Earth is ours no more
(This review contains
spoilers!)
After an extended break to make room
for the show that shall not be named and will never be spoken of again, the
agents are finally back in action!
Of course, among the lingering
questions left over from May, the biggest one was how the agents wound up in
space, and what Coulson meant by “time to get to work”. But while the writers
were happy to answer those for us, in return they posed a million more loose
threads in this episode, possibly creating one of the best starting points for
a season ever.
We pick up right where we left off
last time: a mysterious task force has captured Coulson and crew and taken them
away. They arrive at a monolith similar to the one from Season 3, except this
one is white with red stripes. They’re whisked away onto a mysterious space
station, and waste little time in meeting up with each other…except for Fitz.
He wasn’t brought with them.
So what’s going on? It takes some time
to get the true answer, but it’s such a delightful surprise that it’s worth the
wait. As is typical with this show, there’s already a twist in play: the crew
isn’t only in space, but in the future as well. Earth has been destroyed by a
mysterious force, and the Kree are keeping a small population alive on their
run-down station.
While I’ve always found time travel
potentially disastrous for any continuity if it gets messed with a bit too
much, this looks like it has plenty of potential. First off, there’s a huge
possibility that this could be how the show ties into Infinity War. While there were big tie-ins to both Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron, ever since then S.H.I.E.L.D
has mostly been content with namedropping something from recent MCU flicks
and leaving it at that as a tie-in, mostly wishing to stay contained to their own
story. While I still don’t want their show to feel like a companion piece to
the movies like Season 1 did at times, I also would like a few more ties to the
MCU as a whole, and having Earth being destroyed be the result of Thanos paying
a visit would be great.
But it already looks like that may not
be the case. According to one of the new side characters, Deke, says that the
planet being destroyed was Daisy’s fault. The thing is, it’s mentioned earlier
in the episode that every human onboard the ship has their own story about what
happened to Earth, so there’s still a chance.
Speaking of the new characters, the
space station is a really interesting place to be. While it bears a lot of
similarities to various dystopian stories (I especially noticed quite a few Hunger Games parallels), it’s still very
well done and never goes too dark or too lighthearted. Throughout the episode
quips from Coulson and Mack keep the mood upbeat, but there’s a very tense
atmosphere thanks to how deadly the Kree feel, especially in the last quarter.
The big question at the end of the day
is how the agents are gonna get themselves out of this one. Fitz is still back
in the present (mostly because Iain De Caestecker was filming a movie at the
time), and he managed to contact the team via postcard given to them by a guy
in the future, so he’s definitely involved in some way. But even if they make
it back, they still need to stop this future from coming to pass. Needless to
say, I’m really excited to see where this goes.
This episode was an excellent starting
point for the season. It told you everything you needed to know about where the
agents were, what was going on, and how this world worked in record time,
allowing for the next few episodes to jump right into the action and play
around in the world. I’m just glad my favourite currently-airing show is back
to show everyone the true potential of Marvel TV.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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