S6 E1 Missing Pieces

Full disclosure: I waited for the entire sixth season to drop on Disney + Hotstar so that I could binge it in one go before I ride the AGENTS OF SHIELD roller coaster to its sweet ultimate drop and roll in Season 7, the final loop-the-loop.

The recap of seasons 1-5 is concise, and seeing Clark Gregg’s name under Directed By is a good feeling. By the time we are shown that Quake’s name has caused waves even till the “outer brim” of the galaxy, I feel back in familiar territory, but not on familiar ground.

They go meta when Ming na Wen (rhyme unintended but happy coincidence !) says it out loud: they used up the word anomalies last year.

Fitz and Simmons have a long way (both space and time wise) to go before reverting to Fitz-Simmons.

Good call about not calling Mack ‘Alf’, for his first name Alphonso. Jokes apart, the professor character he’s convincing does make a poignant observation about the dichotomy between the effects of drinking alcohol: it makes us both remember and forget, by making us both nostalgic and giving us blackouts.

Kudos to the scriptwriters, Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen on that clear as the vodka (I presume) he’s drinking insight into alcoholism!

In the explosive climax, the former director of SHIELD and the current director of this episode makes an intriguing entrance and exit.

E2 Window Of Opportunity

In a Terminator-esque opening sequence, the Coulson lookalike picks out steampunk shades and shops a shotgun to boot, and his crew rolls out in a camouflaged truck.

Fitz & Simmons (somehow reminiscent of fish & chips) are on convergent paths, but not yet intersecting ones. Xandar (of Guardians of the Galaxy fame) seems to have a French-like affinity for snails (or are the snails good eating BECAUSE they are Xandarian?). Food for thought: Space gourmet.

Back on earth, coulson’s doppelgänger and his crew pull a jewel heist while defeating Agent May - which is a surprise for us and for her.

E3 "Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson"

The episode’s name is directly from Hunter Thompson’s tour de force, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Stands to reason that the episode will be along similar lines, and the planet on which Fitz and Enoch the Chronicon land is indeed Las Vegas - IN SPACE! Enoch is a strong facsimile (a word he uses while talking about having fun) of the Isaac robot in The Orville , Seth MacFarlane’s take on Star Trek.

On a related note, TV Tropes is full of useful pop-culture information.

Is the Barracoolada (Star Lord/Peter Quill listens to that song which has pina coladas in the hook, doesn’t he?) the Marvel Cinematic Universe equivalent of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

Quake and Simmons are the ladies’ night trippers (on puffies) like Hunter Thompson’s alter ego, Raoul Duke. They even do Harry Potter houses and the Patronus Charm, while Fitz mixes up a moste potente potion from sulphuric blood.

FitzSimmons it is not meant to be! Shipping written into the script. Crude coulson and crew cameo in the end.

E4 Code Yellow

Deke plays out his fantasy in his Framework. Boba tea is brought up to really make the hipster vibe bob. And how much more meta can it get once he breaks the fourth wall with a stare into camera?

Charcoal water. #Truth. Trevor Khan, agent of SHIELD - nice cover, man! I also loved this scene:

Because I’m wearing a similar pink Floyd t shirt right now! Spirals, amirite? 🤘🏽😇

The monster of the season is hideous: an amalgam of bat/vampire and cellular parasite. Coronavirus, thou art a beeyatch.

The previous episode was all in Fear & Loathing in space, this one is all about Real & Living in Deke’s space. Agent May finally meets crude coulson. The sting is Sequoia’s Instagram stories. “It really puts things into perspective. “ Mack dresses down Deke in the back.

E5 The Other Thing

It’s back to the usual space and earth alternate scenes. Coulson calls it as he sees it, and May can’t deny it.

Fitz and Simmons see each other but can’t touch.

By the end, the ever-faithful Zephyr ship returns to its port and the ever-gravitating FitzSimmons are only a ship apart.

E6 inescapable

100 years into the future. Awesomax beginning to any episode of any series. Time travel (even theoretical) is a rich vein to tap for all creative people.

And backwards time travel? “Just let me say this. “ thanks to fitz for interrupting Simmons to say that, because the fairer sex does have a slight tendency to overrun us Neanderthals with our abhorrent basic/base instincts and mannerisms. 😄

Hello (again) to the monoliths. And trips to tippy memories that might be “madness” but help them navigate the maze towards backwards time travel, simply called going to the past. It’s ridiculous, or ridonculous, whichever you prefer, but isn’t that the entire point of suspension of disbelief?

Everybody wants out from their nightmares. And to relive the first time someone says “I thought you were one person”, which is coulson saying Fitz -Simmons.

Also, it’s a great excuse for callbacks to Fitz-Simmons’ previous seasons. The grunts in their gross memories are dealt with by their good memories of their teammates. “Hilarious comeback”, oh yes.

As a small aside, it’s a disturbing insight to see Hydra Fitz and Zombie Simmons ‘acknowledge’ each other. (Shudder)

Such good soulmates to have their damage and pain come from each other. That’s a solid foundation for an awesomax relationship right there!

