All the Comforts of Home

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returned from its Olympic-sized hiatus with our heroes returning from the future to their own time. The episode threw them from the frying pan straight into the fire, going after a dangerous signal they believed would draw an alien attack to Earth. Though Daisy stays behind to avoid tempting fate (specifically, hers to destroy the world), she soon finds herself at work on a new problem: Deke has also traveled back from the future, and has gotten himself into trouble in this unfamiliar setting.

It was great to see the show outdoors again, and even greater that the episode took time to acknowledge that for the characters. For the regulars, it was the first time in a while; for Deke, it was his first time ever, sending him into a funny but fundamentally dramatic hippie reverie. Comedy was actually great across the episode, with Patrick Warburton's cameo being a highlight as the circa 1970s S.H.I.E.L.D. director. (I can think of no one better able to deliver the "1980s got here early" line with such dry wit.) The scene in the van where the characters all recapped the terrible things that have happened to them over the years, with May culminating in "dancing," was a true laugh out loud moment.

The set up of the season's new villain in Hale's daughter (should I be putting that in quotes?) sort of worked and sort of didn't. The twist was well executed, setting her up in the teaser as a disaffected teenager and revealing at the end that she's some sort of badass government superweapon. The middle, where we didn't know her identity and she wreaked havoc on the team, that's where I have some reservations. She waltzed into the scene as an anonymous masked figure, maybe even another robot for all we knew, with very little sense that she was anything to be taken that seriously. The next moment, she's cut off both of Yo-Yo's arms.

There's something to be said for surprise here, and since I think that's what the writers were going for, I suppose a polite nod is in order. They'd shown us "future Yo-Yo" in this maimed state, and I think effectively led us to imagine that it had maybe come as the result of torture by Kasius. Certainly, I'd never imagined that it would come to pass in the very next episode. Still, it unfolded in an especially brutal way (and also a somewhat unclear one; is it just bad luck that lightning fast Yo-Yo was in the wrong place at the wrong moment?), and I think I would have liked to have felt an underlying sense of dread going into the scene. By contrast, Sinara had been set up as a dangerous adversary quite well in the first arc of the season. (Too well, maybe, considering how easily it seemed Daisy offed her.) If this new character has strutted in with Sinara's pedigree, I would certainly have felt more tension -- and still, I think, have been surprised when something terrible happened to Yo-Yo.

The betrayal by Piper wasn't entirely successful for me either, and for much the same reason -- insufficient establishment of the character. It's been a long time now since we've seen Piper, and she really wasn't much of a character when we did. The heroes recognized her immediately, but I admit to spending a few moments going "where do they know her from?" The story played alright whether you ever really remembered that or not, I think, but I didn't feel the weight of "their friend stabbed them in the back!" as strongly as I think the writers imagined.

Still, the episode entertained overall. If we expected a bit of a breather after completing the future arc, wrong! The pace is still ratcheted high, and big things are happening. I give the episode a B. As always, I'm left looking forward to next week.