Review: AGENTS OF SHIELD 5×09: "Best Laid Plans"

“Ass kickin’ has just begun.”
– Mack

Awww, BABY! HECK YEAH, AGENTS OF SHIELD!!! What a MARVELOUS episode this one was. Let’s just jump right in…

[Warning: The Following Contains SPOILERS for Agents of SHIELD 5×09.]

When last we left our Agents, Robin had died, but now they know they’re in a timeloop and can use that knowledge to problem solve their way out of it. May reveals Robin’s final vision: with Flint’s Inhuman abilities, they’ll be able to reconstruct the monolith using the fragment they found in the last episode. As the Agents get to work on fixing the Zephyr, Fitz & Simmons find evidence of their time looping shenanigans, including artificial gravity upgrades to the Zephyr.

At the Lighthouse, Kasius resurrects Tess with Kree technology and sends her back to the humans as a symbol, attempting to prop himself up as a God. Tess demands Flint be sent back to Kasius, or he will blow up all the human levels of the Lighthouse. Mack & co. do some digging and find O2 bombs all throughout the station, making their predicament more dire.

For the Agents on the Zephyr to get to Flint, they need to get airborne. And before they can do that, they have to escape Earth’s gravity storms. And also, Kasius’ lackey, Sinara.

Once more, LOTS to unpack in this episode. But I would say overall, this was the best episode of the season yet. We *finally* saw everyone back in their element, and watching Kasius get it HANDED to him by Mack & Yo-Yo was so great. Sinara’s zero-G showdown with Daisy was really amazing and engaging. And I also loved the little touches in the cinematography, like how the Marvel logo faded into a red mist, or how Kasius’ screams shook the camera. Little touches like that make the lower budgets of television feel more cinematic; props to director Garry A. Brown on a job well done.

Some observations:

– LOL, Enoch is made of PLASTIC. Don’t forget to recycle! XD
– LOOK, THAT ZERO-G BATTLE WAS JUST PLAIN OLD AWESOME. Okay? Especially for television. 100 points, y’all.
– I’m surprisingly underwhelmed by the return of Gravitionium, despite wanting to see it come back for years now. What its return possibly means is that Dr. Franklin Hall, from aaaaaaalll the way back in Season 1, might finally be free from his Gravitonium prison. Could he be the true destroyer of worlds?
– WHO IS KASIUS’ CLAIRVOYANT??? It *could* be an Inhuman character, like Raina… but I’m willing to bet it’s someone else we know. Perhaps… a non-Inhuman. Perhaps… one of our agents trapped in the timeloop?