TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Agents Of Shield Season 7 Episode 3: Alien Commies From The Future!

For it being a “Final Mission”, Agents of Shield honestly aren’t doing well in the whole “consistency” department. The return was a bit rushed, last episode was better, and this time they went a little too “all over the place”. “Alien Commies From The Future” could’ve been a very fun time in a classic era with an old friend, but instead…it just wasn’t.

Let’s get to the good parts. Daniel Sousa (who was introduced to us in the gone-too-soon series Agent Carter) returned and almost spoiled the party for our Agents. Having him back was fun, it’s been years, and yet it was like he never left. I wished we learned more about him and Peggy (because depending on which “timeline” you believe they’re in she’s either with Steve right now…or not) and what happened Post Season 2 but I guess we’ll never know.

Hearing that Area 51 (and all the “areas”) were Shield bases was a fun and very simple twist. As was the reason for the Chromicons to want to destroy the area. Lots of Shield power players in the area, and without them, no Shield.

The problem was that there was no doubt that Shield would win. With the Mallick situation, it was tense because they all had a connection to Mallick outside of Deek. So the question was for them “Can we save the future by killing his?” But that same drama wasn’t here. At all.

Instead much of the episode was the buildup for the literal inevitable attempt to blow the whole base up, which was solved very easily by an EMP (which you’d think “The Predictor” would’ve anticipated…).

And that right there is a major problem with his season. While initially the Chromicoms were shown as incredible threats and their “face stealing” technology was rather horrifying…it’s already lost its luster. They’re supposed to be “superior beings” and yet they’ve lost twice to humans who “don’t have their knowledge” and blah blah blah.

Furthermore, while I like the unique problems that May and Yo-Yo are going through, one’s shifted way too quickly for a random reason, and the other we still don’t know what’s going on. So hopefully it gets developed quick because we’re almost a third of the way through the season.

Finally, and arguably most importantly, they once again focused a LOT of time on the time periods view on race. Including having Deek say, “Stupid White Privilege.” While it’s never a bad thing to talk about racism when it’s earned…this definitely wasn’t the case. I don’t care that it was the 50’s, it wasn’t handled right here. And especially with what’s going on in the world right now? It definitely wasn’t timely.

And yeah, the probing line at the end was funny. Happy?

In the end, “Alien Commies From The Future” failed to impress despite being in a perfect spot to have some fun. Hopefully next episode (which is teasing a major death) will bring more focus to the proceedings so that the final mission can feel fun again.