AoS 7x09 - June 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, let us get to AoS and talk about it, now that I am back home and all. Where are we with them?

On one hand, this week’s episode was one of the best, as the Team Time Bus had to deal with a brand new situation that’d never come up on AoS beforehand: they were caught in a time storm/time vortex/time loop and had to work as a team even as time and space were running out. Since there is still four episodes left until the series’ finale, they made it, of course, with Enoch self-sacrificing himself to save the rest of the team. Because obviously his character is not coming back to MCU, his death actually meant something, unlike the demise of Phil Coulson LMD#2, who was back and functioning by this episode. Yay! MCU’s AoS actually managed to have a meaningful death of a positive character for a change. In addition, now that a major recurring character is out of the picture for good, maybe we will get Fitz back, ‘cause in real life? The AoS’ budget could not have both Fitz and Enoch on set full time. Ouch!

On the other side, there are some repetition still: the rebooted Nathaniel Malick and Kora, cough, are so the rebooted Ward and Kara Palamas – sort of. Sadly, it seems that the AoS’ corner of MCU tends to burn bridges with the ex-members of its’ cast, so no Ward or Palamas or Raina; instead, we got Gordon and Jiaying, and I’ve no idea what it cost MCU/AoS to have those two actors return to the plot. Daisy is supposed to be reunited with her mother – that is Jiaying – in the next week’s episode, and since back in the S2 finale Jiaying proved to be very much a villain, it’ll be interesting to see how team AoS have handled this in their last reboot… because it is one. (Cough, Li, cough). (Idea reboots alongside idea recycling and repetition were/are major problems of AoS).

Finally, there is Daisy and Daniel Sousa – apparently, they are an official couple on the show. Big whoop. Timing is everything – when Daisy and Lincoln kissed in the S3 mid-season finale, that meant something because the show was continuing, and no one knew that Lincoln would be killed-off at the end of S3, and mentioned only briefly when Daisy met Robbie Reyes, (MCU’s Ghost Rider), as part of the Quake/Ghost Rider story arc.

…Sadly, MCU’s plans for the Ghost Rider fell through, his show got cancelled, Mr. Luna’s career is currently on hiatus post his 2019 appearance in the latest ‘Terminator’ film, and also in ‘Hala’, and so, instead, we had the AoS’ S6, which had very strong elements of the ‘Ghost Rider’ franchise – and at the AoS episode 6x13 the show got rebooted once again, this time with the Chronocons. …Only, there were no Chronocons in the latest two AoS episode, and instead all of the focus was on Nathaniel and Kora as the antagonists, with nary a word about Hive too. Maybe the Chronocons are gone? In which case, how will team AoS write themselves out of this corner, or will they go down the GoT’s road – blatant plotholes, blatantly unrepentant? We will just have to wait and see.

…And as for Daniel and Daisy… well, they do leave Deke hanging in the air: yes, he has restarted S.H.I.E.L.D. – sort of – in the 1980s, but now what? Ever since his appearance in AoS’ S5, Deke and Daisy had been matched up together, however, clumsily, but now Daisy is with Sousa instead. Not that it matters, but Deke is now a loose end, plot-wise, and he did not stay dead either. What is next?

Hard to say, actually. This week’s AoS episode had truly been a storm, and an enjoyable one, but it is still an AoS episode, and therefore flawed, and next week the team Time Bus is returning to the 1980s, meaning that they will be back to their ‘regularly scheduled’ plot lines, ha-ha. We will just have to wait and see as to what will happen next.

…Well, this is it for now. See you all soon.