5 minutes 33 seconds isn’t too long though. It isn’t even 6 minutes, let alone 6 hours! ;) The insta-porta-rings get them...

E7 Toldja

...back to space’s Las Vegas, Kitson City, Enoch & Fitz-Simmons make the best of a cramped shooting schedule in the casino setup.

Meanwhile, and I’ve avoided this word till now, Jaco the eloquent giant is the ace in the hole for Sarge Coulson’s crew. Rather, he’s the fire in the hole!

Sarge coulson sounds just like regular coulson in the interrogation room, while super rich Deke follows Quake around like a lamb, trying to impress her without knowing who the GOAT Michael Jordan is. Still, Mack puts Dekes google sized brain to good use.

Heads may have rolled for Fitz Simmons if a mysterious benefactor wouldn’t have bought them in Space Las Vegas and told them that they were going to Earth Las Vegas. Also, it had been some time since I saw a guillotine on screen!

At SHIELD HQ, jaco turns into a dragon, but gets quaked down, putting a wrench in sarge coulson’s escape plan. Still, SHIELD tries to be too smart for its own good and is only saved by the benevolent sarge coulson. He has the last word, which is the episodes name, “ Toldja.” In the sting, Fitz Simmons source a ship for their new benefactor but Enoch parts ways with them.

E8 - Collision course part 1

Fitz Simmons jump to the dark side of the moon with their new best friend in tow. Sarge coulson and Mack are preparing a welcome party on the ground. Mack sends Deke along with quake and May to help out evil coulson twin, which is so much like evil olsen twin. (Mary and Ashley? I’ve only encountered the names tangentially). It ends with all major characters converging, and the tag is the xhronicoms plotting to enter the combined minds of Fitz Simmons.

E9 - Collision course part 2

Along with part 2, this double header is a culmination of the season long arc of Simmons returning to earth, Fitz in tow. I quite like how evil Coulson twin plays a villainous game to achieve his ends. However , Mack gets to fire a riposte at him after a tough fight, repeating “Toldja”.

On the ground, Quake shreds the shrike, at which point Snow asks a naive question. May gives a befitting answer: all women are powerful.

There’s a nice reunion via the Chekhov’s gun of Jaco's jacket being a teleportation portal. Fitz is taken aback by his grandson Deke’s exhilaration. Mack is all toasty at the end, but this one’s sting is a real shocker. Of course, shock value is what they’re going for, what with May shooting evil coulson twin multiple times.

E10 Leap

This is a shut-in episode. May did shoot evil coulson twin but of course he doesn’t die, not even from a Bullet in the Head (RATM). Mack has to lock down the lighthouse because surprise surprise, the queen alien zombie vampire can also possess people. Such a nice melting pot of villainy we’ve got going on here!

The answer of course is a game of truth and truth. Even though they trace her, she deals a terrible blow to the team, and gets into Mack. Using him, she gets to the gravitonium device holding the combined power of the three monoliths that have played havoc with SHIELD for a long long long time.

Evil coulson twin reaches her, wearing SHIELD clothes. They argue but he realises he is the dreaded pachakutiq.

A little maybe obscure trivia : the story editor is George kitson, the namesake for Las Vegas in Space!

E11 from the ashes

The queen alien zombie vampire parasite has developed a fondness for possessing Mack, while May tries to make evil coulson twin remember his memories without beating them out of - or into, as May be the case - him.

The brick joke of ley lines is a handy warning, but it’s only delaying the inevitable. Izel opens the gravitonium ball while quake/daisy opens a letter.

Fitz Simmons trust their grandson Deke to build the anti-evil-aunty gizmo. Good call, because she’s summoned the space kid who can control stone, and hence recreate those dayum monoliths!

The final showdown is in an Incan temple in the middle of verdant forests. Elsewhere in space, the chronicoms solve a strategic dispute quite violently.

E12 The Sign

The team embarks on a hunting mission, while Deke and grandpa-granma FitzSimmons leverage the startup setup to make a jump drive.

Izel [the target of the hunt] builds a shrieking Shrike army to stop them.

She also starts singing her song, which causes sour Sarge to stumble.

The Zephyr 1 comes under shrike attack, from the fast kind of zombies.

Sarge apparently impales May and sends her through Izel's wormhole.

Time for the finale! This cliffhanger will not resolve itself - it needs to be seen! And who better to see it than me, the Marveler at World's Center? :)

E13 New Life

It's a little underwhelming when you know you're right...that's Nirvana.

What I'm right 'bout is knowing our heroes will triumph undercuts the action. No Doubt - another nice band courtesy the inimitable Ms Gwen Stefani - they aren't all 'super' heroes, but in there own ways, they are.

Okay - enough with the interdimensional vampire-slasher-zombies. On to the new - although in a way time travel is kinda been-there-done-that.

Season 7 is set up nicely by FitzSimmons whisking them away to the BIG APPLE - NYC - but hang on to your time-traveling hats, it's the 30's!

And of course, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't be the same without Phil!

Time - pun fully intended - to move on to the seventh and last season...

If you scrolled to the bottom [shout out : Project Bibliotherapy] thnx for reading!

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