Transported to 1955, the team determines that the Chronicoms will infiltrate the S.H.I.E.L.D. base at Area 51. While the rest of the team tries to extract intel from a bigoted DoD agent, Coulson and Simmons head in undercover -- but their cover collapses when Agent Daniel Sousa arrives at the base.
I do like that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. threw a bone here to fans of the canceled-too-soon series Agent Carter. That said, as much as I liked actor Enver Gjokaj on Dollhouse, he rarely got much to do on Agent Carter. That was (rightly) Hayley Atwell's show, with the most memorable other character being Jarvis. Put another way: I've never really spent any time since the end of that series wondering whatever became of Daniel Sousa.
But if we're not going to get Agent Carter herself, having Simmons pose as her was a pretty fun way of invoking her presence. The infiltration with Coulson also led to the funniest material on the show in at least a few seasons -- the interrogations to find the Chronicoms. Each gag was funnier than the last; just when I thought they'd topped out at Coulson's repetition of the word "moist," he pulls out the Voight-Kampff test from Blade Runner (and terrorizes an old lady in the process). Chef's kiss.
The time-hopping does seem like a means for the show to refresh itself every episode or two here in this final season. (And a lot of fun for the various production departments; costuming in particular seems to be having a field day, with great new looks for each character in this new time frame.) But I am hoping that they pick up the pace a little on some of the running plot threads. May and Yo-Yo not wanting to talk about their respective issues made for a fun jokey exchange between them, but the stakes are pretty high for everyone to keep ignoring what's going on with them.
And I'm more than ready to have Fitz back! Given that there's always drama between him and Simmons, the writers are probably deferring a more serious story line about what happened between them during the "missing time" (a subject Simmons is clearly avoiding) until the levity of the season is firmly established. But this is the final season of the show! Having one of the main characters wholly absent from so much of it just doesn't feel great.
Besides, it's not like the show is totally avoiding the more serious stuff anyway. Again this week, they strove to thread the needle between an overall light tone and acknowledgement of the more open racism of the time periods they're visiting. Arguably, they weren't as successful in that balance this week (Deke's "stupid white privilege" line might have pushed a bit too hard), but it was nice to highlight the diversity in this show's cast by having so many of them interact with the prisoner.
I'd give the brilliantly titled "Alien Commies from the Future!" a B. Not a stunner, but another fun entry in the series' final lap.
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