Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Collision Course (Part I)” was written by the team of Jeffrey Bell and Craig Titley and was directed by Kristin Windell, whose other credits include
The Flash,
Arrow, and
Blindspot. This episode started to feel like we were really getting somewhere with the season - at least the team are all headed in the same direction - even if they are all at risk by the end of the episode!
In space, Toad (TJ Alvarado) and Boyle (Scott Kruse) try to persuade Izel (Karolina Wydra) not to try a hyper-jump with the ship, but Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) gives her even odds that the ship can withstand the strain, and Izel orders them off her bridge. Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) also points out that the odds aren’t very good, but Fitz points out that they never are. Simmons tells Fitz that she’d be happy with him anywhere – but she’s ready to be home. They make the jump – and we get a beautiful shot of earth being revealed behind the moon.
On Earth, Sarge (Clark Gregg) is eager to get on the road, but Mack (Henry Simmons) and the rest of the team have questions and want to know what his plan is. Sarge tells them that the Shrikes’ creator – who he calls a Beast – is coming, they’re paving the way for it – and he knows where it will land. He has to be waiting there to kill it. Was anyone at this point still wondering who the Creator was?
Mack gives Sarge the keys to his truck – but gives him May (Ming-Na Wen) and Daisy (Chloe Bennet) as his team. I realize they are his best Agents – but they are both going to have trouble with Sarge having Coulson’s face… Mack agrees to let Sarge have one of his team. Mack figures Sarge would abandon one member or his team – but not two. Of course, this sets Sarge up to abandon the one he takes with him, so maybe it’s not surprising that he picks Snowflake (Brooke Williams). I loved Mack looming over Sarge and telling him that they are going to have a very UN-vague conversation about Sarge’s origins when he returns.
I loved Sarge telling May that he knew what she does: “You just glare all steely-eyed and then beat people senseless.” It’s a fair assessment! I also loved him asking what Daisy does and her saying she’s a hacker – keeping her real talents under wraps. It’s hilarious how excited Snow gets thinking that means Daisy hacks people up! Sarge isn’t impressed – they don’t need someone who understands computers – and he asks if she can handle weapons and if she’s good in a fight! LOL! Daisy says she can handle herself – and May’s face is hilarious!
Mack checks to make sure Sarge has everything he needs and tells him again that Sarge is in charge. Sarge asks if he really is, and Mack promises to “stay on the base” – cleverly neglecting to point out that the Zephyr is part of their base – their base in the sky! When a piece of equipment stops working – it’s a sonic disrupter that confuses the Shrike and keeps them away – Sarge insists that only Pax (Matt O’Leary) can fix it. It’s hilarious when Daisy calls it Shrike-repellent! Batman Movie anyone???
Mack tells Sarge that he’s got someone who can fix it and enlists Deke (Jeff Ward) to go on the mission. I kept asking myself why Daisy couldn’t fix it…. Deke doesn’t want to go anywhere with the evil-Couslon-twin. Deke goes all new-age – until Mack tells him to stop. Mack goes for blackmail. If Deke doesn’t go on the mission, Mack will reveal why he became a shareholder. Deke eventually has to give up 10% of the company’s profits AND stop stealing S.H.I.E.L.D. tech.
Instead of being creeped out by Snow talking about his beautiful soul, Deke is completely turned on. Suddenly, the mission isn’t so bad… Sarge makes Daisy sit up front with him. He tells Mack that they’ll be at the rendez vous in 17 hours, 53 minutes. Mack has Davis (Maximilian Osinski) get the Zephyr ready – the Fitz and Simmons mission will have to wait. Mack also asks YoYo (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) to be at his side. With another extinction-level event and a monster coming, there’s no telling what it will look like. YoYo agrees – it’s never what they expect. And we immediately cut to Izel making a Shrike – because no one saw that coming, right? This season has been a bit heavy-handed, I have to say.
Mack has Pax and Jaco (Winston James Francis) brought on to the Zephyr. Jaco is in the containment pod and Pax chained up. Pax immediately tells Mack that they were supposed to stay at Mack’s headquarters and that going where Sarge is going is a stupid idea, but won’t say why.
We get a terrific scene between Gregg and Bennet – who are always terrific together. Daisy asks if it doesn’t bother Sarge that he has Coulson’s face, but from his perspective, Coulson stole from him. But Daisy points out that Coulson and Sarge have the same DNA – they are identical on a molecular level. It’s a bit strange that Sarge doesn’t even know what DNA is… Sarge insists that it doesn’t matter, but Daisy insists that there has to be a connection or it’s too random. Sarge tells her that all he sees is random.
Daisy changes tactics. She asks him how old he is. Sarge tells her he’s not doing “this.” He’s not losing focus. The past doesn’t matter – he’s trying to save the future. The only thing that matters is stopping the monster or figuring out how to survive if they fail – because everyone she knows is about to die. Daisy asks if that’s what happened to him. Did everyone he knew die? Sarge insists that the past doesn’t matter – they are going to kill her. And he finally confirms what we’ve known since the last episode – the monster is Izel.
