Review: AGENTS OF SHIELD Season Opener: "Orientation"

Hey-o, Agents of SHIELD is BACK baby! Not gonna lie, though: Inhumans broke me. I wasn’t quite ready to come back to Marvel television, despite LOVING Season 4 of SHIELD. But it’s time to stop putting off the awesome.

So how was the two-parter? Was it a ripe palate cleanser for all that Inhumans gobbly-gook? Let’s find out…

[Warning: The Following Contains SPOILERS for the Agents of SHIELD Season Opener.]

When last we left our intrepid heroes, they were enjoying a well earned cup of coffee after escaping Aida’s clutches in The Framework. Only, things are never so simple, and the finale ended with Coulton & co. being abducted into the far reaches of outer space!

Season 5 immediately picks up on this moment, and we see a little back story with some alien guy posing as a human, a Talking Heads track, a swat team, Fitz getting left behind, and OH HOLY HECK ANOTHER KREE MONOLITH!!! Life is cruel.

Coulson & co. soon find themselves aboard a space ship. There we meet Virgil, who introduces us to a few things and then OH CRAP, now he’s been killed by an alien called a Roach! Survival horror is a new angle for this show, but darn if it doesn’t work.

Flash forward. The Agents get captured by the Kree… this is a Kree space station! They finally get rescued by Deke, a Star Lord-y kinda guy. Coulson takes him in and interrogates him for answers about how they got here. May and Simmons take a space ship out to try and send a message to Earth.

Look, long story short: May and Simmons discover that we’re *at* Earth. Or, where Earth used to be.

We’re in the future.

Later, Deke helps the Agents get acclimated into the human population by introducing them to Tess, one of Virgil’s friends. And then things get CRAZY. Simmons gets captured by the Kree leader, Coulson looks for clues in Virgil’s belongings, and Daisy re-discovers THE FRAMEWORK, where Deke accuses *her* of blowing up the planet in the distant past. Ahhhh!

So how was it? Pretty freakin’ good. All the characters have their moments… Coulson and Mack get some great one liners, and his and Yo-Yo’s relationship has some nice beats. May and Simmons have their skills tested, and Daisy, per usual, gets to be awesome.

Some observations:
– The postcard from Fitz… what’s up with THAT???
– Anyone else getting a vibe that the Roaches are more than they appear to be?
– A sign that this season is running on a lower budget: all of the sets are clear redresses of the SHIELD base. It’s cool to see this, though. It reminds me of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where they just kept redressing and redressing. Keeps the writers on their toes, if you ask me.
– So help me, if it turns out that Black Bolt blew up the planet… SO HELP ME! But at least it would make more sense than Daisy blowing up the planet.

All in all, this was a good season opener. Here’s hoping the rest delivers.

★★★★

4/5