With one member of the team stranded in 1931, the gang roll up in the 1950s near a little place called Groom Lake, Nevada, where the newly-founded SHIELD is conducting an experiment that the Chronicoms could use to change history forever.

It’s a bit of a relief to see the SHIELD agents leave 1930s New York, and this episode actually manages to have a bit of fun with itself as they roll up in the mid-50s to try to stop the next idea the Chronicoms have to wipe them out forever. This time it’s not nearly so clever as assassinating the future father of a founding member of Hydra, but instead the much more direct route of blowing something up. In this case, a something that’s capable of taking one of SHIELD’s biggest facilities with it – a little, almost unheard-of military installation known as Area 51.

Taking a surreptitious route, the agents decide to kidnap a top DOD agent headed to the base, have Coulson assume his identity to get into the base and find out who in there might be the Chronicom agent(s), and interrogate the real guy for any information he might have. But Coulson can’t go on his own, because he’ll need to take Simmons with him to check out the tech. Who could she possibly impersonate to get onto a SHIELD base in the fifties? Which famous, British-accented SHIELD founder could she possibly impersonate? Yeah, that one.

And that’s where the fun begins. Simmons gets to lap up the attention/adulation of her chosen role until a certain Agent Sousa arrives and well, he’s the last person in the world who’s going to fall for that kind of caper. Meanwhile back on Zephyr One, turns out that the guy the team thought was a low-level pencil-pusher is actually an ex-military, trained interrogator. From the Fifties. With all the attendant prejudices of the time period which makes Mack, YoYo and May taking turns to interrogate him most amusing.

Speaking of YoYo, her super speed is still not working, and May herself is still oddly cold and emotionless – and not in the normal Melinda May way. When she and YoYo end up in a tight spot together, neither of them is able to perform as they or any of their comrades might expect, and being who they are, neither of them is especially keen to discuss it either.

It still feels very much like the writers are straining to weave together a coherent send off season for our heroes, but at least they get to have some actual fun with it this time, between the hi-jinks capers of going in disguise and dealing with less than co-operative prisoners. That fun may be the one saving grace it has though.

Verdict: Fun, but ultimately starting to feel like it’s narratively played out. 7/10

Greg D. Smith