Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 10 review: Stolen

“Stolen,” Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 10, was a tense one. Spoilers follow.

“Stolen,” Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 10, definitely lived up to its name. The latest episode of the legendary Marvel TV series was an intense one.

It seemed like everything was swiped in one way or another. But first, some backstory: In this alternate timeline, Nathaniel Malick (Thomas E Sullivan) is never murdered by his brother Gideon, but he doesn’t take up the HYDRA mantle and legacy, either – he’s more of an anarchist, and much more villainous and charismatic than either his father or his brother ever are.

In “Adapt or Die,” Nathaniel siphoned off Daisy’s (Chloe Bennet) Inhuman Quake powers, and nearly killed her in the process.

In “After, Before,” thanks to his team-up with Sybil the Predictor, Nathaniel travels to China and Afterlife to prevent the suicide of a young Inhuman named Kora (Dianne Doan).

Together, they take over Afterlife and plan to unleash chaos upon the world.

1983 seems a little like 2020…

Things aren’t great in 1983, now that the team is out of the Quantum Realm (probably still sometime in October). Enoch is dead, and Inhumans are being kidnapped. Also, the Zephyr’s time clock is still broken.

Also, young John Garrett is still just as loathsome as his older, more battle-hardened self from the first season. He’s also the latest addition to Nathaniel’s team.

Family drama

Jiaying (Dichen Lachman) is brought by teleporter Gordon (teenage version) to the Zephyr, as the team decides that the timeline has already been shattered, so what’s some more meddling really going to do?

That includes her meeting Daisy for the first time, and they actually share a wonderful heart to heart about the messiness of people’s intentions and the struggles of motherhood.

Daisy also learns that she has a sister, and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Deke (Jeff Ward) try to figure out if she knows where Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) is.

Bad things

Nathaniel has been stealing Inhuman powers and injecting them into mercenary goons, and he goads Kora including executing one by incinerating his head (that sounds much worse in print, it was thankfully offscreen).

Deke and Simmons hypothesize that maybe she had never been communicating with Fitz at all, and that the Zephyr was pre-programmed by the Chronicoms to stop in each spot in time.

Nathaniel and Garrett sneak into the Lighthouse, where Garrett tries to master his new teleporting abilities and Nathaniel snaps Jiaying’s neck.

Summary

The good news for this episode is that Daisy and Jiaying got to reconcile their previous history. Also, Coulson (Clark Gregg), Yo-Yo (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) and Mack (Henry Simmons) are able to evacuate many of the imprisoned Inhumans on the Quinjet.

The bad news is that Simmons and Deke were kidnapped on the Zephyr, for, as Sibyl has forseen, in every future where she and Nathaniel are stopped, Fitz has something to do with it, and if the universe can’t keep them apart, then kidnapping Simmons will bring him to them somehow.

This episode started slowly, but ramped up the action quotient and tension steadily while beginning to shift the characters into their places for the series finale.

SHIELD shrapnel

• Young John Garrett was played by Bill Paxton’s real-life son James (Spy Kids 3, The Greatest Game Ever Played), which was an amazing touch, and his mannerisms were spot-on. The black turtleneck was a great detail, too.
• This is at least the fourth time in the series that Simmons has been kidnapped.
• Garrett’s banter with Coulson was a bit of lighthearted bittersweet levity, and the Avengers callback of Coulson’s original death in the future/past was entirely fitting for his character.
• “You were….devastated back there. Inconsolable, almost,” Daisy tells Simmons about her breakdown last week. (This is true, except that now she can’t remember whatever she momentarily was reliving.)
• “Well, say what you want to about the 1950s, but at least he doesn’t know that chivalry’s dead yet,” Simmons says of Sousa earlier in that same scene.
• “Sometimes….trying to do the right thing comes out all wrong,” Jiaying says.
• The Triskelion exists six years too early in this timeline (Ant-Man‘s opening scene, set in 1989, reveals that it’s about to open), Roxy revealed, and it’s entertaining that she has to attend the Academy because Deke wasn’t authorized to officially make her an agent.

Agents of SHIELD season 7, episode 11, “Brand New Day,” will be the final episode before the series finale. It will air on Wednesday, August 5 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.