Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Code Yellow (6x04)

Deke... my sweet summer child... what the heck.

Cons:

I suppose one complaint I have is that we didn't check in with Fitzsimmons stuff at all this week, and I miss them.

Also, on a more serious note, I find it a little irritating that Deke was so stupid about Coulson when he showed up. Yes, I see that Deke has cut contact with his S.H.I.E.L.D. friends, but are you really telling me that they wouldn't drop a note to all known associates to ask him to keep an eye out about this kind of thing? And apparently nobody bothered to tell Deke about Fitz being dead? That seems like a really big oversight, honestly.

I will always think it's gross when science fiction shows do that thing where a person uses virtual reality (the holodecks in Star Trek are a prime example) in order to play out fantasies of their crushes. Daisy did not consent to the use of her image in that simulation, Deke. It's just creepy.

Pros:

For the most part, with that one exception, I found Deke to be hilarious here. He's such a goofy, weird character. I feel like when we first met him, it took a bit for the writers to settle in to what kind of character he was going to be. He definitely feels like Fitzsimmons' grandson, that's for sure. I love that he has this edge of immorality to him. He's basically making a career off of "inventing" a bunch of cool future-tech that he knows about from the future, and from S.H.I.E.L.D. specifically. That's awful. But also, this is a dude who has lost his entire world. Literally, his timeline has been erased. He shouldn't even be here. It makes a certain amount of sense that he might stray off the strictly moral path and try to have a little bit of fun.

Deke's yearning for Daisy, while framed in a bit of a creepy way, is shown to be more than just a juvenile crush. He misses his life of adventure and intrigue, even if he doesn't necessarily crave the danger part of it. I like how happy he was to see Coulson, before he realized what was really going on, and even through the attack and the freak-outs, he seemed energized by being thrown back in to the midst of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s shenanigans. I also like that he was clever enough to stab not-Coulson in the hand to determine that he wasn't authentic.

At first I was going to be really irritated that Keller was killed off here, because it felt like all the stuff with him and Elena had been such a waste of time. But honestly, sometimes a couple gets set up on a show, and there's really not a lot of meaty material or chemistry between them, so I'm actually grateful that they decided to pull the plug instead of dragging this out unnecessarily. Sometimes it's smart to kill off characters just as they're starting to develop, because as an audience member, we never see it coming. We can be sad for Yo-Yo's sake, and we can be alarmed at the mystery of what's going on here. Not every death has to be as dramatic as Coulson's was.

Sequoia was hilarious. This was a beautiful moment for Maurissa Tancharoen to shine. She did such a fun thing with this character, making her totally vapid and shallow, without making her cruel. She's just a girl who's dating Deke and wants to stick to the plans they made. Seriously, what's wrong with that? I loved her. So funny. I also liked Deke's BFF being an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and how offended Deke was when he realized that.

I feel like this review is a little shorter than usual, but to be honest, there are a lot of things about this season that I'm waiting on. I don't know how I feel about Coulson 2.0 yet because I'm not quite sure where they're going with all of this. I don't know why he and his crew are here. I don't know how long the various plot threads will remain disparate. Are Fitz and Simmons going to reunite soon, and head back to Earth, so we can all tackle the big bad together? I don't know, and so I feel like I can't say much about it yet! But I'm thoroughly enjoying myself until we get there...

8/10