Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – The New Deal

By starrymag | June 3, 2020

By: Dustin Bradley

 

 

We begin this new adventure with a group of Hunter Chronicoms traveling back to New York City in the year 1931. Upon arriving they begin attacking a police chief and his two associates in an abandoned drug store. Instead of killing them to kill them, they use their technology to steal their faces so they can walk around with the identities. 

 

We then go back to the Zephyr where we last left Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), Agent Daisy “Skye” Johnson (Chloe Bennet) and Director Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie (Henry Simmons) when they activated the advanced Chronicom infused LMD [Life Model Decoy] of formerly dead Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). After his activation, two years of memories come flooding back and the enhanced knowledge that Simmons added is overheating his system, so Mack shuts it down and reprimands the girls for bringing him back despite Coulson’s own wishes. 

 

Simmons tells her fellow agents, including Agent Elena “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) and Fitz-Simmon’s from the future but now in the past/present grandson Deke Shaw (Jeff Ward), everything she knows so far. She knows that the Chronicoms want to destory SHIELD and in order to do that they want to hit specific points in time that are important to SHIELD history. Fitz and Enoch (Joel Stoffer) found a way to hit critical launch windows that hit time “tides.” Simmons introduces the team to Enoch and the new Zephyr workstations. She informs them that she doesn’t know where or when husband, Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), is and doesn’t need to because its not safe seeing as how the Chronicoms already scanned their brains once for information on how to destroy SHIELD. She sends Deke to go buy time appropriate clothes. Yo-Yo is being quarantined until they know she is clear of the Shrike infection.  Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) is still recovering from her injuries last season.

 

The team learns of the erasure of the police faces and sends a team on the ground that consists of Daisy, Mack, Deke and LMD Coulson. They head to the crime scene and on the way Deke explains his theory on time altering. He subscribes to a Time-Stream idea where time is moving along in a stream and we are all sticks and as long as we don’t throw too many obstacles in its way and create a dam then they should be fine. Basically they want to make “ripples and not waves” because waves will create time branches and multiverse timelines (This directly ties into Endgame because it is a different way of presenting the branch theory that The Ancient One describes to Bruce Banner/Hulk.).

 

At the crime scene they use the cover of being Royal Canadian Police called in to assist and until the intervention of Mack and Daisy asserting information and dominance they aren’t getting anywhere. But Daisy is a badass and she intimates the officer in charge of the door. Inside they find the cops with no faces and an unlucky alcohol bootlegger who is the one one identifiable. Coulson notices a bottle of whisky with a swordfish on it and tells them that not too long after SHIELD was established there was one of the first safehouses located at an old speakeasy where the password was “Swordfish.” Mack and Coulson look into swordfish and Deke and Daisy stay behind to use a face reconfiguration machine to find out who these cops really are

 

Back in the Zephyr Enoch is mending May and Simmons tells Yo-Yo that her body is breaking down the Shrike so she will be okay. However, before Yo-Yo is cleared to go outside she needs one last thing – new arms. Even more sophisticated than the one Fitz made for Coulson all those years ago.  Simmons tells Yo-Yo that she loves her mechanical arms, but they will be too distracting and draw too much attention to them. Not to mention they are too advanced looking for the time. Yo-Yo has to think about it because shes grown accustomed to her arms and she doesn’t want to pretend her accident didn’t happen.

 

Mack and Coulson find the speakeasy. They are looking for the head honcho known only as “Gemini,” but as soon as they mention the name it’s guns drawn. After a little fight ensues they meet “Gemini” – a/k/a Ernest “Hazard” Koenig (Patton Oswalt), which now makes sense since the Koenig family are the sworn protectors of many SHIELD safehouses in the future. 

 

More cops show up to the crime scene so Daisy has to distract them while Deke finishes up inside. Unknown to her they are the “Chronicops” impostors. One of them takes Daisy around back and the other attacks Deke inside, but as soon as he sees him he recognizes him from his machine. Out back Daisy uses her powers to seize and kidnap one of the Chronicops. 

 

In the Zephyr Yo-Yo has decided to get her new arms and cries at the sense of her newfound human touch that she has lacked for herself for a long time. Simmons and Yo-Yo talk about missing Fitz and in the middle of their conversation Deke and Daisy arrive with one of the Chronicops.

 

LMD Coulson and Mack talk with Koenig who introduce them to barkeep Freddy (Darren Barnet) and tells them that his bootlegger was meeting with the cops because he’s supplying booze to a political party that night for the Governor, who at this time is soon to be president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who after becoming president renames SSR to SHIELD. So, the Chronicoms are after FDR. 

 

Later that night at the party Mack tells Daisy to post up with Coulson at the door while Deke and him stay with Freddy at the bar. Daisy apologizes to LMD Coulson for bringing him back against the actual Coulson’s wishes, but he tells her not to apologize because at this point he was brought back for a reason. FDR (Joseph Culp) then shows up and gives a small speech and both Coulson and Mack fanboy. Soon after FDR heads to a service entrance to rest in his wheelchair where he meets Daisy and LMD Coulson. It seems the Chronicoms weren’t after FDR after all. So who is? Well… 

 

Simmons, Yo-Yo and Enoch torture the Chronicop with a data overload hoping that it will make him spill some pertinent information. He tells them that they know the exact threads to pull in order to unravel SHIELD. It turns out that they weren’t after FDR, but they were after FRD as in Freddy. 

 

A mysterious woman meets with Freddy at the bar and pulls him aside to speak to him privately. She tells him that she worked with his father before he died and she soon gives him some mysterious vials to take to the docks. Not too long after that the remaining Chronicops show up and try to attack Freddy and end up shooting the mystery lady. Daisy and Coulson manage to fight them off and soon take the lady to Koenig. Mack and Deke drive Freddy to the docks.

 

At the speakeasy Koenig lets it slip that Freddy is Wilfred ‘Freddy’ Malick. As in the founder of HYDRA. Father of Gideon Malick. So, in order to save SHIELD, they have to save the future of HYDRA! 

 

In the post episode tease Enoch goes to check on May who is awake and hiding. We shall see where this leads! Is she infused with Shrike? How will she react to seeing an LMD Coulson?