Back on the ship, Fitz and Simmons work on the communications to try to contact the base. Izel checks in on them. They tell her that they’re anxious to get home, and she says she fears she’ll never see her own. They offer to help her find the artifacts she needs, and she says it’s rare to meet kind being in this universe. When Izel starts to describe the artifacts, which were stolen from her world millennia ago, Fitz immediately realizes she’s talking about the monoliths.
Simmons quickly covers and says that they’ve heard of them, but that the Chronicoms had kept them. Izel says that she’d heard the same and went there, but her ship was attacked – and then the whole planet destroyed. She’s afraid the same may happen to Earth if she doesn’t get the artifacts. She tells them that the monoliths were created to connect life together, but there’s someone who had no interest in that. He murdered her crew and won’t stop until he kills her because she knows the truth about him and what he really is. Clearly talking about Sarge.
We also get a nice scene between YoYo and Mack. She teases him for calling Jaco the “big man” and getting a taste of what they all experience with Mack. He confides that he doesn’t feel like many people have been looking up to him recently. YoYo reassures him that everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. believes in him. Mack knows that Sarge is holding back.
Toad is in the middle of eating some puffs when he becomes the next crew member that Izel infects with a Shrike.
Sarge eventually kicks Daisy out of the cab, and she tells May she’s fine with that because she doesn’t like looking at him. May says she doesn’t like looking at him either. Daisy says she doesn’t believe a word he says, but May says part of her feels like she could trust him. Daisy questions whether May would feel that way if he didn’t have Coulson’s face and wonders why he won’t tell them everything rather than just bits and pieces.
On the Zephyr, YoYo and Mack go over the research that Benson has sent back. He’s focused in on one particular image. Mack points to birds surrounding what looks like a woman with some kind of bars radiating out from her to a circle surrounding her. Mack suggests that the birds could be Shrike, but YoYo thinks they could be anything with wings. Benson has also found Izel popping up in Incan mythology. YoYo takes offense at first when Mack asks if she knows anything about it, assuming he’s asking because she’s from South America. She reminds him that she’s Catholic.
Mack laughs – he only asked because she spent time with Jaco and he might have mentioned the name. YoYo says no and asks if the woman in the carving is Izel. They aren’t sure, but according to Benson, thousands of years ago, Izel escaped from the realm of fear and darkness. They assume she is a demon. They do know that she’s been trying to track down objects, called the dialis, from her realm – and they both recognize the monoliths in another photo. They also know that she’s spent thousands of years destroying worlds looking for them – and now Mack and YoYo pretty much know everything we do! It was a nice scene to summarize everything.
Back on the truck, Sarge has to make an emergency stop, and Daisy and May catch Deke and Snow getting intimate. It seems that Deke has a new infatuation – and other than being a bit disgusted, Daisy is fine with it! Sarge bursts in and says, “Seriously, Snow? I liked it better when you killed them.” LOL! But really, he’s angry with Deke.
The Shrike-repellent box has stopped working and Sarge pins Deke up against the wall with one hand on his throat – and how did he do that? May tells him to let Deke go, and Sarge does. Deke says it was working. Sarge tells him to fix it – or they’ll all end up as hosts when they try to face Izel.
Back on the space ship, Boyle comes to Fitz and Simmons with a handful of the puffy treats. Simmons immediately asks Boyle to get them away from her – hilarious! But Boyle insists that Toad would never leave them behind. Fitz and Simmons brush him off. Simmons reveals that she saw Fitz dancing in a monkey suit – which he jumps over to ask her why she was cagey about talking about the monoliths. Simmons reveals that the monoliths were on the base but were destroyed – and thought it better not to mention it until they got to Earth. Good call, Simmons!
Fitz wants to know how they got destroyed and she tells him about the anomalies and that it did provide them with a beautiful wedding venue. And then Fitz gets all jealous of himself! De Caestecker and Simmons are just at their best in this scene! Fitz asks about the wedding night and Simmons says it was wonderful without thinking. De Caestecker’s face is perfect. She tries to placate him by saying, of course, it will be nothing compared to the second time – and Fitz replies – I wasn’t enough the first time. Nope. No pleasing him….
Pax is freaking out that they aren’t safe at the base and is angry that Sarge left them behind. Jaco knows what’s really going on. YoYo comes in, and tells them that they can help if they know what they are facing. She points out that they’re all in this together now. YoYo tries to get confirmation that Izel is a demon, but all Jaco will say is that she can be killed.
Over breakfast, Sarge tells them that every time they get close to killing her, Izel slips away. He tells them that Chronicom II is the closest they came. They took out her crew and had her trapped – which aligns with what Izel has told Fitz and Simmons. Sarge tells them that they didn’t destroy the planet – it had already started when they got there, but this time they are one step ahead. Sarge insists that they can stop it from happening here. May asks what Izel’s motive is, and Sarge says hatred for all living things. Daisy asks what Sarge’s motive is and he tells her love – waits a beat – and admits that hate is his thing too! And revenge because she took his family from him.
