Agents of SHIELD Missing Pieces Television 

Five Thoughts on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s “Missing Pieces”

By | May 12th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome back, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – boy did you miss a lot! An Infinity War happened, then an Endgame, and now you’ve returned. There’s a lot to catch up on after last season ended, so let’s take a look and see how it went down.

1. Endgame? What Endgame?

Okay, I’ll have to address this first. I’ll try to keep the Avengers: Endgame spoilers minimal, but this may involve discussing some details.

During the last season, news reports showed Thanos’s ship landing and included reports of the Avengers fighting in Wakanda. But the season ended with no one impacted by the snap, which could theoretically be explained with the entire SHIELD team being very, very lucky and none of them getting dusted. This season… not so much.

Okay, here’s the Endgame spoiler. The movie cuts ahead to five years after the snap, to a world still devastated by the loss. This episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., on the other hand, takes place one year after the last episode, so between Infinity War and Endgame. This would be an amazing time to explore the world post-snap! We could see the characters reeling from the loss, see them try to defend a world on the verge of collapse, really get invested in the decimated world!

But no one even mentions Thanos or the destruction he wrought. It seems like such a missed opportunity, especially since it’s a chance to explore this five-year gap.

2. Space Team

Even then, we have a one year time skip to explore. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team is in two – in space, we have Daisy, Simmons, Piper, and Davis. They’re flying around, fighting aliens and looking for Fitz, because something happened up in space to make his ship get cut in half and crash.

Boy, the changed timeline really has it out for Fitz. First his displaced future self dies, now his frozen present self gets lost in space.

But of course, whenever half of the Fitz-Simmons team gets separated, the other goes off the deep end. So Simmons has gotten pretty dark and obsessed, hanging aliens upside-down to interrogate them and stopping at nothing to chase any clue. … Fitz-Simmons are a little co-dependent, aren’t they?

Then we have Piper and Davis, who banter and bicker a bit. That’s about as far as their characters go so far, but it seems like they’ll play a bigger role this season. Meanwhile, Quake has reached the point where she can vibrate multiple laser guns apart without even trying, so she’s grown tougher, but also a fair bit more ruthless.

Clearly life in space hasn’t been kind to our heroes, which brings us back to the crew on Earth.

3. Back on Earth

Meanwhile, on the home planet, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been growing pretty significantly. Mack is now the Director (so that’s cool, good on him) and is working on expanding the team once again. Part of this episode involves bringing in Doctor Marcus Benson to help build an entire S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy (which, if that leads to an eventual Avengers Academy, would be cool).

It’s worth noting that Dr. Benson is gay, although it’s mentioned only in passing as a “husband passed away” character point. Considering he’s an actual named and plot-relevant character, though, that makes him at least better representation than Endgame provided.

On another note, Mack and Yo-Yo broke up, evidently due to Mack essentially marrying the job. She’s sort-of dating another new character, Agent Keller, but it remains to be seen if his character will last long enough for that to matter.

It’s nice to see S.H.I.E.L.D. growing again, and I look forward to seeing Mack in his new role as Director. But it still would have been nice to see it set in a post-Thanos world.

4. Meet the Bad Guys

And then we have this season’s villains: a handful of heavily-armed, black gear-clad folks who appear out of thin air. Well, out of thin air if they’re lucky; if they appear out of something like, say, a cement wall, they’ll merge with it and get stuck, as we saw happen to one of them.

So who are these world-traversing militants? What are they after? We’re not quite sure yet. The show seems to be focusing on making them mysterious and dangerous, although the “dangerous” part requires a little stupidity on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s part to really work. Clearly they haven’t hired a new strategist yet.

Continued below

But their teleportation technology is somehow tied to leylines. It seems likely they’re from an alternate Earth, tying into the existence of the multiverse that the Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer confirmed, but that’s just a guess. The most important thing is who their leader seems to be…

5. Definitely Not Coulson

We knew Clark Gregg would be coming back this season, and having him appear as the leader of the antagonists is quite the way to do that. His appearance was set up as a surprise, appearing after he drove a massive truck through the dimensional portal and into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s cars, before he shoots Agent… did that agent have a name? They introduced a lot of new characters, but I get the feeling not all of them are going to matter soon enough.

Still, this quickly establishes that this is not Phil Coulson. It looks like him, sounds like him, and is played by the same actor, but he’s a very different person. We’ll find out next week who or what this Coulson copycat is.

Although Clark Gregg appeared earlier this episode as a holographic projection of Coulson. That mostly consisted of repeating advice and platitudes for Mack, but hey, if it helps. It was also a little bit of a misdirection to potentially fool viewers into thinking his only appearance would be as a holographic Coulson, but I think it’s safe to say most of us knew he’d play a large role than that.

So, what did you think? Is this a good return for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or was there something else you’d have like to see? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll be back next week to see what comes next.


//TAGS | Marvel's Agents of SHIELD

Robbie Pleasant

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