S7 E2 Spoiler Thread

Simmons has always been labeled a "biochemist," but this was a very rare episode in which she actually does biochemistry. At least Fitz gets to be an engineer at least a few times per season.

I noticed that Simmons actually wore a mask and gloves while performing surgery in her more usual role. She did not wear any other personal protective equipment (PPE), but, after seeing the team perform surgery without any PPE many times, this is progress. Of course, it was part of an "I need to remove the bullet" scene. Removing the bullet is not the priority. The priority is stopping the bleeding.

I like that there was at least a token conversation about whether it would be best to allow Hydra to form or if they team should stop it there. I wish that the discussion went deeper than everyone simply stating a position. There is an maxim that, when an organization is formed to solve a problem, it is in the best interest of that organization not to solve it. If it did, the purpose of the organization will cease to exist. Is that what is going on? If S.H.I.E.L.D. does good beyond stopping Hydra, which it appears to do, then why would it not be created anyway? It might have done even more good if there were no Hydra to infiltrate it.

I wonder if Daisy's resentment against the Malicks has something to do with Gideon Malick bringing Hive back to earth, which eventually led to Lincoln's death.

I guess we are seeing a new wrinkle in the origins of Hydra. The films would have us believe that Hydra evolved from Red Skull's operation, and the first two seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to agree with a Nazi origin for Hydra. As Skye noted in "Nothing Personal," "It’s in the S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook, chapter one. The Red Skull, founder of Hydra, was a big, fat freaking Nazi!" In the third season, Hydra became an ancient cult that worshipped Hive. In "Paradise Lost," Whitehall explicitly referred to Malick's "family's ancient traditions," and Gideon Malick said that "our family has upheld this faith for centuries." This is why Wilfred Malick was in a position to slip the notched stone in the bag (and, presumably, never be the last person to draw from the bag). Are these two episodes a move back to the Red Skull theory of Hydra's foundation or a completely new version?

The Freddy that we saw did not strike me as the sort of person who would fall into a wacky cult, but he did strike me as someone who, if caught in a cult, would do something like slip a notched stone into a bag.

How about another theory. What if Freddy's father allegedly taking a walk off a tall building was just a cover for his picking the wrong color stone?

This episode was again Fitz-free, and May's main role was to have a gratuitous fight scene with Enoch when Enoch should have just ICEd her. I hope that the show will find something for Fitz and May to do in the rest of the season.

After this episode, Simmons had better brief the team about everything that happened since we last saw Fitz. The team needed to know that the time window could close at any time with very little warning. If the window closed when Mack and Deke were halfway to Hell's Harbor, the team would have had to abandon them in 1931, with Elena possibly staying behind to be with Mack. There is probably a whole lot more that the team does not know but needs to. Of course, such a briefing could easily serve as a framing device for a flashback episode allowing us to finally see Fitz.

After watching this episode, I watched its promo from the end of "The New Deal." It looks like they really showed Enoch not making it back to the Zephyr before it jumped in time. This is why I avoid promos, although I thought that it would be a reasonable likelihood that Enoch would miss the plane. He does not age, so he would still be around in whatever time the team jumped to (assuming it was after 1931). I have not seen the promo for next week's episode, so, for all I know, I may be the only one who does not know whether or not next week will have Fitz or cover what happened since we last saw him.


The two that I can think of are director Terrence Malick and actress Wendie Malick. If you count variant spellings, there are more people including recent Academy Award winner Rami Malek.


I agree that calling the walkie talkies a form of radio would have made more sense, but pocket-sized transistor radios were also a couple of decades away. The team really needs to be careful about using anachronistic tech in front of people from their past. If they are going to use anachronistic tech, they should at least use good anachronistic tech. Having Mack and Deke out of range felt like a contrived reason for them not to know Freddy's true identity until the climax.


It is possible that this Enoch realizes that then-Enoch still felt bound by a no interference rule.


One of the problems that I had with the sixth season was that all of the villains seemed to be stupid evil. It was almost as if the only thing they thought about before performing any action was, "would a villain do this?" This was a great example. The Chronicoms were busy fighting the very force that was currently avenging the destruction of Chronyca-2.

If the issue is more of how S.H.I.E.L.D. must be really tough to defeat Izel, the Chronicoms did not have the benefit of having scanned Izel's mind.