing to Ben. May could really use a break. There she is saved by Enoch, but both are captured by the surface’s residents. The team on the station is pursued by the forces of Kasius and his elder brother Faulnak.

Now Faulnak adds more depth to Kasius’ character from the flat and vain Kree weakling by constantly berating him for his failures. He also gives some color to the previously bland SInara who could use a costume upgrade. The team escapes with Deke on a trawler to the Earth’s surface while Flint, Mack, and Yo-Yo choose to stay behind and protect the station’s residents. The episode ends with May being greeted by Enoch and an older Robin Hinton (the girl in episode 5). The rest of the team’s fate is unknown as they crash down the Earth’s surface.

So that ends what may be considered a pod in another multi-pod storyline, a format which worked wonders in Season 4. The next episode titles are The Last Day, Best Laid Plans and Past Life. Speculating from those, we may finally see what happened to the Earth and why Earth’s other heroes weren’t around or able to save it. Since Robin is still alive, this explains how the remnants of humanity came to believe in their prophecy. We also see how the characters of Sinara and Kasius level up and finally get a backstory which seems to suggest something big is in store for Daisy and her group. Unfortunately, Coulson seems to be just in the background for this whole pod. Hopefully, he also steps up and has a bigger role than just giving orders. Can’t wait for next week.