Agents of SHIELD S05E11 Review: Back to the Present

Agents of SHIELD, Season 5, Episode 11: All the Comforts of Home

That was fun! Slightly horrifying considering the pretty graphic disarmament of Elena's arms, for sure, but this episode is a return to form for Agents of SHIELD. There are shades of how they were enemies with the government which was explored in late season 1 and season 3, and while they are happy to be in the present day, a fair amount of complications, plus the ever-looming threat of Daisy causing the Earth to crack like an egg in the near future, is hanging over their head. With the unstable Lighthouse arc finally coming to a close in the previous episode, we waste no time in quickly setting up this new arc. We are quickly re-introduced to General Hale, the antagonist from Fitz's solo episode, who seems to be our current enemy as the big bad government person who is trying to hunt down and end SHIELD once and for all. 

The SHIELD agents, after a brief moment of catching their breath, find themselves in the present-day version of the Lighthouse, which is apparently an ancient SHIELD stronghold meant to survive an apocalypse, with way, way more corridors and resources than they hoped to have. They also meet Enoch's replacement among the Chronicroms, a being called Noah, who is far less willing to play ball than Enoch does... but far more willing to shrug and let SHIELD do whatever. After taking stock SHIELD gets to see the mysterious prophesied "a light beam from the skies", signifying an alien arrival. Daisy elects to remain behind on the base for fear of ending the world, while the rest of SHIELD head off to investigate. 

Of course, Daisy herself ends up going out of the base anyway when Deke turns out to have survived the explosion last episode and gets transported to the present day. Not the biggest fan of Deke, but the scenes when he finally discovers trees, beer, hamburgers and his general ecstasy at being free from the dystopian future is pretty amazingly told. And, of course, he gets immediately arrested because he has no money. Daisy has to disguise herself (and hack her way in) to bullshit Noah out of the police precinct.

Through it all, the episode builds up some classic misdirection that it's Daisy arriving in the precinct that blew SHIELD's cover and alerted Hale, but of course, it's the other team. All Daisy has to deal with is some legitimate paperwork, before she escorts Deke out back to the Lighthouse. Meanwhile, the rest of SHIELD ends up meeting Agent Piper, unseen since season four's halfway point, who claims to be also investigating the light pillar (which was the beacon that summoned the two Kree warriors in season... three?) but turns out Piper had cut a deal with General Hale under the impression that Hale merely wanted to arrest Hale.

Of course, Hale sends in a squad of metal robots led by a girl with a Dr. Doom-esque metal mask, leading to a pretty cool action scene that gets brutally ended when the mysterious lady slices off both of Elena's arms pretty brutally. SHIELD does manage to retreat, but Elena loses her arms, and the Kree beacon they brought back to the base is a bomb that seems to kill Noah (and presumably alert Hale to the SHIELD base?). It's a pretty explosive first episode to a new arc, for sure, and a combination of the light, Coulson's continuing illness and Elena's mutilation does seem to hint that, yes, they are fulfilling the time loop after all. 

Hale is... an interesting villain. We first see her in the beginning of the episode in an argument with her lazy earphone-listening daughter who is apparently a fan of Quake and not so happy that her mother's hunting down SHIELD because the concept of 'good guys' is blurred, but the end of the episode reveals that Hale's daughter Ruby is actually the masked lady that sliced off Elena's arms, and it's something that she did on her own to draw out her idol, Quake. We also see that apparently her normal-looking room is a facade as she's held in some sort of top-secret facility. The episode ends with General Hale recruiting Absorbing Man/Carl Creel as part of a supervillain team, but we'll see if this goes anywhere. Hale is certainly somewhat more interesting than Kasius as far as first impressions go, at least. Overall, while not a perfect episode, definitely a solid one for us to return to Agents of SHIELD. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Rick Stoner has a brief cameo as the SHIELD agent that created the Lighthouse and is part of the orientation projections. In the comics, Rick Stoner is the SHIELD director before Nick Fury. 
• The SHIELD team basically rattles off nearly all of their biggest enemies throughout the past four-and-a-half seasons on the bus -- the Lighthouse, the Framework, Fitz and Simmons being stuck at the bottom of the ocean, Aida, Jiaying and Calvin Zabo -- before May ends the list with "dancing". Oh, May. 
• SHIELD encountered the Kree Beacon in season three's "Failed Experiments". Piper's involvement in that episode as being her first mission is also mentioned. Piper herself has been MIA, last seen before the whole LMD arc in season four.
• Carl "Absorbing Man" Creel served as General Talbot's bodyguard throughout season three, but haven't been seen since then.