Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Brand New Day (7x11)

Well, S.H.I.E.L.D. is being destroyed... this is getting pretty wild!

Cons:

I don't care about Kora. I'm sorry. I want to, I want to be compelled by this drama, but it just doesn't do much for me. We have this episode where all kinds of relationships are being explored: Daisy and Daniel, Fitz and Simmons, Simmons and Deke, Mack and Daisy, May and Coulson... and then have screen-time at the end devoted to Kora and Nathaniel? Who gives a crap?

It was painful to see Fitz for this brief moment in flashback. I understand that people who looked into the background of the show might have known all along that Fitz literally wasn't going to be in the season at all beyond a few moments (except the finale, one would assume), but I feel cheated. I didn't realize it was going to be the whole time. I kept holding out hope that he'd show up in the end-credit stinger, and every time he didn't, it really was disheartening. I liked seeing him, but it was almost worse to have him so briefly!

Pros:

I love Sousa and Daisy, and their whole plan to countermand whatever Sybil thinks she knows about their future. Daisy saying that she already has a sister to save, and that it's Simmons, was seriously so moving! And then Mack joining in on the chaos... this was such a strong, exciting way to begin the episode, with Daisy going full-out to save Simmons (and Deke, presumably). That was a lot of fun.

Of course, looming over them all is what Enoch told Daisy, that this would be the team's last mission together. The moment when Daisy talks about it, and Mack shrugs and seems to accept that, was honestly so emotionally affecting. Daisy literally starts crying as she says "you guys are my family. I don't know who I am without you guys." And then it transitions immediately into Mack teasing Daisy about Daniel. Apparently he and Elena had a bet. The shovel talk between Mack and Daniel is the kind of thing that would normally piss me off, but it had such big brother vibes from Mack, and Daniel is such a good egg... the two of them giggling over the name "Quake" cured me of all my ills, it was so pure.

Sybil is a pretty good villain because she's mostly just a symbol, not a person, and she's insidious because she's omnipresent. May reading the words out loud: "I know only hunger now," and Coulson responding: "that's not creepy at all," made me laugh. It was also fun to see this classic May and Coulson team-up. I'm surprised May's emotional detachment has lasted all season, and I wonder if it's going to be "fixed" or if her new empathy powers are going to stay with her and become her new normal. I think it would be interesting either way! It was nice to see Coulson point out how the roles have changed, as May should be the one to go and talk to Kora and get through to her, because she's uniquely positioned to do that now, meanwhile Coulson is working on the tech, using his experience as a former computer program.

Timeline shenanigans are fun! Like I said above, I don't really care about Kora, but the idea of the final conflict being about preserving the timeline, and essentially a new version of Project Insight, is a good one that feels thematically relevant for the season as a whole. It's always fun, when a show is wrapping up, to loop back around to early stuff, so hearing about Grant Ward was a fun little call-back. No need to bring him back, though. Child or no.

And the Fitz stuff comes last! As I said above, I'm feeling a sense of despondency about the lack of Fitz all season, but at least we've started to get some answers now, and I can definitely be grateful for that! A lot of fans had already predicted something like this, that because time travel is in play, Fitz and Simmons had time to live their life before being separated. There is the mention of the "blood test", which sounds like an implication that one of them is sick, or maybe that Simmons is/was pregnant? But then at the end, the plan for Simmons to forget Fitz's location has to change, so that she forgets much more than that. As the episode ends, and Simmons goes to check on Deke, we get the somewhat predictable but still heart-rending moment where Deke mentions Fitz, and Simmons says "who's Fitz?" You hate to hear it but it makes for good drama! (As a side-note, I find Deke and Simmons worrying for each other to be completely adorable; I wish Fitz and Deke had had more time this season to get to know each other...)

As we're looking forward to the two-part finale next week, the stakes are appropriately high, on both the character and world-building levels. It's been a weird, inconsistent ride with this show, but I'm glad I stuck it out to the bitter end.

8/10