The wild two-hour premiere saw the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents arrival on the space station Lighthouse and the crazy-train didn’t stop there.

A Spoiler spent is a Spoiler earned…

(Not good? I’m working on it)

“Home is where I long to be”

After a quick introduction to an alien in a human suit, the premiere gets us up to when Coulson and Co. are accosted by a SWAT-like team.  The unconscious agents are wheeled out of the diner, sans Fitz who is “not on the list”, and place into a room with a white monolith that glows red in the center.  Coulson, Mack, Yo-Yo, Jemma, May, and Daisy wake just in time to see the monolith send them to a space station in the middle of an asteroid field.

Coulson is first through and meets Virgil, a pilot who has been waiting for the arrival of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Virgil quickly explains the space station is plagued with Xenomorph-like creatures known as roaches, but that is not the reason why Coulson has been sent to them.  Before Coulson can get too many answers from Virgil, the just arrived Mack knocks the pilot out.  Yo-Yo and Jemma reach the group shortly after Mack.  Virgil is eventually revived and starts to explain the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are meant to save humanity, just before he is eaten by a roach.  Daisy arrives and quakes the creature as it looks to make the others desert.  Needing answers, Daisy finds a computer to hack.  But the system requires a biometric to work, not a human one.  The Kree guards are alerted to their presence.

May arrives on the space station separated from the others and has a run in with a mysterious leather-jacketed, Star-Lord-esc man named Deke, who over powers May with an anti-gravity device.  Deke binds and gags May, then implants a device called a metric into her wrist.  He and May rescue the other agents from the Kree with a bribery to his “gallery.”

“But I guess I’m already there”

Once all together, the group starts to put the puzzle together.  The monolith didn’t just send them through space, it sent them through time.  Roughly sometime 90 years in the future.  And Earth is gone.  The asteroid field is actually debris from the planet.  The space station is all that is left of human kind.  Shortly after Earth was destroyed, the Kree arrived and built the Lighthouse for the survivors.  In return, the Kree have total subjugation over humans and have destroyed their history.

Through Tess, another resident of the Lighthouse and friend of the late Virgil, the agents learn the lay of the land.  Everybody works in some way to keep the Lighthouse running.  The metric in their wrists are for the Kree to keep tabs on everyone.  Getting caught without one is very bad.

Jemma catches the attention of Kasius, the Kree leader of the Lighthouse after she attempts to save a human caught in a fight over food.  Kasius loves to collect beautiful humans and make them his beloved servants.  Jemma, being very pretty and possessing medical knowledge, is made into Kasius’s new pet.

To avoid being caught without a metric during a random Kree inspection, Coulson, Yo-Yo, and Mack go to Tess’s boss, Grill, to trade Kree technology for metrics of their own.  Grill doesn’t need the tech, but is intrigued by their ability to steal it.  As payment for the metric implantation, the trio become scavengers for Grill.

Daisy follows Deke and finds his “gallery” is salvaged code from the Framework.  Through bits and pieces of information he saved before the Kree could destroyed it, Deke recreated Earth as it was.  Or something relatively close.  As a way to keep humans complicit, the Kree allow Deke to sell humans time inside the Framework 2.0.  Sifting through old news reports inside the Framework, Deke reveals to Daisy it was her quake powers that destroyed Earth.

Thoughts

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to find new ways of reinventing itself.  Last season was absolutely stellar and I have been curious as to how this season will top it.  So far, I like the premise even though there is a shark-jumping element to it.  I was hoping for a S.W.O.R.D. narrative, but this could pave the way for an outer-space division origin story.

How the time jump is going to tie into Avengers: Infinity War, I’m not sure.  A part of me is hoping the agents have been taken to an alternate dimension and this allows AoS to be removed from movie obligations all together (and also pretend Inhumans didn’t happen so the series can be rebooted).  The show works best when the ties to the movies are minimum to non-existent.

The “Working on it” post card from Fitz they found on Virgil could point to Fitz starting the legend of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents coming to save humanity everyone has heard about, but only Virgil was a true believer in.

It was kind of glossed over by all the other information coming at us, but when the agents first arrive at the Lighthouse, they found a bunch of dead bodies locked in a room.  Deke was hired by Virgil to get metrics and implant them on the incoming S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.  Somehow, he knew where dead bodies would be to steal from.  Is Deke the kind of person who would lock people on a floor inhabited by roaches to steal metrics?

Best Lines:

• Simmons – “Any Idea what part of space we’re in?”   Coulson – “Uh… outer?”
• Mack – “Haven’t you ever seen an alien movie? …that’s exactly what they say before they get picked off one by one, and you know who the first one will be.”
• Yo-Yo – “You should see your ‘go face’ in slow motion. ”
• Simmons – “Well, I’m a biologist, but sure, I can invent time travel. Just give me a minute.”

Till Next Week!

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The Nerdling was born in the majestic land known as Texas and currently resides there after several years of journeying through Middle Earth in a failed attempt to steal the one Ring from that annoying hobbit, serving the Galactic Empire for a time, and then a short stint as a crew member on the Serenity. Since moving back to her homeland, Nerdling flirted with a hero reputation. Saving children from the dangers of adoring domineering, sparkly vampires (champions with souls are the only vampires worth loving) and teaching normals the value of nerdom, all while rooting for her beloved Dallas Stars. Then came the Sokovia Accords and her short spell of saving others came to an end. With Darth Vader’s reputation rightfully returning to badass status, Nerdling is making her way back to the Empire. They do have cookies, you know. You can find her on Twitter @nerdlingstale.