The SHIELD team are reunited with a face from the past after they become the next target on the Sarge and his team’s list.

Last week was all in space, this week is all on Earth as SHIELD continues its sixth season with no intention to explain much of anything. I’d been wondering where a certain significant character had got to this season, and this episode lets us know. They’ve been capitalising on their knowledge of various esoteric things to make a lot of money, in a thinly-veiled bit of side-eye against tech startup culture that comes with as many clichés as you could possibly imagine on the subject and then throws in a few more for good measure.

Turns out though, that this individual is on the hit list for Sarge and his crew, which gives us a vague hint towards exactly what the crew are here to do, though still doesn’t go as far as confirming much to us.

Meanwhile, on the more domestic side of things, the most dynamically inert love triangle of all time continues to basically do nothing. People want to tell people. Those people already know but also don’t want to know. Honestly, I was hoping that they would have got all this out of their system after so long messing about, but it seems that the SHIELD writers’ room just isn’t happy unless it’s writing about relationships failing.

There’s also a bit more revelation with regard to one of the crew’s previous victims when their body is wheeled into headquarters looking very odd and full of surprises. I get that the show is trying to keep us off kilter with what exactly it is that the crew is here to do, but with each passing episode it’s getting more obvious that they’re storing up some big twist and honestly, that’s out of character for the show. SHIELD has traditionally thrived on giving big twists with no prior warning, but here it’s difficult to shake the feeling of a big neon sign above the Sarge and his comrades that says ‘There is more to these guys than you think.’ Nothing wrong with that, per se, but it’s starting to feel like the mystery is being artificially dragged out and the surprise, when it comes, might not be worth it.

But it is fun to see an old face try to integrate with some of the new ones, and the action is solid as ever. No space stuff at all this week, so I guess that’s where we are headed next time out.

Verdict: Fun in places, by-the-numbers in others. It’s starting to feel like SHIELD might be running out of steam. 6/10

Greg D. Smith