The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D

The latest Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. marked the time-traveling season's first trip into the 80s. Mack and Deke are stranded in 1982 when the Zephyr departs without them. Deke is determined to hunker down and build support for the future return of the team, but Mack is reeling from the loss of his parents. Meanwhile, the Chronicoms are not so vanquished after all, as Sybil plots their rebirth.

I think this episode is probably Exhibit A in proving what a powerful drug nostalgia can be, because on paper, it's riddled with flaws that should overwhelm my reaction. We're at the halfway point of the show's final season, and here's an episode that sidelines most of the cast to introduce a whole bunch of new characters and try to make you care about their fates. We have only a few hours left with characters we've followed for seven seasons, and one of those precious hours was stolen for this.

The mechanisms of the plot were unexplained, and may indeed be unexplainable. Why did the Zephyr jump away after only minutes, stranding Mack and Deke? The conceit has been "we go where the Chronicoms go," but then what was their plan, and how did they still have the means to carry it out? Even some of the details, though minor in the grand scheme of things, made no sense. How strange and particular is Mack's version of "letting yourself go": somehow growing a (not entirely convincing) bushy beard, while still regularly shaving his head and clearly working out more in a day than I will in my entire life?

Ah... but then the nostalgia kicks in. And what an absolute masterpiece this episode was on that front. There were 80s (and late 70s) shout-outs woven explicitly into the story, from Coulson as Max Headroom to Chronicoms as Cylons. There were quick little accents thrown in just to see how much you'd notice: references to Wargames, Weird Science, Short Circuit, The A-Team and more.

Even the camera work took on an explicitly 80s tone, with awkward zooms and tweaked saturation designed to mimic slasher films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Chopping Mall. And that's when they weren't busy specifically recreating shots from Rambo, Aliens, Predator, and others. I'd say this was like a test challenging you to spot every reference you could, but no test is this much fun.

And it was actually a pretty good episode for the two featured characters. Notably, neither Mack nor Deke were around in season one of the show, but they're very much a part of the ensemble now. We got very on-brand behavior of Mack internalizing his pain, and Deke hustling any way he could to keep surviving. Plus, actor Jeff Ward really went for it with his wild performance of "Don't You (Forget About Me)" (and note the lyric change that shows he's still got a thing for Daisy). I guess one way to make me miss Fitz less is to remove most of the characters from an episode.

I think the episode probably works out to something around a B+? (Though as a nostalgia-seeking missile, it's a totally tubular grade A.) With just six episodes left, I'd imagine there isn't any more time for a fun romp like this, so I think I'm glad we got it while we could.