TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Agents of Shield Season 7 Episode 9: As I Always Have Been

I had great reservations going into what was the “groundhog day” episode of Agents of Shield and yet I can say with great certainty…that I was absolutely right about those reservations. Because outside of some funny moments and one key spot, the rest was…forgettable, and pointless to the overall storyline of the season that like the plot of the episode itself…is running out of time.

To refresh, the team were having time drive issues and they continued to the extent that the got stuck in a time storm. And if they reached the vortex they would be erased from history permanently.

So yeah, that sucks.

The problem was that only Coulson and Daisy would remember anything because…they were in hibernation? That part wasn’t really explained but we’ll roll with it.

What was to follow was a series of Groundhog Day-like events that played out like you would expect. They kept trying to figure out the problem and when things didn’t work they tried out new things. Which honestly was part of the problem. Because we’ve all seen this before.

And almost ironically, we saw this very thing in Season 3 of Legends of Tomorrow with Zari being the one remembering everything and blah blah blah.

So what made this episode different? Not a lot. And I don’t say that lightly. While I do give credit for each time loop getting them closer to the vortex and setting “rules” on whether Daisy would remember or not based on if she died or not…it wasn’t enough. Plus, other things were just odd.

For example, Daisy and Sousa. They’ve known each other for…how long? And yet they apparently like each other? Granted, time loop logic but it still felt odd. The speech from Sousa was nice and you could tell he was recalling Peggy, but that could’ve just shown he was a good friend, nothing more. Plus, their “kiss” technically never happened because of the time loop.

Also, Enoch having the countermeasures was clever but…he messed with the implant earlier in the season. Also, May kicked his butt earlier in the season…and yet he basically killed them all?

Finally, and I hope some of you caught this, if you recall the first time loop, there was indeed a set period of time before each jump…yet each jump apparently was arbitrary in how “quickly” we got to that point. I know that seems like a nitpick, but it’s really not. Because if you time it in the first one, and then compare the events that happen in future loops, it doesn’t add up. Case in point, in one arc it took Coulson the whole loop to get Yo-Yo out of the quinjet, and yet, in a later loop he not only got her out, but they were able to get to Enoch and fight him before the loop ended. How did that happen so quickly?

The death of Enoch was a surprise, and his speech about loneliness was touching, but they overreached. Because he noted that “he’s seen the future” and that this was their “final mission”. He’s been wrong about the future before as Seasons 5 & 6 showed, and him saying this is their “final mission” when the whole tagline OF THE SEASON is “the final mission” felt like too much.

And as I noted in previous reviews…WHERE IS FITZ!?!!?!?!

It also didn’t help that the stinger was just a reminder of last episode as if to say, “Hey! Time loop’s over, get back to work!”

In the end, “As I Always Have Been” was a very standard time loop episode that honestly didn’t forward the plot at all. Next episode hopefully will right the ship.