Stuck in 1930s New York, there’s no time for catching up for the various members of the SHIELD team as they must race to find out exactly what the Chronicoms are planning in their quest to erase SHIELD from existence forever.

I wasn’t a huge fan of how the last season ended. For a show that was traditionally all about lasting consequences and the impact of character’s actions and experiences, it felt a little out of character for YoYo and May to get free passes from Deadsville and more than a little bit of a cheat for a Coulson LMD to turn up right at the end when we’d already had the real Coulson die and then had to contend with a season’s worth of wrangling over his identical copy, Sarge. Then we end with a trip back to the past and…eh.

Still, this new season starts off pretty strongly, and I do like what they’ve done with certain characters. Simmons in particular is a lot harder here – clearly her various experiences, including the ones that happened offscreen as she and Fitz formulated their current plan, have had their effect. This isn’t the slightly nervous, softer Simmons we are used to. This woman has seen stuff.

Clark Gregg gets some interesting stuff to chew on as Coulson 2.0 (or whatever we are supposed to be calling him now) as well. After the obligatory ‘Oh no I was dead and then here come all the memories that got downloaded into this copy of my brain all at once’ scene, he gets to have some genuine fun with it as the character explores his new physical limits and capabilities. It’s also nice to see him automatically defer to Mack. Henry Simmons has been one of the strongest cast members for a while now and it’s nice to see him retain the role of SHIELD Director with no quibbles at all.

Other than that, everyone else is much the same as normal. Daisy hasn’t changed much at all, and gets to have some touching moments with Coulson. Deke is very much still Deke, with that odd mix of hopeless and heroic that Jeff Ward pulls off so well and YoYo gets to brood about something although it seems like brighter times might be ahead for her soon.

Narratively the plot for the episode does a nice job of letting the viewer think they have stuff worked out and then going a little bit deeper and more complex than might have been imagined. Along the way, they have some fun with the fact that the gang are in 1930s New York, with Coulson the history nerd having the time of his life and Daisy shutting down everyday oldie times sexism with her signature style. Mack also gets to experience the sharp end of being a person of colour in the period, which is less fun but also I guess props for the show’s writers for including that in there, and there’s a cameo whose voice will be instantly recognisable and was very welcome to this viewer at least.

All told, it’s a nice fun episode, and it ends with an interesting take, setting up perhaps SHIELD’s most conflicting mission to date. It does feel like this will be the right time to draw things to a final end though – in all honesty, if they pull this mission off, it’s genuinely difficult to see where they’d go next.

Verdict: Bright, breezy and fun. It’s nice to have the gang back, and I only hope that the show proves equal to the narrative task it’s set itself here. 8/10

Greg D. Smith