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Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 3 review: Alien Commies from the Future

By Wesley Coburn

MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. - "Alien Commies from the Future!" - A surprise leap forward in time has stranded Enoch in 1931 and landed the team in yet another unfamiliar decade. Now, in order to stop the chronicoms from launching their newest future-dismantling plan, the agents will have to infiltrate one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most secure bases. They won't be able to succeed without help from a familiar face or two on an all-new episode of "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." airing WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 (10:00 - 11:00 p.m. EDT), on ABC. - (ABC/Mitch Haaseth)HENRY SIMMONS, NATALIA CORDOVA-BUCKLEY
MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. - "Alien Commies from the Future!" - A surprise leap forward in time has stranded Enoch in 1931 and landed the team in yet another unfamiliar decade. Now, in order to stop the chronicoms from launching their newest future-dismantling plan, the agents will have to infiltrate one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most secure bases. They won't be able to succeed without help from a familiar face or two on an all-new episode of "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." airing WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 (10:00 - 11:00 p.m. EDT), on ABC. - (ABC/Mitch Haaseth)HENRY SIMMONS, NATALIA CORDOVA-BUCKLEY /
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In Agents of SHIELD season 7 episode 3, the team got a space-age adventure in their latest chapter.

Agents of SHIELD season 7 episode 3, “Alien Commies from the Future,” saw the return of a familiar MCU face as their latest adventure continued.

But how did the team get into the 1950s in the first place?

After the Zephyr One was turned into a time machine late in season 6, the team built a Coulson LMD (Clark Gregg) to help them in their fight to take back Fury’s Toolbox and prevent the Cylon-like Chronicoms from taking over the Earth.

Their first task was in 1931 New York City in “The New Deal” and “Know Your Onions,” as Mack (Henry Simmons) and Deke (Jeff Ward) kept a teenage bartender from being assassinated, ensuring that he would go on to father HYDRA founder Gideon Malick, so that the SSR/SHIELD would in turn be formed as well.

Daisy (Chloe Bennet) has loved being in the past, but she’s realizing that time travel makes a lot of ethical decisions really, really gray. Also, she met Governor Franklin Roosevelt.

Back on the Zephyr, Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) has kept an eye on recovering patients May (Ming-Na Wen) and Yo-Yo (Natalia Cordova-Buckley).

To infinity… and beyond

Turns out Area 51 is a SHIELD base, according to the Coulson LMD, which figures. And on this SHIELD base around 1955, they’re testing a prototype ion fusion cannon, which 120 years later will power massive superweapons (think Star Destroyer lasers). That experiment, according to history, failed. So this week’s mission is simple: Make sure it fails again…after beating the Chronicoms to it, of course.

Pleasantville meets generic sci-fi drive-in movie

The 1950s are an amazing time of technological and societal change for the agents to find themselves in, for sure (fast food, interstate highways, grocery stores all began then), but the decade also had its fair share of problems (depression, alcoholism, PTSD, etc). Among these problems were sexism, misogyny, racism and an arrogant belief that America was superior to all other nations – and all of those behaviors are on display in this episode through Gerald Sharpe, a Department of Defense worker that the team kidnaps for interrogation purposes.

The good side of hopping into this era was using pop-culture references and stereotypes to determine which scientists and random bus riders were actual humans (Dwight Eisenhower, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper and the ending of Casablanca all get mentions.) This scene felt very similar to the train scene in Captain Marvel, which was fun.

Masks behind masks

On the entertaining side of the scale, Daisy flipped into full Skye mode as she posed as a CIA operative when meeting SHIELD LA branch chief Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj), who played it fairly cool when pretending he didn’t know Peggy Carter (actually Simmons, who was enjoying this way too much, as the Coulson LMD noted).

Sousa, of course, had to sort out why strangers were on a restricted base and what they were up to, and then when the action started, May and Yo-Yo tried to save the day (posing as Air Force test pilots)….where they both failed miserably. Yo-Yo froze again (and was quite irritable about it), while May had a panic attack.

Summary

Ultimately, the fusion device failed after Simmons and Daisy rigged up an EMP to take it out, though not before one Chronicom nearly suffocated Yo-Yo and another came close to doing the same to Sousa.

Mack and Deke also got an entertaining revenge on Sharpe by convincing him he was abducted by aliens, which was Ernest Koenig’s (Patton Oswalt) first thought two decades earlier when he first saw the Zephyr. Deke also was given a lot of growth this episode, hopefully that will be explored further.

Given the setting of the Flying Rocket Diner and the conversations that happen there, this felt very similar to the pilot, going back to Skye’s conversation with Mike (J August Richards) and then the team’s interrogation of Sharpe (and the first Skye vs Ward battle of wits).

Agents of SHIELD. S7E3. Alien Commies from the Future. A-. Agents of SHIELD season 7 episode 3, “Alien Commies from the Future,” packed another emotional throwback adventure inside a quippy through rather slow story.

Agents of SHIELD season 7 episode 3, “Alien Commies from the Future,” packed a solid mix of heavy emotional toll underneath a glossy outer coating of nostalgic chrome brightness, making for a very solid episode overall.

SHIELD shrapnel

  • Though Coulson said it was 1955, the car advertisement on the transistor radio listed a “brand new 1955 model” vehicle, which would make it 1954, unless the ad was fairly old, which could happen as it was a local commercial.
  • The kamikaze spy looked very much like American Ninja Warrior Jessie Graff, who in her day job as a stuntwoman has worked on superhero projects including Avengers: Age of Ultron and Wonder Woman 1984.
  • Simmons as Carter was LITERALLY THE BEST.
  • Sousa’s anger at the idea of HYDRA infiltrators in the SHIELD ranks was heartbreaking in retrospect, knowing that’s exactly what happens.
  • Ming-Na Wen is an amazing actress. The whole cast is, but especially portraying May’s recent exceptional aloofness and then the panic attack (and following bewilderment) right after…wow.
  • Instead of the off-kilter 1930s gangster movie font for the title card, this time it was a red 1950s-inspired sci-fi lettering, which was a good touch.
  • Opening with the young couple terrified by the aliens was a nice beginning.

Next. Enver Gjokaj on Steve/Peggy Endgame ending. dark

Agents of SHIELD season 7 episode 4, “Out of the Past,” will air on ABC on Wednesday, June 17 at 10 p.m. ET.

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