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TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Agents Of Shield Season 6 Premiere!

May 11th, 2019 by Todd Black Comments

First off, sorry for the lack of reviews this week everyone. We had a couple of issues on the site so I couldn’t write anything! But I’m glad it’s back up because I have a LOT to say about this Agents of Shield premiere!

Anyone who has been with AOS since the beginning knows that this show had a rocky start, a strong set of middle seasons, and then set itself up for a good (though inconsistent) final season last year. But then, the outgoing ABC President decided to give it two more shortened seasons. The question is, “How would Agents of Shield cope with the events of Infinity War and Endgame?” The answer…? They didn’t, and it shows in the worst ways.

For the record, it’s not the showrunners fault. Truly. They were told very late that AOS was getting renewed, and THEN, they were told that they couldn’t technically do events after Endgame for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which was because even though S6 was set for Summer, there was a potential for doing it in January instead, which would’ve been before both Endgame AND Captain Marvel…which just wouldn’t do. Anyway, their best option then was to because backtrack on all the Infinity War references before the “series finale” and claim that ALL of this season was “Pre-Snap”…and it doesn’t work at all.

Not the least of which is because at the very beginning of the episode they pull a partial Endgame (SPOILERS!) and say that “one year later”, as in one year AFTER the Season 5 finale more or less. Which means this episode is DEFINITIVELY post-snap. Huh, guess they did follow Endgame…in how terribly they handle Time Travel…but I digress.

The other major problem with “Missing Pieces” (besides the Coulson reveal which they ruined months in advance via clips and trailers…), is that at present, there is no real compelling storyline that we should care about. On Earth, Mac and the “New Shield” (which is apparently a law-abiding agency again despite that not being the case last season or Pre-Infinity War…) are learning about a new threat called “Reality Warps”, and people from somewhere are coming through them.

They don’t know what they are or what they mean yet because FitzSimmons are in space. So Mac and May are trying to get some “brains” back into Shield (it took them a year to do that?) so they can learn more. Which of course all gets turned on its head when Not-Coulson (as I shall call him from now on) shows up, kills a Shield agent, and runs off with a murderous crew.

Having Not-Coulson as the villain for the season (presumably anyway…) feels cheap, especially after the great ending that true-Coulson (as I shall call him from now on) had last season. And while Clark Gregg being on the show is great…it’s not Coulson, and everyone should know that, but they’re going to have May struggle with it and more and it feels contrived. And by the trailers admission, his goal is to “burn it all”, which we know he won’t do because this is all Pre-Snap!

Meanwhile, out in space, Daisy, Simmons, Piper and Davis are looking for Fitz, and SURPRISE, they don’t find him right away (because why make it easy after saying they’ve been looking for a year…). And while I admire the fact that Simmons screws them all in her desire to find Fitz, and the lovely Marvel Villain tease at the end with The Controller, it just doesn’t fell that compelling given that we’ve already done a space story and you know that FitzSimmons will 95% chance get back to one another after some fights and hijinks. Especially with one more season left to go.

It’s not that this episode was bad per se, there were a lot of little moments that were nice. Mac being a good leader, Yo-Yo moving on after Mac shut her out, May being a great 2nd-in-command, the little banter between Piper and Davis, that was fun. But the rest just didn’t hold up. Sure, it could get better from here, but it needs some major story upgrades before this season (and next season) can be justified.

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!