Time is running out as Izel moves closer to her goal and the team try to determine exactly what power lies within Sarge and whether it can be put to use.

Something which struck me as I watched this episode was the irony that Agents of SHIELD started with the ‘trick’ resurrection of an MCU character, yet has dealt far more often and more fundamentally with the themes of death, grief and loss than the majority of MCU movies and shows for most of its run time. Here, once again, threaded through the alien creatures, possessions and fantastical shenanigans, the real meat of proceedings is loss, grief, and how dealing with those things can affect a person.

In May and Daisy’s cases, grief is what is stopping either of them from thinking clearly about the conundrum that is Sarge. May sees the face of the man she loved and lost. Daisy sees the face of the father figure who was the first and only constant in her life. This compromises both of them in certain ways, but also helps them to think more clearly in others, once they confront the knowledge of that weakness. It’s an interesting balance, and one that the show gets (mostly) right – it’s undeniably hard to watch Melinda ‘The Cavalry’ May be so utterly undone by her feelings for a man, but then if a character is just one thing all the time they stop being a character and become a caricature instead.

In the case of Mack and YoYo, fear of repeating the losses both of them have had to deal with in their respective lives leads to them sticking closely together. What seemed like an impulsive mistake in Mack insisting on accompanying YoYo and Izel turns out to have been a sound tactical decision, especially as it means Izel can only be possessing one of them at any given time, giving the other a chance to observe. It’s nice to see the teamwork that goes on between the two, and I only hope that they finally now get to be an actual couple without any more drama attached.

And then there’s Fitzsimmons (and Deke), desperately searching for some way to fight against the threat Izel represents. Fitz is driven by the personal knowledge that he’s literally living a second chance and doesn’t want to lose it, Simmons by the sense that she has no intention of losing her husband again and Deke by the simultaneous desire to prove himself to his grandparents and not to lose either of them. Of course in the wider context there’s the matter of saving the world (if not the universe) from the Shrike, but beneath it all, the greater motivator is the personal investments of respective characters.

It’s the sort of stuff a show can afford to shorthand when it’s in its sixth season – we have watched these characters grow, experience triumph and tragedy together, and we have experienced it with them. It means that now, even as the plot gets to the sort of high-concept science-fiction with a lot of generous hand-waving that it has, there’s still that raw edge of humanity to it all which keeps us interested.

Special mention to Clark Gregg too – whereas he’s clearly had fun playing the nastier, harder edges of Sarge, here he does some of his best work as that individual begins to question just exactly who and what they are.

Verdict: This season has been a little bit of a slow burner but I suspect it’s one that will hold up incredibly strongly in hindsight. I can’t wait to see how this one turns out. 9/10

Greg D. Smith