There were some sudden big moves in the narrative that felt a little too "out of nowhere" to me to really work effectively -- the sudden introduction of a suicidal Kree PCP being the most conspicuous example. Kasius has always been a scheming villain, not a physical villain, but it seems the pressure to have a big sendoff for him led to this bizarre turn that had him behaving completely unlike himself to fight... Mack? There was another unearned moment, as no real rivalry between the two characters had ever previously been established (unlike, by contrast, Sinara and Daisy). At least Simmons was there to get in a vengeful lick by slipping the "silencer" bot into Kasius' ear at the pivotal moment. (And at least in the first part of the episode, we got a Kasius we were more used to seeing, carrying on a one-sided conversation with Sinara just as he always did, death being no real obstacle to that.)
Future Yo-Yo was another untelegraphed plot development; out of the blue, Kasius reveals he also has a "seer" able to give him intel on our heroes, which for vague and unexplained (and unexplainable) reasons he wasn't using before this moment. But this development at least made for a much more impactful scene than the Kasius/Mack throwdown. It was chillinging to watch Future Yo-Yo struggle against her own sense of futility to give her past self knowledge of what's to come (and it was sold well by Natalia Cordova-Buckley). The late reveal that the Future Yo-Yo's arms had been amputated was one more creepy detail. And of course, the scene gave us new information to tease the back half of the season, revealing Coulson's disease, and Yo-Yo's belief that he has to die to save the future.
It wasn't just the Yo-Yo scene speaking to the cyclical, "you can't change the future" message in the narrative. The fact that Flint (nor anyone else from the future) traveled back to the present with our heroes speaks to that too. Entertaining though this whole future arc has been for the audience, what was the point (within the narrative) of bringing the S.H.I.E.L.D. team to the future if they weren't going to leave with anything more than they came with? If they weren't going to return with some particular tool that would suggest they could change their fate? I guess even though the audience of course knows the world won't be destroyed, the writing can't tip its hand on how that will be avoided too soon here -- we still have half a season to go.
Other fun accents in the episode included Coulson comforting Tess about the emotional strain of resurrection, Simmons being taken aback by Fitz's gruesome improvised beheadings of three Kree, Daisy doing the right thing (if she really believes she destroys the world) by at least trying to stay behind, and the little coda with Flint and Tess that suggested Flint's Inhuman power might allow him to literally rebuild the Earth.
A pretty fun episode, overall -- though it would have been better still if they'd stayed true to Kasius' character all the way through to the end of his arc. I give "Past Life" a B.
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