Review: AGENTS OF SHIELD 5×03: "A Life Spent"

OH BOY, OBERTO, we ain’t just living in the future: we’re living in a freakin’ dystopia.

This is the gol’ dang PURGE episode of SHIELD. And the show knows it too. Lucky for us, this episode seeks to draw us into the inner workings of this future world and help us understand it better.

[Warning: The Following Contains SPOILERS for Agents of SHIELD 5×03.]

Following three separate plot threads, we kick off with Coulson, May, Mack, and Yo-Yo, now indentured to a the foreman of the human population, trying their best to blend in and find answers. Coulson’s investigation into Virgil’s things turned up a notebook of coordinates out in space. With the team, he hatches a plan to take out a ship and see what Virgil was looking for.

In the B plot, Simmons is now an indentured servant of the Kree leader, Kasius. He even put this silver slug thing in her ear so she couldn’t hear anything! Kasius has an Inhuman population onboard the station, and he decides to offer an Inhuman girl as a gift to the Inhuman leader, Lady Basha (it is assumed that the descendants of Attilan exist in this timeline). Unfortunately the girl cannot control her powers, so Kasius enlists Simmons to help her control her abilities.

Finally, in the C plot, Daisy and Yo-Yo hatch a plan to steal a Kree tablet so Daisy can rescue Simmons. The plan works, Daisy storms the Kree levels, and BOOM! She gets captured. Deke ratted her out for money.

Overall, this was a good, if complicated episode. We still know so little about this future world, so trying to dissect it and understand it is part of this season’s intrigue. Simmons’ plot is definitely the most interesting at this point, while Daisy’s is the least intriguing. Her capture is gonna have plenty of ramifications, though, so I’m interested to see how the show caries her plot forward.

Some observations:
– I think there’s a lot more to Deke than meets the eye. We’re only seeing one side of this guy right now, but he seems broken by this great grand dystopia.
– Coulson is the weakest link of the season so far. He’s very out of his element when he can’t lead or go by the book.
– Where is Fitz??? Could it be he’s made it to this dystopian future too?

★★★★

4/5