Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D (7x07)

I mean, this was a lot of fun, obviously. What else is there to say?

Cons:

You all know what I'm going to say. I freakin' miss Fitz. He wasn't even mentioned in this one!

Pros:

As soon as I realized that Deke and Mack were going to be settling in to 1982, I immediately thought Deke would try to invent technology early/buy in on stocks for things he knew were going to make it huge. Basically, the same thing he did back in the 2010's, using his future knowledge from the Lighthouse. And we sort of got that - only we got Deke becoming a musician, and "writing" a bunch of famous '80s music that hadn't come out in '82. I loved it! So great! This is what I'm talking about with the show having a lot of fun with the various decades/motifs. Deke saying, with full confidence, "I wrote this song," and then playing the SUPER recognizable opening to "Don't You Forget About Me" was honestly so funny.

But along with the comedy, you see the way in which Deke has really earned his place as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Put in an impossible situation, trapped in the past, with his only ally an extremely depressed and un-engaged Mack... Deke doesn't just say screw it and try to make a lot of money. He actually recruits allies, works on getting Coulson back, tracks the presence of the Chronicoms, and checks in on the younger Mack, a ten-year-old boy in 1982, along with the older Mack, trying to coax him out of his shell. The episode did such a good job of showing how even though Deke is a goofball and he doesn't always make the smartest choices, he's actually good at what he does, and he's doing his best to help.

All of this makes for a delicious contrast with Mack's arc in this episode, which is all about regaining his hope and deciding to keep the fight alive. He starts off despondent and depressed, and then when he goes to meet Deke, he yells at him for being childish, before eventually realizing that he needs to come around and be the leader he is. It's satisfying to watch, because his depression is so understandable, and yet his resilience still survives, up against terrible odds.

We've also got Sybil and Coulson both returning from the "dead" in the form of robots with their faces imaged on them, which I thought was a funny, low-fi science fiction concept to include here. You even have Coulson mentioning that he's not sure if he's really still "alive", and what does it mean that his entire existence is now made up of a bunch of tech and no flesh and blood? This episode wasn't about the nature of what makes a person themselves... but this season contains that as a major theme and I enjoyed seeing a nod to it here.

Over a year later, and the Zephyr pops back up so the rest of the gang can reunite with Mack and Deke. I loved Mack and Elena's reunion, as you can see how the time apart has worn on them both. But it also gave Mack some time to process his grief and to come back to her with a good head on his shoulders. The circumstances were less than ideal, but Mack might be all the better for that.

Gosh, I feel like there's so much more a person could say about all this goofiness, but I'll stop there. I've been incredibly impressed with how this season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has managed to combine the more zany energy of the premise, along with the darker/more intense personal themes of these long-standing characters. We're rapidly approaching the end of the show, and I'm glad to have been here from day one!

8/10