Sarge proves to be a more talkative captor than May might have expected, causing her some confusion. Daisy, Simmons, Piper and Davis find that locating Fitz isn’t going to be their biggest issue. Benson continues his research as YoYo mourns her latest loss.

Things are a little more varied this week as Agents of SHIELD decides to split its time evenly between events on Earth and in outer space. It also starts to finally explain some stuff – in fact, part of the issue is that any momentum things did have sort of slows to a crawl as suddenly the writers seem to realise some explanations might be due and therefore exposition rears its head everywhere.

For May, that means a long chat with Sarge which reveals a fair bit more about what he’s up to and why. What it leaves intentionally mysterious, between this conversation and May’s repeated flashbacks to her last days with Coulson, is exactly who the Sarge is. He feels pretty certain he knows, but the script can barely contain itself from nudging and winking the audience to suggest he might be wrong. Ming Na Wen and Clark Gregg have always been two of the show’s strongest and most talented performers, and so I can’t deny that it’s fun to see them get this much screentime together again at last – I just wish it hadn’t taken this long.

Meanwhile in space, our heroes find that they don’t need to go very far in order to find Fitz. I know I said in season 5 that I hoped we would see more of Enoch in the future, but like the Minions, I’m starting to suspect he worked better in small doses. Piper and Davis, meanwhile, continue to be the snarky buddy cop duo nobody asked for. We had that dynamic with Bobby and Lance, and it worked better because there was chemistry and a backstory there. Here, it’s just two co-workers and their ridiculous ‘No I’m the toughest’ banter, and it’s getting tiring. As for Daisy and Simmons, well, they could get the gold medal in the ‘standing there looking alternately sad and angry as plot happens around them’ championships, I guess.

Still, finding Fitz isn’t really the challenge, and after another bit of exposition about who took him and why, there’s some tedious wrangling, more Enoch and then stuff happens. It’s… not the show at its strongest, and you can virtually see the plot threads being pulled to put various people where the narrative needs them.

And as for the rest of SHIELD. Well, YoYo is sad because apparently she didn’t see the flashing neon ‘I will die soon for plot reasons’ sign above Keller’s head, and Mack wants to make sure she’s OK because that’s who he is. Honestly, please just either give these two a break and let them be together or have them break up properly. Benson does some more mugging to camera about how out of his depth he is, then figures something out anyway, which seems to be the whole function of the character, and we close out with at least a bit of good news for the agency before the end credits sting does… a thing which honestly doesn’t add much to proceedings or make much sense.

Verdict: Frustrating. I’ve followed these characters for 5 seasons and I know that the actors are all better than the material they’re getting here. At least we are starting to see how stuff fits together a bit more, but this feels a whole lot less elegant than I’m used to from the show. 6/10

Greg D. Smith