Agents of SHIELD, Season 6, Episode 7: Toldja
This episode is all right, I guess. Most of it is just focusing on Sarge NotCoulson's interactions with SHIELD, while essentially setting things up for the mid-season finale. And... I dunno, I wasn't super impressed here? A good chunk of the novelty of the novelty of "oh mah gawd it's a Phil Coulson doppelganger" have definitely worn off. Clark Gregg eats scenery in a serene, sarcastic way throughout the time that he is imprisoned as a prisoner of SHIELD, calmly telling them about the incoming doomsday and insisting that they need him as their commander if they want any chance to survive... but honestly, it's kind of a repeat of the Sarge/May episode, only this time the bulk of the arguments are between Sarge and Mack. Which is nice, in a way, because Mack's been kinda sidelined throughout most of the season, but it's just sorta... there. It's not boring enough for me to complain about, but I certainly felt like this is pretty uninteresting and predictable.
There are some neat conflict pieces, but honestly, I was far more invested on where the huge giant Jaco was going to actually take the chance and cooperate with SHIELD when he seems to be dying from his wouds and also not have a way out. Yo-yo manages to extract a classic sob story backstory from him, and it turns out that Sarge's team might just be regular aliens as opposed to extra-dimensional multiverse travellers (Far From Home might've clouded my perceptions a bit)... and turns out that Jaco breathes fucking fire. He gets knocked out pretty quickly, though, so kibosh on that particular attempt for Sarge to escape.
What ends up causing Sarge to get an advantage, of course, is to let SHIELD bumble and fuck things up, with its lack of knowledge about the Shrike other than "it's kinda like Alien, sorta". SHIELD is intent on saving the people infected with the Shrike, but turns out that putting two of them in close proximity just causes the Shrikes to basically spread into their massive crystal spike form faster... which... honestly, is kind of stupid on SHIELD's part considering that they detected the two Shrike hosts moving towards each other. Sarge basically blackmails Mack into maknig a deal to release him, his truck and his crew before divulging more information, which, of course, Mack is forced to do to save the agents abroad the Bus -- apparently, the Shrike-crystal things are weak to extreme cold and depressurization.
Also, in Sarge's ramblings, we're also quick to piece that the Shrike serve a certain "Maker". And while Sarge and his crew might seem like the lesser evil to this parasitic infestation that apparently is just waiting to become a global apocalypse, Sarge and company are still pretty evil, y'know? Even if some of the murders in the past might be justified (certainly not of that random SHIELD agent in the first episode) in killing Shrike hosts, Sarge's still clearly manipulative and out on his own agenda.
The B-plot for this one takes place in space, in Kitson, where Enoch and Fitz-Simmons have teleported in only to have their weird-ass teleportation disc stolen by some drunken patron. And it's... it's mostly inconsequential but hilarious wacky space shit as they are brought in front of Mr. Kitson, owner of the planet, and basically forced to participate in a weird guillotine betting game. It's kinda funny, I guess, even if Simmons does keep bringing up her acid trip one time too many, but this sequence is just a way to introduce an alien lady with a neat bob hairdo, Izel (played by Karolina Wydra, who is a very welcome addition to this show), who rescues Fitz, Simmons and Enoch, and basically recruits them to her crew because she has a job to do on Earth. It's mighty convenient that there's an alien with lots of monetary resources that just happens to be looking for guides to Earth (or, well, Terran culture), so it's pretty easy to suspect that Izel is up to no good. If not affiliated with the mysterious Maker of the Shrikes, then she's probably connected to Sarge's crew in some way.Still, at least this is a way to reunite our scattered party as Fitz and Simmons return back to Earth, while Enoch... stays on Kitson, ostensibly to contact his fellow Chronicroms and help rebuild his race. That farewell with Fitz, as well as Enoch's robot-face, is absolutely adorable. I'll miss Enoch.
Still, the next two episodes are a two-parter that functions as the mid-season finale, so hopefully we'll get some answers and a climax to at least some of the ongoing arcs. Honestly, considering how surprisingly not-based-on-the-comics the events of Agents of SHIELD's sixth season is compared to the previous two, I'm genuinely surprised at how cohesive it still is and how engaging it is, despite some pacing complaints.
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