Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S05E10 “Past Life” REVIEW

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S05E10 “Past Life” REVIEW

0 comments 📅30 April 2018, 06:00

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S05E10 Past Life review

Airing Sundays at 9pm in the UK on E4
Writers:
DJ Doyle
Director:
Eric Laneuville

Essential Plot Points:

  • The team are almost in place to trigger the monolith and head back in time, once Flint rebuilds it. But they still need to take care of things here in case it doesn’t work. So Yo-yo goes to save Inhumans and…
  • …meets herself. She remembers this moment the first time it happened, explaining they’re caught in a loop. Which means the world is still going to end.
  • Kasius takes a crazy powerful strength drug to try and defeat the time travellers and stop them going back. If he can, the world will be undefended by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the past and ready to embrace his father’s invasion. He’ll have won. Gemma slips a control device into his ear and Mack kills him, avenging older Yo-yo’s death.
  • Enoch powers the monolith and it does its thing.

Review:

One question hangs heavy over this episode: who is the seer Kasius is hiding? The answer is Yo-yo, who meets herself: “I thought the same when you were standing there.” Unfortunately, their meeting suggests Fitz’s vision of time is correct, that this is a loop and it can’t be broken. Worse still, Mack will die soon, badly, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team will make everything that has come to pass happen again. There’s no breaking this cycle. Unless…

…Coulson dies. Yes, you heard it. The seventh Avenger must be allowed to die. If the team save him, it’s the end of the world as we know it. If he carks it, no more blasted Earth. And the way Yo-yo describes them fighting the inevitable when they return home, we have some fun – if stressful! – episodes coming up. However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, in a timey-wimey way.

Past Life features its own race against time – literally – that is incredibly well-paced and will have you inching towards the edge of that sofa seat. How tense is that ending? So tense, there’s no need for a cliffhanger this time around, and the episode gets a sweet little add-on from the future peeps instead, as Flint and Tess regard their shattered world.

Meanwhile, Kasius doesn’t disappoint as a baddie, as he steps ups and takes the odium. Always manipulating others and using their strength, the mean little bully finally has the raw power he’s always wanted, and the results are as nasty as you’d expect. Unfortunately for him, as he’s kicking Mack’s ass, Gemma gets revenge, seconds before Mack gets ultimate revenge.

The Good:

  • More continues to be revealed about Enoch: last episode we learned he was mostly plastic when May wrongly called him a “metal man”; this time we learn he doesn’t show up on life scans.
  • Can Flint actually reassemble the world with his rock shaping powers? For the sake of that alternate timeline, we have to hope so.

The Bad:

  • The end of Enoch! Nooooooo!

Best Quotes:

Kasius isn’t happy that his Kree doctor can’t bring Sinara back from death, so executes him:
“I suggest you study the condition more closely.”

Daisy fighting the trainer of the Inhumans, who has taken odium:
“Turns out they have PCP in space.”

Review by Matt Chapman

Read all of our Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reviews

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