Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Know Your Onions Review

AOS "Know Your Onions"

Still in 1931, the Agents are afforded opportunities for more period dress (this time for Simmons and Yo-Yo), and Coulson the chance to cut a Dillinger-esque figure with a tommy gun. This is all before another time window shifts everyone forward in time - by the looks of it, the next episode takes place in the 1950s. By only sticking in the same year for two episodes, the structure of the season comes into clearer focus, and lends things a *gasp* episodic quality?

Two of the major engines of this episode are the ongoing moral dilemma of saving Hydra to preserve the future, and on the comic relief side, letting Patton Oswalt loose with the kind of vintage lingo that gives the episode its title. When Oswalt's Ernest Koenig says that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s world of super soldier serum and advanced robotics is like "something out of the funny papers", the writers run the danger of being too cute.

Energized from the twist at the end of the premiere, the team must protect Wilfred "Freddy" Malick, even though he and his son will grow up to be Neo-Nazi tyrants. At the eleventh hour, Daisy breaks ranks and manipulates an impressionable Deke to "take the shot" and kill young Freddy. Deke channels Draco Malfoy and shrinks from the task, and afterward this mutinous episode is forgotten, so it feels extremely shoe-horned in... but I sympathize with writer Craig Titley. There needed to be some direct reckoning with the cognitive dissonance of the team's distasteful duty to protect Hydra's origin story. So it's good drama artificially wedged in the episode, but artificially wedged in nonetheless. It would have been wise to pull back on the schematic plotting and make this moment of high drama the emotional centerpiece of the episode.

The action centerpiece of the episode, on the other hand, is Enoch's fight with a semi-recovered Melinda May. This unlikely pairing is enhanced by a quirk of May's recovery giving her the same clipped voice patterns of a Chronicom.

The major canon connection is the mention of the super soldier serum's development by Abraham Erskine, and administration to Hydra's Johann Schmidt. These respectively, of course, are Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving's characters from Captain America: The First Avenger.

"Know Your Onions" features a typical episode's balance of humor and action, so when it goes very dramatic, that feels out of place without further development. 6/10.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The New Deal Review

AOS "The New Deal"

"Nineteen-thirties baseball reference." - Daisy Johnson

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back for its final season (or as the promotion puts it, The Final Mission), and it begins with a breath of new life for the series... ironically found from traveling into the past. ABC Marvel, accustomed to mounting a period production by way of Agent Carter, is starting Season 7 in the 1930s. (And the team passes the Bela Lugosi Dracula poster to prove it.) Aside from the superficial entertainment value of seeing Phil Coulson, Daisy Johnson, Alphonso Mackenzie, and Deke Shaw in vintage costumes, the show is on fine form as far as action, humor, and revelations go.

It makes perfect sense to have Coulson (albeit a Life Model Decoy replica of Coulson, but still) walk amongst his agency's origin story, given his historical neediness. Look no further than his geeking out at meeting future President Franklin Roosevelt (whose eventual New Deal gives the episode its double-meaning title). The action in the episode has some nice touches, like Daisy's inflicting a sonic uppercut on a Chronicom Hunter, and Mack using what basically amount to wrestling finishing moves on smaller human beings.

The episode runs through the standard season premiere playbook. There's a reveal for a new command center (read: new fancy set). Characters are established as easing back into an old status quo, or adapting to a new one. Coulson adjusts to his new synthetic third chance at life; Jemma Simmons guards her future knowledge and shows a bit of a sadistic streak; and Melinda May and Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez are recovering from the events of the Season 6 finale.

There's a sense that some of these dynamics find the show repeating itself. As alluded to before, this is the second time Coulson has been brought back to life, after Project T.A.H.I.T.I. And Leo Fitz is missing yet again.

In any case, the episode ends with a fantastic twist: the team's new charge, who they must protect from Chronicom assassination, is none other than Gideon Malick's father as a young man, a future Head of Hydra! Suddenly this phase of the story clicks into focus, and I look forward to this being milked for drama next week.

A solid new status quo is established in the 1930s, topped by a devilishly clever twist. 7/10.