S7 E1 Spoiler thread!

Hey, there! Long time no see. An, yeah, of course we remember you!  

And I gotta say, I'm with you in that I did not particularly like the previous season. In fact, so far I like the new season more than I did all of season 6 and large parts of season 5. Here's hoping that it's stay that way!! 




As so the premiere, here a few random impressions: 


- Are we sure Deke isn't a Chronicom? "Nothing to see here but era-appropriate police work." Gosh, dude, Enoch couldn't have done that better! 

- Speaking of that scene, they had another golden line just before that: "If you wish to live, do not come in. There might be screaming." *smiles creepily* Can... can it be? Is Agents of Shields' writing actually becoming good again? Oh, my, I do not dare to hope! 

- And speaking of characters that might be Chronicoms again: Are we sure that Jemma isn't one? Or that she at least isn't fully human anymore? Because she's acting way weird, and someone here already mentioned that she seems to be older. Question is, though, HOW MUCH OLDER could they have made her without Elizabeth needing some sort of special make-up to let her look older for it to still be realistic? Unless, she's been somehow physically altered... And Fitz not being there just makes everything even weirder...

- I gotta say, this show has had some big flaws over the course of six seasons, but I stand by my opinion that making Mack the director of Shield has been the single biggest mistake they've ever done. This is like when the Flash made fricking Iris the team's leader! They take the most un-qualified person for the job - who also happens to be hated by a big part of the fandom - and put them in charge because they think it'll make them more valuable to the team. And - frankly - because they probably didn't know what else to do with them. 
You know, the one time I actually liked Mack this episode was when he told Skye to get rid of her purple hair. Dope, yeah, but not really timeline-appropriate.  

- I had to look up the actress, who met up with Freddie and gave him those drugs or whatever, because she seemed soooo familiar. Nora Zehetner, she used to be on Heroes and Grey's Anatomy way back when. Pretty hard to forget those eyes, I guess. 

- I like Robo-Coulson. Do I think it's cheating on part of the writers? Yes. Do I enjoy having Coulson back on my screen and with that same attitude that always made him such an endearing character in the first place? Also yes.  

- Password: Swordfish. Okay, but where were Wolverine and Storm in all of this?? 

- And here's another reference: I wonder what the Chronicom Malachi was up to during this episode. Eh, probably too busy fighting Stargirl. *shrugs* 

- Honestly, this was probably the first Koenig appearance I liked since season 2. A brother and another brother and another brother and a sister who are all annoying and all work for Shield? Oh, gimme a break! But a (great-?)grandfather who worked for the SSR? Sure, why not. Makes sense that it would be a legacy thing. Back in S2, Billy and Trip probably had a lot to talk about! Bragging about their family history!

- You know, in a universe of infinite timelines, there is probably a world where good-old-Jemma and evil Doctor Fitz are getting along just fine. "Is that his data port?" - "No." I thought that was ruthless, kind of hilarious, and also completely in-character if you watched Jemma's development over the years. Fitz might have gotten some instant-evil injected into him via the framework, but her dark side was always there. She'll probably never go full villain, but she's certainly on route to becoming a full-fledged anti hero at this rate. 

- "Here, Yo-Yo, a pair of special Fitz-made, ultra-realistic, touch-sensitive, hyper super-duper arms! Not only do they look and feel real, they allow you to use your powers perfectly, braid your hair by yourself (Because I'm getting sick of always having to do it!) and even let you pick up a penny should you drop it!!!" "Nah, thanks, fam, I'm good." Like... for real? 



So, yeah, I liked the premiere a lot and my only real grievances are characters and their actions who alway annoy the hell out of me, so nothing new there. I just hope that they'll keep this quality up and deliver a great final season, because this show sure as hell deserves it!

I think chances are pretty good the Jemma we see is not the Jemma we knew. We know the Chronicoms can copy and enter a brain, and they did put the Framework Coulson into Robo-Coulson. And the best way for Fitz not to be able to be found is to not have a body at all. Or if he does, it's a copy...



To be fair, Mack was made director before they knew they were being renewed. It's another corner they painted themselves into, because there wasn't supposed to be a S6, much less a S7. I doubt they even thought about the long term consequences...

And yeah, had to do the doubletake the first time they showed Quake in her new... look.

Yes it's cheating, but no one cares. It's so much better than desperate/dying Coulson of S5 and Sarge/Pachakutiq of S6...

