‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ finally, mercifully, appears to be ready to close out this silly alternate-future storyline and return the characters back to their original timeline. Before we get there, a major character will die. Sort of. OK, not really.
Zephyr One arrives at the Lighthouse space station and docks in a landing hangar. Because the seer he mentioned in the previous episode already warned him of this, Kasius and a squad of his Kree soldiers are waiting as the ship lands. However, they find it empty. The crew slipped out on a cargo pod and entered the station through another airlock. They left Sinara’s dead body on display for Kasius to find. He’s quite upset about that.
Actually, the ship isn’t completely empty. Enoch stowed away in hiding and stayed behind to fix the time portal machine while the S.H.I.E.L.D.ies work on putting the monolith back together.
Tess informs Coulson that Kasius has another Inhuman in captivity that he revived from the dead just like her. Yo-Yo volunteers to go on a search-and-rescue mission.
When his doctor tells him that Kree biology is too complex and Sinara can’t be revived from the dead like humans or Inhumans can, Kasius murders him and goes rather nutty with grief. He knows that the S.H.I.E.L.D.ies are planning to return back to their own time, which he’s been told will lead to the destruction of the Earth. He believes that if he kills them here, the Earth will remain in one piece, and will be a greater treasure for his father to capture in the past (rather than the worthless husk he got stuck with). This is his deranged plan for restoring his family’s legacy and preventing Sinara from ever being killed. As Step 1, he doses a human captive with a drug that amps up his strength and aggression, driving the man insane with rage. Then he cuts the guy loose to hunt for S.H.I.E.L.D. He finds them soon enough, and Coulson’s icer gun has no effect, but Daisy is able to kill him.
Yo-Yo finds the captive Inhuman, and is shocked to discover that it’s herself! Specifically, it’s her older self from further ahead in her timeline, after she returns to the past, witnesses the destruction of the Earth, and gets captured. She says that Kasius tortured, killed, and revived her from the dead innumerable times, forcing her to spill the beans on everything she remembers happening. (If this is true, why was Kasius surprised by the appearance of the S.H.I.E.L.D.ies in the early parts of this season?) Yo-Yo, Sr. even remembers this specific moment of meeting herself. She says that she’s stuck in a loop, and warns that the timeline cannot be changed, no matter how hard they try. Yo-Yo, Jr. doesn’t want to believe that’s true, and Yo-Yo, Sr. says she remembers thinking that. Nevertheless, she’s very fatalistic now. She tells her younger self that Mack will die, and instructs her to run to him and hold him tightly for every moment she can. She also says that Coulson is secretly sick, and it was their attempts to save him that led to the planet’s destruction. Before they part, the elder Yo-Yo stands up and reveals that her arms have been amputated.
Enoch is found by a Kree soldier. Although Enoch kills him, he estimates that he only has 12 minutes before he’s captured. Deke volunteers to go help him.
Daisy tells Coulson that she doesn’t want to go back to the past with him, because she doesn’t want to be responsible for destroying the planet. Coulson won’t accept that, so he shoots her with an icer and carries her the rest of the way.
Flints puts on a spacesuit, does an EVA outside the station, uses his power to collect of bunch of space rocks, and hurls them at a window, decompressing the room and causing a bunch of Kree soldiers to be sucked out into space. He then enters the room and seals it again, allowing the S.H.I.E.L.D.ies in. Then Flint begins work on reconstructing the monolith.
Another Kree attacks Enoch. Although Deke is able to save him, both Enoch and the portal machine are damaged. Enoch says that the only way to turn it on is to use his own power cell. Not only will he have to sacrifice himself, once removed from power he will explode within seconds, destroying a big portion of the space station and killing anyone in his vicinity. Deke mans up and agrees to stay with him, sacrificing himself too.
When everyone else gathers in the monolith room, Mack goes to look for Yo-Yo. He finds Kasius holding the older Yo-Yo with a knife to her throat, but Mack doesn’t know that there are two of them. He watches in anguish as Kasius slits her throat. Kasius then drinks the crazy-drug himself and leaps down into the fighting pit to attack him. Under normal circumstances, a Kree is much stronger than a human – but since Kasius is an extremely wimpy Kree, taking the drug makes him about an even match for Mack. The two fight and fight and fight. Eventually, Jemma slips in behind Kasius and puts an implant in his ear that takes away his hearing and most of his vision (as he had done to her previously). This gives Mack the opportunity to impale him with the axe on his gun. Finally, this seems to be the end of Kasius. Young Yo-Yo then runs in and Mack is puzzled as to how she’s still alive, but she doesn’t have time to explain it to him.
As Mack, Yo-Yo and Jemma run to the monolith room, Deke yells at the others that they have to go through the portal right away because Enoch can’t hold out any longer. At the exact moment Enoch explodes, the monolith turns to liquid and opens the portal. The way the scene is staged is meant to leave it as a cliffhanger as to whether the S.H.I.E.L.D.ies got through the portal in time, but the preview for the next episode confirms that they do (and even shows Mack with them).
A quick epilogue finds Tess and Flint in the space trawler, talking about how they have faith that the S.H.I.E.L.D.ies made it back to their own time and will be able to save the Earth. Even if that happens, their own timeline appears to still be screwed, though Tess suggests that Flint can use his power to put the planet back together. Is this the last we’ll see of them? I imagine so.
Episode Verdict
If you’ve read any of my recaps this season, you already know that I’m bored with this storyline. I’m glad to see it end, and I have to say that it wraps up in a reasonably satisfying manner. The twist with the two Yo-Yos is clever (despite the plot hole it opens), and the part with Flint doing the EVA is pretty cool. Kasius gets a fitting end, and I’m pleased that Jemma contributed to it. (I would’ve liked Yo-Yo to help too.)
The show will take a break for a few weeks and return on March 2nd with a new story arc that hopefully explains why Coulson is sick and how that ties into a threat to the entire planet. It’d be nice if we could leave behind all the cheesy Kree stuff too, but we’ll see how that goes.
