‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Recap: ‘After, Before’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for last night’s episode of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’.  
​
It doesn’t take long for us to learn, that life can be filled with difficult and painful moments. The kind that stay with us long after they’ve come to an end, thanks to the trauma they produce and the regret they sometimes engender in our hearts. Which is why we tend to bury the memory of those moments deep into the recesses of our brains, so that we can function and keep going. A choice that doesn’t make us bad people, nor does it make weak for doing so, it’s simply a way that many of us cope with the painful parts of our past. But while this particular move helps us to get by in life, whether we like it or not, there will come a point in our lives where we will be forced to revisit these painful memories for one reason and one reason alone. Because they are in fact, holding us back from achieving the internal peace we all crave and from being the person that we want to be, and we simply must face the past in order to move forward in life.
​
But even then, going back and looking at yesterday and trying to understand our feelings in that moment and why we carry them today is no easy task, and it takes a level of bravery and determination that we aren’t sure we are capable of. If anything, these are indeed some odd musings to find within the framework of a recap of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but all of these ponderances are paramount to our discussion today, simply because facing one’s past and resolving the pain from it, served as the focal point of last night’s episode. Something that came about in ‘After, Before’ by way of the fact that the Time Drive was malfunctioning and bouncing these intrepid agents across the time stream, and unless a key component was removed from this device, eventually time would collapse in upon itself and kill everyone aboard Zephyr-1. And really, the only person qualified to save the day was Yo-Yo. Because she was fast enough to sneak through the pulses of time surrounding this device, provided of course she could regain her powers, which motivated the team to execute a bold plan to make that happen. 

After all, there was a leading expert on Inhuman physiology present in this segment of time. Which means that May and Yo-Yo decided it was best to visit Jiaying at Afterlife and let her work her magic, and this led to a fascinating voyage of self-discovery for Yo-Yo, one that did indeed involve facing one’s past. Because eventually Jiaying was able to ascertain that Yo-Yo didn’t have any lingering physical effects from her battle with the Shrike. Instead, her issues with her powers were psychological in nature, which means she had to overcome whatever pain was residing within her heart and her mind in order to gain her powers back. And with May’s help, she was able to find the root cause memory that haunted her and come to understand how its lack of resolution has managed to hamper her over time, and thanks to May’s help, Yo-Yo finally figured out how to unleash her powers once again and in the process, save the Zephyr and her friends from a horrible fate. 

But while it was nice to enjoy some incredible character development and some feel good and thoughtful moments, there was still trouble to be found in this particular tale. For this story also revealed that Sibyl and Nathaniel Malick’s partnership is all part of a new plan for the Chronicoms, one that involves building a massive Inhuman army to do their bidding. Which is why Mister Malick dropped by Afterlife, so that he could get his hands on Inhumans that might not agree with Jiaying’s respective teachings about their people and this was… disastrous to say the least. Because not only was Afterlife exposed and compromised, to the point where Jiaying and Gordon are now in hiding in the hopes of keeping Daisy’s future birth safe; Mister Malick has some new and powerful allies and who knows what kind of havoc they are going to wreak upon the world. Plus, to make matters worse, something is still seriously wrong with the Time Drive. What exactly, we don’t quite know just yet, but another challenge is about to present itself to the team, one that seems quite ominous for certain. 

In the end however, this episode really was quite the unexpected surprise. Because for the most part, comic book movies and shows tend to steer clear of psychological topics. Sure, they’ll tackle stuff like this from time to time, but usually it is designed as a plot point to return a particular character to glory, as was the case in Iron Man 3 when Tony Stark had to deal with a little bit of PTSD. But to go this deep and really explore the power of the past and how we let it control us, well that’s just unheard of, but welcome as well. Because it just goes to show that stories in this vein can indeed handle bigger and more cerebral topics and hopefully seeing this series be bold in this manner storytelling wise, motivates other superhero shows and movies to try and dig into more powerful and relatable topics down the line. But in the here and the now, this was a solid episode. One that really did offer up some incredible character development and some powerful moments for certain and it is a good thing that our intrepid agents are finding direction and purpose once again, because big challenges clearly lie ahead. The kind that will need them at their absolute best. Until next time.    

---