Things begin picking up as stories collide. With Sarge and S.H.I.E.L.D. almost working together, and Fitz-Simmons with a suspicious new friend, how will these pieces come together in season 6, episode 8?
1. Uneasy Alliance
Following the events of the last episode, S.H.I.E.L.D. more or less has to work together with Sarge’s team. Mack’s hands were tied when he agreed to Sarge’s demands, but with the emergency over he’s given himself a little more wiggle room in the negotiations – mainly, Sarge can take one member of his team, but has to bring Daisy and May along.
Really, we have both sides trying to outplay the other, with plenty of subterfuge, secrets, and misdirection. It results in at least one dead S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and the crew on a crash course to almost certain death.
But we do still learn more about Sarge and his mission. He’s out to kill Izel, whatever the cost. So of course that makes his character the “will sacrifice anyone and anything because he thinks it’s a fair price to pay” type, which we’ve seen before, always on the side opposing the heroes at the end.
In this case, it involved a truck with a massive bomb on auto-pilot towards a Shrike tower.
2. Who is Izel?
Meanwhile, after the last episode, I stated that the mysterious woman taking Fitz-Simmons to Earth was almost certainly connected to the Shrike. Well of course she is – she’s Izel, the Shrike creator that Sarge is out to kill.
However, she presents a different side of her story. She says that the artifacts she’s looking for – which are, naturally, the monoliths – were stolen from her world. Izel claims they “could connect all life together,” which is probably not as good a thing as it sounds like, considering what happens when Shrike are brought together.
Also, she’s using Shrike to pull a Body Snatchers on the entire crew, so she’s obviously still not a good person. Simmons was smart to hide her knowledge about the Monoliths, while Fitz is apparently all too trusting of her.
But she does claim that Sarge is hunting her not for justice or vengeance, but because she knows the truth about him – what he really is. We’ll see what that turns out to be later in the season.
3. Mythological
Meanwhile, Dr. Benson has been doing more research, and has discovered some records on Earth that relate to her. Apparently in this universe it’s a part of Incan mythology, but I’ll save you the trouble of checking – it’s something made up for this show.
It’s almost a pity they didn’t pick an actual mythological figure – Thor and the Norse pantheon are a major part of the Marvel universe, so tying in other mythos would make sense within the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. canon.
Still, adding Izel to an in-universe mythos makes sense in the same way that Thor and his fellow gods do, so it’s not a bad use of the character. This also ties further in to the monoliths, which have appeared throughout history within the show. So it all comes together… more or less.
4. Fitz’s Green-Eyed Monster
Fitz missed out on a lot while frozen. Mostly he missed out on the things he did. So when Simmons is talking to him about the adventures they had, about getting married and their future grandson, to Fitz it’s like hearing about someone else altogether.
He describes it as being a replacement for his own self, which is odd, but actually makes sense. This him that Simmons is talking about is another version of him, one who lived through things he didn’t and died a hero. He’s basically the backup version, missing that part of his life.
It’s got to be confusing to him, but Simmons is basically acting like it’s all the same person. To her, sure, it is still the same Fitz, but, well, time travel is weird that way.
Just another thing they’ll really need to deal with in couple’s therapy.
5. Enoch’s Team
I figured we hadn’t seen the last of Enoch. After the episode ends, he gets in touch with an ally on another planet. It seems he’s getting his own team together, since the Chronicoms he betrayed will not exactly take him back with open arms.
Honestly, this alone is already sounding like a more interesting subplot than the main plot. I’m curious to see what Enoch has in mind.
Meanwhile, the other Chronicoms are pissed, but they have a higher priority: they still have scanned copies of the minds of Fitz and Simmons, which they hope to use to unlock the secrets of time travel. Of course, those happen to involve – you guessed it – a monolith, so we’re likely to see them heading to Earth as well.
