Agents of SHIELD S05E10 Review: Back to the Past

Agents of SHIELD, Season 5, Episode 10: Past Life

Well, we're finally done with this post-apocalyptic future storyline, which is definitely about time. While I don't quite have as much a problem with the Lighthouse arc as I did at the beginning of the season (which was why I stopped reviewing Agents of SHIELD for a while), the show has definitely run the concept ragged and failed to be as interesting as it potentially could've been.

Sadly, poor Kasius, who has had a fair bit of focus in episodes 6 and 7 that elevates him into someone trying to redeem himself in the strange, alien Kree culture... but upon seeing Sinara's dead body, Kasius just devolves into a generic, unstable madman. He spends a good chunk of the episode just talking to Sinara's corpse while his minions try and fail to stop SHIELD, and then after forcing a random human minion, Tye, to consume a rage-boosting serum called Odium, he spends the climax drinking it, getting his eyes turned black and just rages around spouting "I WILL KILL YOU" and is honestly a pretty generic strongman enemy.

After killing Future!Elena (which we'll talk about below) the super-strong, raving-mad Kasius just engages Mack in a one-on-one until Simmons comes to help out, stabbing the inhibitor that has tormented her throughout this arc into Kasius's ear and allowing Mack to finally end the poor Kree's life with a shotgun-axe through the chest. It's honestly hard for me to really care for Kasius after this episode sort of stripped anything interesting from him, but it's a pretty cathartic end, I suppose.

The rest of the episode basically involves the SHIELD/human resistance basically solving the whole Lighthouse storyline and killing all the Krees present (Fitz gets to garrote a bunch of mooks!) while simultaneously getting Flint to reassemble the monolith. Despite the huge amount of screentime devoted to Flint, he's pretty much a plot device, yeah? A charming plot device, but when Coulson handwaves Flint's rock-controlling powers and how every shard of the monolith is apparently within convenient distance in space, it really causes me to eye-roll a bit. It is a cool scene, admittedly, when Flint launches the barrage of monolith rocks to kill the rest of Kasius's Kree generals from space.

Coulson and Daisy probably get the biggest focus in this episode among the main cast, Elena aside, as Daisy refuses to return with the group. All the talk about her being the Destroyer of World has certainly taken her out for a loop, and she refuses to become the instrument of Earth's destruction. Coulson and May, the closest Daisy has to actual parents, ends up Icer-ing Daisy and drag her home anyway. Oh, and Coulson is also dying from a wound on his chest that's spreading in a spiderweb of black veins. Huh.

Oh, and Elena ends up finding out that Kasius's "seer" is actually herself from this timeline, missing her arms and resurrected multiple times by Kasius with Kree blood and tortured to the point of her being delirious. It's a rare moment that Elena gets some development in this season beyond just being part of the Mack-Elena duo, and Future!Elena warns our!Elena that the time loop will happen anyway, and they will keep doing this song and dance because their 'loyalty will be their downfall' because Coulson is dying, and their attempts to prevent it will cause the stack of dominoes that causes Quake to break the Earth, and it plays off the Coulson/Daisy drama described above very well. Future!Elena's warnings are a lot more dire than Robin's were, because Robin had a sort of optimism to her final moments, but Future!Elena is all doom and gloom, having been killed and revived countless times and having apparently lived through this time loop multiple times.

Enoch and Deke get a fair bit more screentime as the two of them sacrifice themselves to get our friends home. Enoch is a lot more likable than Deke to me, defrosting and eventually acknowledging the SHIELD dudes as his friends, fighting off a Kree warrior and allowing himself to be used as a power source when the Lighthouse's power source gets damaged. It's a neat scene as he quietly accepts his mortality and death. Deke's death is also pretty okay, even if I'm not particularly invested in his silly journey to embrace his destiny and become a hero, the scenes are well-acted, and I do like how despite resigning himself to death, his final words is a loud curse.

Ultimately, while the monolith explodes and engulfs our main cast -- SHIELD is seemingly gone in the explosion with a big "oh my god Mack, Elena and Simmons are still running!", while Enoch and Deke are probably killed -- I don't really buy that anyone in SHIELD end up killing. The episode and arc ends with the honestly pretty neat scene of Tess and Flint on a ship, looking at the globe and resolving to return the broken Earth to what it was. It's a neat little scene, I suppose, even if I never truly got myself invested with any of these new human characters. Ultimately, the arc finale actually does a lot of good in terms of building up the mystery of the time-loop and writing a neat enough end for Enoch and Deke... but next up... back to the present, and I can't wait.