'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Recap: 'Past Life'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

When it comes to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I think it is safe to assume that there are two things that the fans of this show have been waiting for with baited breath when it comes to season five. First and foremost, everyone wants to see Kasius get his just desserts and second, everyone is dying to know exactly what caused Planet Earth to shatter like an egg and as it turns out, last night’s episode of the show, ‘Past Life’, not only managed to bring us to closer to the answer of that all-important mystery, but it also delivered the goods by finally allowing for us to bear witness to Kasius getting exactly what he deserves.
 
Yet, while all of that sounds cheerful and triumphant, this episode actually accomplished all of those wonderful things in the darkest of fashion. Because this episode set the stage for some dark days ahead for our intrepid agents. But before we get too deep into what exactly made this particular tale so incredibly bleak, let’s talk about the most satisfying moment of the night…the fall of Kasius, and as it turns out, a grand showdown with this Smurf-looking punk was wholly unnecessary when all is said and done, because all it took to bring down Kasius was for him to discover the body of his beloved Sinara.
 
In fact, finding her body, still impaled aboard Zephyr One, was enough to completely and utterly break him, to the point where he was unable to put together a plan or a coherent thought when it came to defeating Coulson and the gang. Instead he gave in to fury and imbibed a Kree super potion to give him the fire and strength necessary to take down as many of the Agents as possible and thanks to Mack’s sheer brute force, and Jemma’s quick thinking, we finally saw this awful, awful creature pass into the great beyond and well…that was definitely one satisfying moment to have play out on screen, considering how many disgusting things this man has done.
 
However, I did make mention of the fact that this particular tale was extremely dark and what made it that way, was the appearance of an alternate Elena, one that was killed and resurrected time and time again by Kasius to learn more about the situation we are currently experiencing alongside the team, and what she had to say, was downright terrifying. First and foremost, she let us in on the fact that the team has in essence been caught in a temporal causality loop wherein they fail to save the world time and time again and apparently, their folly, is that at some point along the line they will try and save Phil Coulson’s life, whom our Elena learned, is already dying…
 
So yeah, that’s how this one ends, with a pyrrhic victory. Sure, it’s great that the team defeated Kasius and is finally headed home, but their leader is dying, and Enoch and Deke didn’t make the trip because they sacrificed their lives to make sure Coulson and the gang make it back safely and just…wow. It’s so rare to see a win of this magnitude be this costly or this ominous and it truly raises more questions than answers and to top it all off, we won’t be getting the resolution to said questions, for at least a month since the show is now on a tiny break. Either way, this was quite the episode when all is said and done, and kudos to the Writer’s Room for being bold, and upping the stakes because I am already counting down the minutes until the show returns. Until next time. 

---