Daisy and May are both bemused when they ask how Sarge can defeat her, and he pulls out a sword. Daisy sums it up: “A galaxy-hopping hate-beast that eats planets, and you want to defeat it with a sword?!” He tells her it’s sharp, but she isn’t buying it. She wants to know what he isn’t telling them and he lunges at Daisy with the sword as he asks what she’s not telling him – getting her to reveal her power. It’s a nice move. And then, Sarge tells them that the end is starting. The infected have gathered at the appointed spot and start making a tower.
Sarge tells them that they were destroying the Shrike to prevent them from building the tower. It takes its energy from the earth, and they have to destroy it before Izel arrives. If the tower gets finished, it will erupt into a swarm of Shrike and will swallow everything – and then the planet dies.
May calls Mack, who wants a visual. They need to know how to destroy it. Daisy thinks that they should all sit tight until the Beast-woman appears. Mack tells them about Benson’s information which may help them understand her. May and Daisy have no idea how Sarge really plans to stop Izel. Davis interrupts with the information that a space craft is approaching the rendez vous point. Mack attempts to make contact.
On the space ship, however, Fitz hasn’t been able to fix the communication system and Izel hasn’t given them coordinates for landing. Simmons then wonders where Izel has disappeared to. When Simmons asks Boyle about Izel and Toad, he just looks at her and keeps walking – he’s clearly been infected, but Fitz brushes it off when Simmons comments his reaction is strange.
Pax manages to take out his guard and get Jaco free. Pax is upset that Sarge had a plan and didn’t tell him. Jaco tells Pax that he’s not good with secrets, and Pax insists that he didn’t tell anyone about the thing that Sarge is going to use on you-know-who – which is our first clue that Sarge does have a secret plan – maybe not our first clue, but a good confirmation of it. Jaco tells Pax that they are going to take control of the plane, but YoYo interrupts them. I LOVED this scene. Pax is all cocky and Jaco threatens to put YoYo in the pod… until she wraps Pax up in chains before he can blink, and then pushes Jaco back into the pod! And then Pax does spill the beans – Sarge is the threat – he’s got a huge weapon that he’s going to detonate.
Sarge tells May and Daisy that his plan is to crash the truck into the tower and then stab Izel through the heart when she gets off her ship. May is disgusted with his plan – “No wonder she always gets away!” Sarge tells them that he has an insurance policy this time. Deke manages to fix the Shrike-repellant, but when Sarge gets back up front, he puts his real plan into action by arming the truck – which appears to be a huge bomb.
Deke apologizes to Snow for tying her up. Sarge comes back to May and Daisy holding guns on him – Mack has called with Pax’s info. Sarge admits that the bomb is his insurance policy. When Izel lands, he’s going to blow her, her ship, and the tower into oblivion – of course, we know this also means Fitz and Simmons! May points out that they are just outside a city. Sarge thinks that the 100s of 1000s of innocent people are a small price to pay for saving the planet – and 100s of others. Sarge tells them that they have to get off the truck before the bomb detonates. At this point, he is clearly planning on taking all of them with him. Daisy insists that they aren’t leaving until the bomb is dismantled. Sarge tells Daisy not to use her power – the bomb is sensitive – and tells Snow he’s sorry before ducking out.
Snow doesn’t know where the bomb is or how to dismantle it. She tells them there’s no way to stop the truck which is on autodrive toward the tower. Sarge climbs on top of the truck and uses his acme hole to escape – it turns out that it’s set to find Jaco’s jacket. Sarge isn’t unhappy to find himself on the Zephyr instead of on the base – it’s even better.
Mack and YoYo discuss their options. If they fire on the spaceship, there’s no guarantee that Sarge will deactivate the bomb or that Izel is on it. If they fire on the truck when it’s still far enough away from a populated area, they lose three of their own. YoYo says that they can hope Deke figures out a way to deactivate the bomb.
Daisy decides to quake open the door to the cab – if they’re going to blow anyway… and finds that Sarge is gone. Deke finds the bomb. Honestly, it looked like a camping lantern to me.
As the spaceship lands, Simmons and Fitz wonder where everyone is – and they are marching out with Izel leading them.
On the Zephyr, Mack’s impossible choices keep getting closer to each other…
The final scene takes us back to Enoch (Joel Stoffer)!! He checks in with another Chronicom, Isaiah (Jan Uddin) who is on planet Leitner – and fyi, all these planets – including Kitson where Enoch still is – are named after writers on the show! Enoch is trying to organize his fellow Anthropologists to gather the fragment of their broken civilization and rebuild. Unfortunately, the hunters are still focused on other things – like the fact that they still have Fitz and Simmons brains!
This was a solid, fast-paced episode that really upped the stakes. However, we’re only just getting started on this season! We’ve got five more episodes. Is Sarge a bad guy? Is Izel all bad? Why didn’t she infect Fitz and Simmons? Will the team end up having to battle Fitz and Simmons’ brains? Can Deke diffuse the bomb? So many questions! What did you think of the episode? Are you enjoying this season and storyline? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
