Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 5 episode 10 review: Past Life

This review contains spoilers.

5.10 Past Life

Now that’s how you set up a hiatus! Even though I have been profoundly enjoying this season of Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD, around last week I began to get a little homesick. I enjoyed SHIELD’s timey wimey space adventure, I mean, how intense has it been to watch Coulson and his agents fight off the overwhelming forces of the Kree?

But I kind of missed the MCU proper. Well, this week, with the help of Flint, Deke, Tess, and Enoch, SHIELD is able to open a gate back home. But it isn’t easy, and not everyone survives.

Last week, we were left with the reveal that Flint and his rock control powers would be able to get the Agents of SHIELD back home. This week, Flint is able to build the monolith for SHIELD and use the gate Fitz created to open a gate through time and space. But there’s a cost.

Remember: last week Sinara, the ball wielding Kree fatale, fell in battle against Daisy. With Sinara dead, Kasius has nothing left to lose and sends the remains of his forces against SHIELD. Kasius has arguably turned into the SHIELD’s greatest adversary. It’s hard to beat Grant Ward, but Kasius’s motivations and his sheer obsession and ego makes him a foe that is so easy to hate.

This week, Kasius takes some kind of Kree PCP that gives him enhanced strength and endurance. The wilding Kasius throws down with SHIELD and comes very close to killing Mack. Kasius gets the drop on Mack and his shotgun axe because the vile Kree kills Yo Yo right in front of Mack’s eyes.

Wait, what?

Let’s back up, because this is where things get F’d up, kids. While trying to rescue the human stragglers aboard Kasius’s station, Yo Yo stumbles on Kasius’s seer. Remember, last week Kasius revealed he had a seer that was telling him all of SHIELD’s moves. Smart money was that he had his own version of the Inhuman precog Robin, but that wasn’t the case.  

The seer is a future version of Yo Yo, murdered and revived by Kasius over and over. Yo Yo confronts herself and hears the horror story of her future existence. Kasius even went so far as to cut off future’s Yo Yo’s arms. It’s a real horror show and I can’t quite believe Agents Of SHIELD went there. It’s a brave, daring, and horrific move to commit such an anatomical atrocity to such a beloved character, but there it is. So it’s future Yo Yo that Mack sees killed, a sight that completely unmans him and allows Kasius to get the upper hand.

It seems like Mack is ready to fall to the Kree PCP enhanced Kasius when poetic justice hits and hits hard. Before the episode came on, I told my wife that Simmons needs to be the one to kill Kasius. After all, Kasius enslaved Simmons and forced her to be his personal bond servant. Well, I am almost correct because right before Kasius can deliver that killing blow, Simmons inserts one of those control devices into Kasius’s ear.

This allows Mack to shotgun-axe the shit out of Kasius, and SHIELD stands victorious. Thank Kirby it is Simmons that takes down Kasius because some violations just cannot be forgiven. Fitz gets his own bad ass moment this week when he uses a wire booby-trap to decapitate a Kree death squad, but it is Simmons who gets the fist-pump moment of the week.

But it is not all victory this week as SHIELD has to make a great sacrifice to get home. In order to power the gate home, Enoch, the 32,000 year old Recorder android, must use his battery to give Fitz’s device enough juice to stay open. Deke has to flip the switch which causes a tremendous explosion, seemingly killing both Deke and Enoch. I’m sure we will get into Deke’s parentage when the series resumes in March, but the sacrifice of both Deke and Enoch hit hard. I mean, 32,000 years snuffed out in an act of heroism. And Deke! The once self-centred Deke gives his own life to do the right thing. Some emotional stuff there.

But perhaps the greatest sacrifice is the trust between Daisy and Coulson. Daisy does not want to return home because, after all, it seems like she’s the one who will cause the end of the world. Quake can’t destroy the world if she isn’t there when the world is supposed to end, so Daisy insists on staying in the future. Coulson won’t hear of it and paralyses Daisy, forcing her home. Can that relationship be fixed, particularly if all hell breaks loose because of Daisy? There might not be a chance to fix things because Coulson is dying of some kind of disease! Is that enough drama for you?

Things are set up nicely when Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD returns in March. Deke and Enoch are dead as are Sinara and Kasius. Flint and Tess stay in the past to help restore humanity, but our agents are on the way home.  I enjoyed the voyage in time and space, but I’m dying to see what’s going on in the MCU. There’s a tonne of questions to be answered, so let’s meet back here in about a month to unpack it all. I’m looking forward to it, because this week’s episode of Agents Of SHIELD kicked copious amounts of ass.

I mean an armless Yo Yo! Damn!

Read Alec’s review of the previous episode, Best Laid Plans, here.