Jemma's been through a lot. Thrown onto a different planet, waking up dead in the Framework... But it was her enthusiasm when she plugged the Chronicom in that made me laugh.

The showrunner's quality has always been there, it's just they do some dumb plots. All they have to do is keep it in the realm of believably, or at least what believable for the concept of the show...

Welcome back.  It's good to see you again.

In all fairness here, I *was* aiming for Ward!

I noticed that Chekov had a lot of guns on the wall.

It appears that the characters are better at blending in in 1931 than they were in 2091, although that is not saying much. I suppose that it is easier to blend into a historical period that they have read about than into an unknown future. Still, they should probably be a little more cautious in their choice of discussion topics when locals can overhear them.

Simmons seemed to be in a bad mood throughout the entire episode. I do not know why. After all, she is a big Doctor Who fan in the middle of what is effectively a Doctor Who episode. (Jumping into earth's past and fighting off an extra-terrestrial threat alongside a historical figure is one of the most common Doctor Who plots.) I suppose that she misses the TARDIS and whichever Doctor would be current for her.

It seemed that Daisy forgot her powers in the final act. She quaked a "Chroni-Cop" into a kitchen in view of a few witnesses. As soon as the witnesses fled, she resorted to mundane fisticuffs, even to the point of breaking plates against her opponent. At least she turned out to be a lefty with the bat, which will be useful if S.H.I.E.L.D. decides to have a baseball team.

I liked the twist of S.H.I.E.L.D. being on a mission to save Hydra. However, the team had better be careful. Such a move could backfire horribly.

Despite being an exposition-heavy episode, we still have no idea what is up with Piper, Flint, Benson, Diaz, or Snowflake.

This had better be the last Fitz-free episode. In fact, we had better get a flashback episode to see what he and Simmons did since we last saw him.


Arguably, the first rule of time travel in television or film is that it is a fool's errand to try to make sense of time travel. I suppose that makes me very qualified to try. If there is one and only one timeline, and if altering the past of a timeline alters the present and future of the timeline, then Deke should have popped out of existence at the end of the fifth season. It makes far more sense for there to be multiple timelines. This would mean that the Chronicoms are trying to create a timeline where S.H.I.E.L.D. does not stand in their way.

I do not hope that the Chronicoms succeed in killing a team member's parent or young self (the show has already cast a young Simmons). I would love to see them try so that we can see the characters' pasts.


I was afraid that I would be the only one. This is the second season premiere in a row in which Simmons tortures a sentient being. This time, it appears that she tortured him to death. Are we still supposed to think that she is a good person or is she now a token evil teammate? At least this time she was not pursuing a mere personal agenda.

[For the interest of preventing boredom, I snipped a long rant about how torture is evil and how frustrating it is that writers seem not to understand this.]

I hope that Jemma Simmons is right, but I fear that this is too optimistic. My understanding of Marvel politics is that Kevin Feige is busy purging the MCU of anything that Ike is Perlmutter oversaw, including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. On the other hand, I have noticed that the Chronicoms fear S.H.I.E.L.D. and not the Avengers.

Regarding other work by the actors, the IMDb lists the following as either currently filming or in pre-production:

• Iain De Caestecker in Us and Upstairs
• Elizabeth Henstridge in Suspicion
• Henry Simmons in Phenom
• Natalia Cordova-Buckley in Coyote
• Jeff Ward in Brand New Cherry Flavor

I know almost nothing about what their roles are in these new projects, including whether they are essentially playing Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. characters in another universe. Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, and Chloe Bennet have appeared in projects that have already completed filming.

Also, they were busy filming the seventh season during 2019's pilot season (to the extent that pilot season is still a thing), and current filming is mostly on hold due to COVID-19.


It is possible that the changes in Simmons are supposed to be due to a significant amount of time passing from her perspective and her missing Fitz. However, if she is still the Simmons that we knew only with a significant amount of time passing, I would expect her to have been much happier to see Daisy, Elena, Deke, and Mack again.


I probably can come up with bigger mistakes. I do not know about Iris and The Flash, but I still believe that if there is still to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. and if it is to have a director and if this director is not only to be an insider but a member of the team and if that member is not May or a variant of Coulson, then Mack may be the least worst option. In other words, I think that Daisy, Simmons, Fitz, and Elena would be even worse as Director.

I agree that before becoming Director, Mack was probably the most expendable main character, unless one considers Deke to have been a main character at the time.