TV Review: AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 5, Episode 8: The Last Day [ABC]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Last Day Review

ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 5, episode 8, ‘The Last Day,’ came on the heels of a lot of important goings on – a lot of truly fun goings on – but wound up taking something of a hard turn.

Okay. So we got Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) back, and he brought some sorely missed wild-card fun with him. There was also the long awaited reunion with Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), the pair delivering Daisy (Chloe Bennet) back to Coulson’s (Clark Gregg) camp, and everyone set to meet May (Ming-Na Wen) on the surface. That was a whole lot of momentum, there.

Ah, but just when you thought the band getting back together meant a jam session that would bring down the house: they split, again. The Yo-Yo Mack (Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Henry Simmons) stayed behind to help rock roller, Flint (Coy Stewart), grow some stones, while the rest took to puzzle piecing, on the surface.

This was to be a breather episode, where everybody stopped to get their bearings, and give us some idea of why things are still more complicated than we’ve thus far been made privy to.

To that end, there were two major developments. The heart of the matter revolved around Robin – both of them (Willow Hale, Lexy Kolker) – and how she factored into the history of our Agent Team – both of them – as well as her relationship with May… both of them.

Beyond that, there was the smaller matter of a split, between those sent to the future to save post-cataclysm Humanity, and those who were left to face the cataclysm fallout – and the fact that they were some of same people. There was also a little twist on how best to prevent the end of the World; but all of this amounted to a decent reason to stop & re-calibrate.

Further establishing this as a bridge episode: Kasius & Sinara (Dominic Rains, Florence Faivre) having little to do, except giving Mack, Yo-Yo, and Flint a bonding exercise, back at the Lighthouse.

Daisy was still on the de-powered list (along with May, I guess), and some of her time was spent humanizing Deke (Jeff Ward). Life on post-Earth gave him a reason to be more than just an opportunist; but I’m still not warming up to the guy. Between Deke & Flint, the whole cannibal culture was revisited; but at least events on the surface was relevant to Daisy’s larger role to this arc.

It turns out the Kree did better with rigging her inhibitor than they did with Simmon’s Bable Fish do-dad; and while this fact had little bearing on the episode’s events, it may play into the sticking point over the disparity between Quake & The Destroyer of Worlds, power-wise. That notion was really the most I could make of the parallel time-lines, and watching Coulson’s Savior team being contradicted by May’s Survivor team, and vice-versa, I think the frustrations of both Fitzes(?) spoke for my own.

I’m still not all that clear on all the physics involved, in the first place. By my reckoning, what’s left of Earth has no rotation. No rotation means no gravity – but more importantly, no atmosphere. Some allowance could be made for there having been more direct Kree intervention – if only to facilitate the salvaging of survivors – but there could be bigger bones to pick, coming out of this arc.

For one thing, I’m kinda dreading an outcome where Flint puts the Earth back together again. Just putting that out there….

The parallel reveal certainly put a new spin on what had been a straightforward mission. Unfortunately, it also brought the doom-and-gloom back to the forefront. I was hoping all that Fitz fun would carry into something of an old fashioned AoS sized climax; but now it looks like Team Survivor is going to serve as a black mirror to Team Salvation. Doesn’t sound all that fun, that.

On the plus side, however, the Kasius cull was resolved fairly quickly (capped by another Yo-Yo highlight moment), we may have finally gotten past the cannibal culture thing, the seeds of the next possible (and intriguing) post-parallel arc may have been sown, and Sinara was left set to full search & destroy lone wolf mode.

Maybe this wasn’t just a hard turn, but a hard corner that needed to be turned.

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