Nathaniel is taking his stolen ship into Earth orbit, and tries to pry Fitz's location from Simmons' mind. Daisy, Mack, and Sousa give desperate chase. Meanwhile, Coulson, May, and Yo-Yo remain at the Lighthouse, trying to get through to Kora while preventing a cyber-attack by Sybil.
The series may have made us wait 10 episodes, but I won't wait any longer here: we finally got Fitz back! In flashbacks only, for now, but we got him back! And in a tightly packed couple of scenes that served up ominous dialogue to speculate about. Blood work? While it sure seemed like the show wanted you to think that some sort of terminal disease is being discussed here, I'm placing a different bet. They hit pretty hard the idea that in building a time machine, you could go slow and take all the time you wanted. I think Fitz and Simmons had a baby, and that forgetting about that child was the extra trauma that drove Simmons to tears when her memory block was briefly removed.
Speaking of memory blocks, part of the cliffhanger ending we got was that Simmons' block has expanded massively, leaving her no recollection of Fitz at all. Were this another point in the series, this is a plot thread I could see the them playing out for many episodes. But we're just two from the end of everything now, so this is likely just a short bump in the road that Deke will be there to help take care of. (Even if his attempt this episode to pull off a Die Hard -- which he specifically mentioned! -- didn't go as planned.)
Elsewhere, the episode pulled off a tricky bit of juxtaposition. The whole season has been a nostalgic trip through history, name-checking highlights from the series' past and the MCU in general. But suddenly, we get an episode specifically talking about how all that is gone, and could be replaced with something better. Sure, Kora (whose "villain or not?" status wasn't especially compelling to me) didn't sell that concept super well, what with all the murder talk. Still, tearing down the pillars of show even while trying to celebrate the nostalgia is a delicate balance that I think has mostly worked.
Things among the villains remained less than compelling, with the newly reintroduced Garrett barely present in the episode, and Nathaniel still feeling all that menacing. But that's probably not where I'd want the focus to be this late in the game anyway. That focus was put on the main characters, in effective little mini-arcs: May and Coulson having to embrace their new strengths to help the team, Mack having a fatherly talk with Sousa (that had a lot of fun mocking the nickname "Quake"), and Daisy having to give serious thought to what might come after all these thrilling adventures.
I give "Brand New Day" a B. Next, the two-hour finale to end this ride.
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