Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: A Life Earned (5x04)

Fitz!!! For like half a second there at the end. But still. I was so happy to see him!

Cons:

Okay, I like the stuff going on here, but it does feel a little sluggish. Each episode teaches us a bit more about the world, sure, but it almost feels like all four of these episodes are telling the same slow story. I want more character interaction. I want more forward motion. For example, Daisy is now with Jemma, but we don't learn anything more other than that everybody wants to buy Daisy because she's Quake, the "Destroyer of Worlds." Other than that, we just get a few more pieces of the puzzle slowly edging into place, but not a lot of forward motion.

Fitz showing up at the end made me realize how badly I've missed him, so I guess I'm just putting it under "cons" that he's been absent for so long.

There was a rather on-the-nose moment where Mack is accused of not being worthy of being a father, and he beats a man up. Later, Coulson and the others make it right by giving the guy money to help him raise his new baby, but this whole thing felt, shall we say, lacking in nuance. Mack talks about how losing fake Hope inside the Framework was harder than when he lost the real Hope, and how that makes him a bad father. Again, it's not that I have a problem with exploring these ideas, but this conversation was so lacking in subtlety. Of course it hurt worse to lose Framework Hope. The real Hope was an infant, and the Framework Hope was somebody who Mack spent much longer with, and who he could talk with. Both are devastating. Both are the loss of a daughter. I just wanted more out of this stuff, I guess.

Pros:

I do really like Deke. He's a traitor, of sorts, in that he handed Daisy over, but there's more to this guy than meets the eye. Apparently, Vergil was communicating with his father on the surface of the planet. Deke believed his father to be long dead, so this was a really intense moment for him when he heard the recordings of the conversations. I love the fact that after we learn this humanizing detail about him, Coulson still decides to lock him up so he doesn't get in the way of their plans. Coulson is a kind soul, but he's also pragmatic in a really fun way.

We meet a new character, another Inhuman who can read minds. He appears to be fully indoctrinated into the messed up way of Kree life, but later he flips, helping Daisy and Jemma out. They are both lying by saying that they are the only two people who have come from the past. Daisy tells her story, while Jemma is kept in silence by Kasius. Then, Kasius asks Jemma to tell her side. Miraculously, her story matches Daisy's. We later learn that the Inhuman can also let other people read his thoughts, an aspect of his power that he has not shared with the Kree. I like this new guy. I hope he sticks around.

Earlier I lamented the lack of character interaction, but I will say that I like the stuff between Coulson and May. There's a moment where she decides to stay behind and kick some ass, and Coulson is really worried about this because of her hurt leg. I don't know why, but that scene just gave me all the warm fuzzies. These two are great partners, and the hint of something more between them just makes it all the more interesting.

We learn a bit more about the world building - apparently humans have been sterilized through their food, and so now the Kree control all human reproduction. Babies are bought and sold and are a rare commodity. I don't have much to comment on here. Grizzly idea, and, as Coulson says, we have now gone "full dystopian."

This turned out to be a bit of a short review, sorry. The last scene, where Fitz turns up, apparently as some sort of ally of the Kree, was honestly the most jazzed I've been all season. I can't wait to see how he came to be there! And can we get a Fitzsimmons reunion please?

7.5/10