I can see why S.H.I.E.L.D. cannot find more than four people willing to explore space. It is not as if there is a government agency devoted to exploring space. Also, even if there were such an agency, I would imagine that hardly anyone would want to join.[/sarcasm]
If I ever go missing, I would have no problem at all if some of you decided to get together and search for me. If you engage in robbery and torture to find me, I will have a very big problem. I would also have a problem if one of you were to effectively kidnap the others following some wacky lead. I do not have a girlfriend or a woman who married an exact duplicate of me but is not me. If I did and she engaged in such activities, I would seriously reconsider the relationship.
To put things simply:
- Heroes never use torture.
- Antiheroes use torture only when required to serve to common good.
- Villains use torture to serve their personal interests.
Admittedly, this is an oversimplification. There are villains who have their own moral code, and some of these codes would prohibit torture.
In other words, the
Zephyr team has crossed a line and became villains. Suppose that a Fredonian naval vessel barged into an American fuel depot (or a German fuel depot or a Dutch fuel depot or a fuel depot of any other nation that an Exile of S.H.I.E.L.D. belongs to) without permission. Furthermore, suppose that the crew of the vessel used threats to demand fuel (i.e., robbery) and tortured one of the officials at the depot. It would be quite reasonable to view this as an act of war by Fredonia. Retaliation against Fredonia would not be unexpected. Admittedly, earth has the Avengers, but do the Avengers really want to assemble over an earth vessel running around robbing and torturing? There is a decent chance that the
Zephyr team would be dismissed as pirates.
To be clear, I like moral ambiguity, but not at the expense of established characterization. If
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were like
Game of Thrones or even
The Sopranos, I would have less of a problem with these actions. Shows like these are clear that the characters are generally not good, moral people. The problem in
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is that the show has generally treated the team as being heroes. Having alleged heroes perform such actions normalizes such actions.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. still has a TV-14 rating, so impressionable teenagers are part of the audience, and it has returned to what used to be called the "family hour." Even in a best case scenario, actions like this suggest that there are at least certain people who are privileged and do not have to conform to the law or basic decency. It is too late to head into the direction of
Game of Thrones or
The Sopranos.
Given the villainy that the
Zephyr crew was engaging in, I would say that the Confederacy had every right to fire on the
Zephyr. However, instead of trying to destroy the
Zephyr, I would prefer it if the Confederacy tried to arrest the crew in order to give them a fair trial and a just sentence. I am against the death penalty, so I would not want to see executions. However, a stiff prison sentence would be fair.
Right now, it seems that Simmons is paralleling Fitz early in season 3. In both cases, the two characters were separated with one character at a location in deep space unknown to the other character. The other character obsessively attempted to find the other, despite constantly running into dead ends. This led to very reckless behavior. The search received varying amounts of indulgence from other characters, but the Director was reaching the point where he needed the remaining character to focus on his or her job instead. The first time around, the writers were looking out for Fitz. Not only did they protect him from his recklessness, but they actually made it so that his recklessness was necessary to save Simmons. If Fitz did not pound the rock and scream "DO SOMETHING!" he never would have found the sand showing that it was a portal. If he did not walk into the terrorist den to collect the manuscript, Professor Randolph would not have been able to connect the rock to the castle. If Fitz did not jump through the portal, he never would have reached Simmons.
So far, we do not know if the writers will look after Simmons the way that they looked after Fitz. I suppose that Fitz may have learned Aeonian script while he was frozen in the chamber and used the information on the nameplate to go to the location where the chamber was built even though his means for transportation was cut in half.
This is not a show that is particularly faithful to established characterization to begin with. This is especially true when it comes to Simmons, so suggesting what is or is not in character for her almost always requires ignoring some evidence. However, the second and third seasons started with Fitz and Simmons physically separated for an extended period of time. While there were other relevant circumstances (e.g., Fitz's brain damage), in both cases, Fitz fell apart psychologically and was no longer an effective agent. Meanwhile Simmons missed Fitz and thought about him from time to time, but she was perfectly capable of functioning, even in a strange environment like Hydra or Maveth.
By having Simmons act more like Fitz than like Simmons, the writers are erasing much of what little characterization those two have received. Fitz and Simmons may have a lot in common, but they are separate individuals. If the differences between them are reduced to Simmons being a woman from England and Fitz being a man from Scotland, they would become much less interesting characters. Let Fitz be the one who is obsessed and Simmons be the one who is level headed, even when separated from Fitz.
