Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S05E11 All the Comforts of Home review

Airing Sundays at 9pm in the UK on E4
Writers: Drew Z Greenberg
Director: Kate Woods

Essential Plot Points:

• They’re back. And the Lighthouse is a ready-made new base, with its own projected 1970’s military guide. And new chronicom Noah.
• Deke arrives a little later than everyone else, in the middle of a nearby town, and is arrested after sampling an Earth bar with no way to pay a 21st-century bill.
• The light from the sky shows up and the team head out to deal with it. Quake isn’t about to visit something so connected to the apocalypse she’s supposed to cause, leaving her free to bail out Deke.
• Piper is at the scene when the team arrives. But it’s a double cross and she’s sold them out to General Hale. Hale’s daughter Ruby turns up to take them in but a confrontation ends with Yo-yo sustaining the injury she had in the future.

Review:

We knew we were going to miss the drama of seeing a world-ending situation that needs to be put right, but were confident the march towards that possible future would be just as gripping. Barely taking a beat to pause following such a harsh time in the future, the team immediately set out to stop the thing they believe is at the cause of these problems. And you thought episode title All the Comforts of Home might see them Netflix and chill for an episode, right? Wrong.

Of course, this being S.H.I.E.L.D., it’s never that easy to even check something out, even when your super-secret base has tunnels into town. Having gravitated to the top of every list whe it comes to being wanted, even agent Piper has cracked and given them away to General Hale. And as we saw in a previous episode, she doesn’t like to take prisoners or carry poorly performing colleagues, whatever promises she made about taking the team alive.

It’s here that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. cleverly subverts the clichéd smart-mouthed teen daughter/tough mother relationship. Hale is using her own daughter as an operative, likely because of Inhuman capabilities, but also because of that Tron weapon she carries on her back. And that lethal bit of kit sets Yo-yo on the first steps to fulfilling the prophecy which keeps the time-loop from ever ending.

We’re really excited to see where this one goes.

The Good:

• Deke literally becoming a treehugger, having never seen a live plant outside before.
• We had to look up what Zima But now we want to try one.

The Bad:

• New chronicom Noah is fine, but he’s no Enoch replacement. Still, he’s gone too soon.
• Ruby’s costume seems a little uninspired, being part early Top Gear Stig and part Kylo Ren.

Best Quotes:

General Hale’s daughter raises an excellent Mitchell & Webb question:
“Are you a good guy?”

May on being public enemy number one:
“We have a small but active fanbase.”
Review by Matt Chapman

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