Agents of SHIELD, Season 5, Episode 8: The Last Day
We get a bit more muddied in this episode of Agents of SHIELD, I think, as this episode falls into the same trap that the second season of Agents of SHIELD fell into -- trying to cram and incorporate way too many story points into a single episode, which leads to an overstuffed episode that, yes, is fast-paced, but at the same time feels a lot less solid as an episode compared to the previous outings in this season. And while there might be a point to be made about how the show's disorienting jumps back and forth from the possible past-future of 2022 and the current future, the scenes in 2022 with resistance-fighter-May/Simmons/Fitz/Elena/Kid!Robin all feel indulgent and wholly unnecessary beyond giving us some context for what is frankly a rather underwhelming reveal that May was Robin's surrogate mom during all those years between the 2018-era present day and the post-apocalyptic future. Yes, it's... interesting to see them try and avert this crisis, but the scenes jump around too much with way too little context beyond "oh no everyone's failing" that I don't really have the time to get invested into this.
And add that to everyone sort of talking about how allowing the SHIELD team to return to the past will cause them to unleash a time loop which, in turn, will cause Quake to destroy the Earth... I get what they were trying to go for, but it felt like the episode could've done a much, much better job at getting the point across. The episode does have "our" SHIELD and the future resistance butt heads over priorities. Coulson and his buddies view beating Kasius and returning back to 2018 to be of equal importance as far as goals go, but the future resistance just wants the extra manpower to take down Kasius, free humanity and avenge their fallen. As far as newly-introduced resistance leader Samuel Voss is concerned, allowing SHIELD to return back to the past will just seal Earth's doom. Again, it's not a point that's articulated quite well and so Voss's sudden reveal that he's going to fight SHIELD is a bit odd.
Oh, and old woman Robin ends up getting killed by Voss to deny all the prophecies, leading to a pretty sad moment as she dies in May's arms. I guess the episode jumbling up the past, present and future sort of fits with the theme of how Robin views the world with her prophecies? I dunno. The episode's a bit too messy and the concept of Robin talking to different persons in different timelines is so muddy and ultimately doesn't really mean that much in terms of dire warnings or foreshadowing.
The B-plots are neat but ultimately underwhelming. Fitz and Simmons discover the time machine and have a lot of information exposition about pieces of the monolith and have more cute scenes together. May comes clean about her fears and self doubt regarding how she feels useless with her leg wound, a nice bit of vulnerability from her. There's a Deke subplot about his dad and his dad's history with Voss but I genuinely don't find it interesting.
The B-plots are neat but ultimately underwhelming. Fitz and Simmons discover the time machine and have a lot of information exposition about pieces of the monolith and have more cute scenes together. May comes clean about her fears and self doubt regarding how she feels useless with her leg wound, a nice bit of vulnerability from her. There's a Deke subplot about his dad and his dad's history with Voss but I genuinely don't find it interesting.
On the Lighthouse, Kasius is throwing tantrums, Sinara is sent to Earth, while Elena, Mack and Flint kill a bunch of roaches with the aid of Fitz's smuggled weapons. The Yo-Yo super speed scene is cool, but ultimately it still feels like a sidequest that doesn't really feel like it matters much.
Ultimately, while there is some potential with a time loop or paradox plotline, this episode is so muddied and tries to do too much without really accomplishing much.
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