Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Option Two (5x19)

Full disclosure, I went and saw Avengers: Infinity War today, and then I watched this episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. later. I was so shaken by the movie that it was a little harder than usual to focus on the episode, so you'll notice I'm being vague... that's because my mind was just spinning with the film I'd just seen. Seriously. If you're an MCU fan, you have to see this movie.

Cons:

So, my attention was a little wander-y, but even with that being the case, I find the stuff with the aliens showing up to be unnecessarily convoluted. I feel like we have enough to wrap our heads around what with time loops being a thing, and there's really not a whole lot of reasons why we need to have a character like Qovas gumming up the works.

Elena finally spills the beans that letting Coulson die is supposed to break the loop. Obviously May is very resistant to this idea. I'm just annoyed that Yo-Yo didn't tell them all a lot sooner. It seems mysterious to me that she would keep it a secret.

Pros:

So many great character moments, I don't even know where to start. Mack and Yo-Yo have a devastating conversation about their relationship. Mack thinks that Elena has gone off the deep end, that she's been through too much, and Elena accuses Mack of pulling away from her and being unable to look at her the same way because of her arms. In the end, Elena says that she sometimes runs away, but she always comes back to where she started. Mack counters that he's not sure if he'll be waiting for her when she does.

There's not a ton of Fitzsimmons in this, but there is a bit of stuff with Deke. Fitz's animosity towards Deke is a bit confusing in some ways. I think honestly he's just anxious about the future and he doesn't want to let himself get locked in to any hope or positive attitude about what his life with Simmons might lead to. He's firmly convinced that he's not going to get to grow old with Simmons and raise his family and know his grandson. And we see that Deke has a lot of anxiety and fear about his own place in the universe - he wants to believe that he's here for good, that he's transferred over to another place and that even if they break the loop, he'll get to stay with them. Fitz, on the other hand, thinks that the only way they'll know if they've succeeded is if Deke does go up in a puff of smoke.

There's a scene early on where the whole group is together, and we get a lot of yelling and mistrust and anger between the Invincible Three, and then the others, primarily Mack and Daisy. This was a quick conversation with everyone talking over everybody else and throwing accusations around, and it worked really well because I could totally understand everybody's viewpoints, even the people I disagreed with. In addition to breaking the time loop, our trusty heroes are going to have to learn to trust each other again, and I'm excited to watch that process.

Talbot has been the surprising dark horse of this half of the season for me. I can't believe how much I've grown to care about him and his fate. This week, he does something supremely stupid - he goes into the Gravitonium Pod and gets one hell of a power-up. He's able to save them from all the alien baddies, but what does this mean?! I actually care! I don't want Talbot to lose it even more than he already has!

Daisy is separated from the rest of the gang for the majority of this episode. She gets a MacGuffin from a contact of Mack's that might be able to save Coulson, but it requires some sort of serum of protection. Where does Daisy go to get it? Well... her mother's grave. Yikes. I'm really curious as to how this is going to play out. Obviously the idea is that letting Coulson die will break the loop, but Daisy doesn't know that at this point, and even if she did, I don't know that she'd do anything differently. Sometimes I have these moments where I think about how painfully uninteresting and annoying Daisy/Skye was when this show started, and now here I am, thoroughly invested in her character, and eagerly anticipating what happens next.

That's that. Honestly, my mind is still on Infinity War and it's going to take me a hot second to cool off from that. But this was a perfectly solid episode.

8/10