REVIEW: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. "A Life Spent"
It’s our first single episode of the new season, one that usually follows the trend of “things get worse.” After all, characters aren’t allowed to have a win until at least episode nine. Any thing remotely resembling a win is just lying to you. The only consolation prize is maybe moving the plot, and we get that.
We’re back to Inhumans being involved in the plot, partly because we can’t get rid of them and partly because it’s the only way we’re getting superpowers. Of course, it does beg the question of how on earth are humans being subjugated when they have superpowers on their side. If this season doesn’t end with some kind of mutiny, I wave all rights to enjoy any part of this season.
The only reason I say that is because we’re already introducing the possibility of other humans on sector 616 (I see what you did there). Rebellious humans lead to uprisings, everyone knows that. Otherwise, it’s a waste of not one but four main characters risking their lives. Daisy and Simmons are risking their lives too, but they’re just trying to stay alive. Nothing will change after that.
I think that’s why their plots are the most interesting and why it’s exciting that they’re crossing paths. No much is riding on their plots which makes it easier to focus on their choices and actions. We’re not worried about whether they can start an uprising so much as whether they can make it to the next minute. Eventually, that’ll go away as the plots converge, but it makes interesting storytelling. Unless it’s about Daisy and Simmons getting punished for the things they’re good at like having compassion or beating people up.
Meanwhile, Tess is starting to become my favorite of the newbies if only because she’s the only one who isn’t completely in the way of the team doing stuff. The “woe-is-me-life-is-awful” mindset can quickly grow tiring, but the sliver of compassion she has is, dare I say it, nuance. It makes sense for her to be dismissive of a new plan, but she’s clearly good enough to have a sense of right and wrong. It makes her fun to interact with the team with enough differences to create conflict. I can see a promising development for her.
The same cannot be said for Deke who is slower becoming worse. Even if I do buy that he’s doing everything for the right reasons, that doesn’t make me like him right now. What long term good is there to selling Daisy anyway? You’re asking me to judge the morality of a character we’ve known for almost five years compared to a dude who can’t stop yelling. Pardon me if I don’t get a little ticked off when he does something terrible and expects me to like him just because he’s there.
One of the benefits of these interactions, however, is that it does help us endear us to the characters we already know. When the world falls apart, we naturally gravitate towards the things that are familiar. That being said, it helps that the ones we know are interesting enough to carry a story. And getting back home isn’t a hard story to get behind for people.
And sometimes it can just be fun. How can we not like Elena zipping past a groundskeeper or May bouncing Zev around like hungry, hungry, hippos or Daisy beating up guys in an elevator? In a post-apocalyptic season like this, it’s more important than ever to have something fun to balance out the grief. Maybe there will be less as the season goes on, but keeping some where they are makes the prospect of twenty-something episodes more bearable.
Overall, this season is surprisingly working out more run-of-the-mill than the others, despite the other-worldly quality. It has its low points in lackluster characters and WTF-story lines, but there are decent interactions. Making us care about the characters we know make us more interested in whatever they’re doing. It’s not memorable, but it’s certainly manageable.