Artificial gravity on the
Zephyr required gravitonium. The gravitonium in Deke's belt was used to plug the temporal fissure. The gravitonium from the
Principia was used to seal the fissure. Talbot took all the gravitonium that was left in the Destroyer of Worlds machine as well as any that he could find elsewhere. Daisy sent all of this to space when she sent Talbot there. Just about the only place I can think of that held gravitonium not swiped by Talbot is Ruby Hale's corpse. Is she powering the artificial gravity?
Simmons may be no expert in D'Rillian anatomy, but she is an expert at being in a stronger gravity than the one she was used to.
In the fifth season, Taryan coveted Daisy. Why would the Confederacy try to destroy the
Zephyr with her on it? Assuming that the Confederacy knew that she was on the
Zephyr, did Taryan give up on his aspirations or does he no longer have as much influence as he used to? Perhaps, the missiles were intended only to disable the
Zephyr in order to facilitate the arrest of its crew.
I believe that the Confederacy was justified in firing at the
Zephyr, but I see no justification in May and Keller threatening Jaco in the park. I may not be a lawyer, but I do not think that it is a crime to walk out of a concrete wall. Walking out of a concrete wall is a bit unusual, so I can see why S.H.I.E.L.D. might want to speak with him. However, a demand to surrender at gunpoint was very much out of line.
Like others in this thread, I hope that Sarge, Jaco, Snowflake, and the unnamed visitor (called "Trok" in IMDb) turn out not to be villains. As I noted above, I like moral ambiguity as long as it makes sense given what we have seen. I still believe that Coulson will return at some point but, if he does not, I consider it not only possible but likely that Sarge will join the team on a permanent basis, if only to keep Clark Gregg on the show. Sarge may even move into a position that would justify Gregg continuing to get first billing among the actors.
S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be unafraid to put the eagle on its vehicles, so I guess that it is a legal organization again. Why? How many times does S.H.I.E.L.D. need to collapse on itself completely before someone realizes that the organization is dysfunctional. I get that someone needs to deal with threats that are too weird for other authorities but below the radar of the Avengers. However, the organization needs major reform (including a likely rebranding) and should be led by someone who was not chosen in a spontaneous election by a handful of fugitive vigilantes who were at the core of the dysfunction.
I generally do not ship characters, and Mack and Elena were no exception. I was not opposed to their relationship, but I was not emotionally invested in the relationship either. This is a good thing, or I would have been upset to learn that important events in the relationship took place off screen between the fifth and sixth seasons. We did not see the beginning of the Elena/Keller relationship. I am taking that as a sign that I should not get invested in this new relationship. Keller did not seem that invested either.
If they were looking for a person to head a S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, why not start with Weaver? I understand that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been a mess for a while, but all evidence suggests that Weaver did a good job at the Academy. Until the Real S.H.I.E.L.D. coup, Fitz and Simmons thought very highly of her, and Weaver was the first person that Simmons tried to contact during the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first season. I understand that Weaver was not happy about Coulson, which led to her participation in the Real S.H.I.E.L.D. coup. Whom did she collaborate with? Among others, Mack, who happens to be the current Director. If the actress were not available or if there were some other reason not to put Weaver in charge, there should have been a line of dialogue explaining why.
A rebuilt Academy would be a good place to dump Fitz and Simmons. The show has been consistently inconsistent about whether either of them had any business going into the field. However, despite the colossal screwups in the times in which they had no business going into the field, nobody seems willing to fire them.
It will be quite some time until the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy is refounded, so I suspect that Dr. Benson is on show for some other reason. Will Fitz and Simmons be gone for so long that the show needs an earthbound science character?
One question that this episode did not answer is why Deke is still on the show. In the first half of the fifth season, he was on the show as the person who could work the system in the new setting and provide exposition to the others. Once the team returned to the present, he had little to do other than be the FitzSimmons grandson. When he was announced as a regular for season six, I thought that it would be as a love interest for Daisy. If she is going to be in space for a while (which is not yet clear), why is Deke now a regular? Will he play a role in fetching his grandfather? He would have an interest in doing so as his mother has yet to be conceived.
The episode concluded with aliens speaking an alien language. I wonder if this will last as long as having the Kree speak Kree in the fifth season.
