Together or Not at All

The latest episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pulled a bit of a bait and switch. After the previous installment killed off most of the recurring players in the story arc and concluded with an escape attempt by Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy, it seemed as though our time on the station was imminently coming to a close.

Suddenly, things seem less certain. Mack had a perfect storm of do-gooding -- his need to help others to preserve his morality intersected with the need to protect young Flint as (perhaps deep down) a sort of proxy for his own twice-lost daughter. He decided to stay behind as the group fled to the planet surface, and so Yo-Yo decided to stay with him. So our days of cat-and-mouse on the station are not quite over.

Still, most of the group is moving on to the planet surface, where they'll presumably meet up with May in short order. The few scenes we got tracking May gave us the first taste of what we may be in for in the weeks ahead, as her life was saved by the handful of survivors still making it down there. Their leader appears to be the all-grown-up version of the little girl who glimpsed the future in Fitz's flashback episode, a fun and unexpected linkage in the story. Whether her modern coherence comes because she has lost her future visions or has simply learned to manage them may be an interesting plot point ahead.

But the episode arguably focused most of all on the villains, Kasius and Sinara. We'd already heard snippets of Kasius' back story before this, but this episode served up a heaping helping of "what drives this guy." His persecution complex finally wound up so tight that he broke, killing his own brother. Meanwhile, if you thought that last week's decision to force Sinara into the gladiatorial ring meant the end of the relationship between Sinara and Kasius, then you don't know them very well. (And hey, neither did I.) We learned exactly what binds them together, and saw that the bond was too strong to be broken -- strained, briefly, but not broken. Sinara was a cool badass in her non-speaking phase, but I'm glad they've now moved on to giving her dialogue so that she can advance from being a one-dimensional villain to the more well-rounded character the story needs now.

Perhaps this story arc is now moving (or at least drifting) in the direction of some answers? What is it our heroes are supposed to do here that made sending them into the future a necessity? The stealth and capers have been fun, but I'm ready for a little more meat on the bone next week. I give this episode a B.