Marvel's Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. | The Unofficial Midseason Finale (S05E10)
The team have one last chance to make it back to their timeline in ‘Past Life’ as the Lighthouse arc of the season comes to an end.
Acting as the unofficial midseason finale, ‘Past Life’ is the show’s final instalment before ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ goes on hiatus during the 2018 Winter Olympics. And with the team back together on the Lighthouse, it was one hell of an episode!
SPOILER ALERT!
The episode opens right where ‘Best Laid Plans’ left off, with the Zepyhyr docking at the Lighthouse. But when Kasius’ men storm the ship, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are long gone with Sinara’s body the only evidence of their time on the ship. Our team make it onto the Lighthouse and split up, yet again, to tackle their respective missions before meeting at the all-important rendezvous point. But before Yoyo and Mack can make their way there, Tess mentions that there’s one more person the team need to save – another Inhuman who Kasius is playing God with. Yoyo, of course, goes off to save the sole Inhuman and promises to be back in time to travel through the portal. Sounds simple enough, right?
With his right-hand woman gone, Kasius is out for blood. He force-feeds Tye, the Inhuman trainer, a black substance called Odium that turns him into a berserker and sends him on his way to hunt down the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. But Kasius, in one last ditch effort to prove himself, downs the rest of the Odium and promises to send one last message to the team.
On her quest to rescue the final imprisoned Inhuman, Yoyo infiltrates the ‘Empire of Death’ and finds out the identity of Kasius’ mysterious seer – herself. Yep, the internet’s past-future Yoyo theory was spot on and the show has fully embraced its timey-wimey madness by bringing a character face-to-face with their older self. And past-future Yoyo has a few revelations to share: her arms have been amputated (a reference to her Marvel Comics counterpart), she’s being used as Kasius’ Inhuman blood bank, past-future Mack is dead, and the fact that the team do make it back in time – but they bring everything that’s to come. Past-future Yoyo also addresses the nature of the time loop and confirms that team S.H.I.E.L.D. is stuck. So, how can they break the loop? According to her, Coulson is dying and they need to let him die. If they don’t, their attempts to save him will ruin everything and they’ll be stuck in the time loop forever.
Speaking of Coulson, the father-daughter relationship between him and Daisy is in jeopardy. Daisy insists on staying behind on the Lighthouse because she’s, supposedly, the reason the world comes to an end. She believes that by staying in the future, the world can’t be quaked apart because she’s not there – thus, breaking the time loop. But Coulson won’t hear of it and ices her, knocking her unconscious and forcing her home. And it’s during this sequence that we get our first glimpse of the mysterious disease Coulson is suffering from. It seems like he’s suffering from some sort of poisoning and my bet is that the GH-325 drug that was used to bring Coulson back to life is finally catching up to him.
Meanwhile, Fitz, Simmons and Mack are trying to help Flint reconstruct the monolith but the Zephyr’s machine is needed to activate the actual portal. And because the S.H.I.E.L.D. team need to be all together at the rendezvous point when the portal opens, Deke is the only one who can go help Enoch secure the machine. With one last quippy exchange (“It was almost nice knowing you!” “You’re a pain in my ass!”), he says goodbye to the time travellers, but the real kicker is when he discovers that the only way to power the machine is by using Enoch’s personal battery – killing our dear alien friend and setting off an explosion that will kill Deke as well.
Donning Deke’s infamous helmet, Flint is busy collecting pieces of Limestone (aka. what the monolith is made of) and it’s a glorious sequence of him floating mid-air in space as these pieces of rock dance around him. With all of the pieces in place, it’s up to Flint now to reconstruct the monolith and get our agents home…if they can get there in time. Yoyo still isn’t back yet and Mack goes off to find her but unfortunately, he finds past-future Yoyo being held at knifepoint by Kasius. Mack, believing her to be his Yoyo, is horrified when the Kree dictator brutally slits her throat and this leads to a fistfight between the two.
Doing his best Frank Castle impression, Kasius is at a significant advantage having downed the rest of the Odium but we’ve learned to never count out our agents and the fight has an incredible climax. In a sweet moment of revenge, Simmons manages to sneak up behind Kasius and slips his own implant into his ear and Mack, taking advantage of the Kree overseer’s brief moment of disorientation, stabs him from behind with his trusty shotgun-axe. I can’t say I’ll miss him but it’s a well-deserved death for this arc’s big bad.
This all, unfortunately, delays Mack, Simmons and the real Yoyo from getting to the rendezvous point. With Enoch’s life force slipping, it’s a race against time as the portal reopens and with only Coulson, Daisy (unconscious and in his arms), May and Fitz standing in front of the monolith – it’s unclear who made it back to the past before the big bang.
‘Past Life’ was the most thrilling episode of the season so far and was a welcome return to the pace and momentum that fans have come to expect from the show. With Coulson taking charge and our S.H.I.E.L.D. agents all aboard the Lighthouse, it reminded viewers just how great the team’s dynamic is after having them split up during this space arc.
The next episode, ‘All the Comforts of Home’, airs on March 2 but fans won’t have to wait that long for answers. The episode’s promo reveals that all of our S.H.I.E.L.D. agents made it through the portal in time and now that they’re back on Earth, they’re being hunted by authorities (again).
As much as we've enjoyed the show’s space arc, we just can’t wait to see what’s been going on back home on Earth. That’s why ‘Rewind’ was such a refreshing episode in the middle of this space arc. The show felt more grounded when Hunter and Fitz were left on Earth to deal with the fallout from last season’s events. The timey-wimey madness was an interesting direction to take the show, even though it all got a bit too confusing sometimes, and I admire the creativity and ambition of the showrunners and writers. The show’s ongoing transformation has been its greatest strength and I can’t wait to see where they take the show in the season’s next arc.
‘Past Life’ set things up nicely for the show's return in March (with its highly-anticipated 100th episode) and when it does, viewers will get to find out more about General Hale (especially with Dove Cameron making her debut as her daughter) and just what happened to Deke. We were led to believe that he died in that explosion, but seeing as Jeff Ward is still on set, we're banking on the fact that Deke was sucked into the portal too and has made his way to the past as well. It will be exciting to see is how the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team reacts to the news that Coulson is dying.
There’s plenty of questions to be answered when the show returns, which they’ll no doubt answer before creating more questions, but I’m looking forward to it because this week’s episode just proved that the show knows how to up the ante. Our agents were finally given the key to breaking the dreaded time loop… and it’s one hell of a game-changer.
New episodes of ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ are updated weekly on Amazon Prime Video.
