TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 Episode 11

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 Episode 11 “From the Ashes”

Director: Jennifer Phang

Starring: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, Natalia Cordova-Buckley

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 42 minutes

S.H.I.E.L.D. finally attempts to rectify Season 6’s biggest problem and while to some extent, it is too little too late the effort still results in one of the most emotionally striking if uneven episodes of the season.  Yes, “From the Ashes” finally gives Daisy a meaningful story but still I wonder why the creators waited so long to do so this year.  Still, the scenes of her confronting Sarge and facing her grief over Coulson elevate what is otherwise simply the season’s final transitional episode.

Other than Daisy and Sarge’s intertwined story all “From the Ashes” is concerned with is moving all the pieces into place for the finale’s final confrontation with Izel.  After tricking Yo-Yo into revealing that Benson has vital intel related to the non-corporeals, Izel forces the doctor to reveal all he knows by threatening him with the emotional trauma of having to see fear dimension constructs of his husband killed over and over again.  By episode’s end, Izel is in a temple preparing to bring her people to our world, where they will possess the bodies of Shrike-controlled humans.  The last thing she needs to do so is her own Monoliths and the fear dimension energy conjures the one thing Mack and Yo-Yo know can give her just that: Flint.  Seeing Coy Stewart’s Inhuman earth-bender again is the kind of utter shock that makes the end of a S.H.I.E.L.D. season such a fun stretch of TV.

Unfortunately, a lot of the other beats throughout the episode don’t work quite as well as the Flint twist or the Daisy storyline.  While it’s understandable why Mack and Yo-Yo aren’t really scared while being held captive given how often members of the core S.H.I.E.L.D. team are kidnapped and escape completely unharmed it feels strange having them discuss their relationship when Davis and several other faceless agents have recently been killed.  Speaking of Davis’ death, arguably the biggest problem with “From the Ashes” is how little it follows up on it.  Piper is angry of course, but she doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary or get any additional screen time to mourn and nobody else is noticeably affected.  It’ll be a shame if we lost such a fun supporting character for no reason.  Killing Davis was obviously meant to make Izel more of a threat but that didn’t really work that well and arguably wasn’t necessary as Karolina Wydra’s performance is suitably menacing.  Furthermore, it’s clear already that the Sarge storyline is the main dramatic focus of the season, not the threat of the other non-corporeals.

Thankfully, the Sarge story and the ways it affects our favorite agents remain enthralling.  Chloe Bennet and Clark Gregg are fantastic together, taking advantage of the opportunity to explore a much more antagonistic relationship than the father-daughter bond they played so well for five years.  The writing for Daisy is also impressive for the way it gets around the one problem with the Sarge storyline.  Coulson’s death and Sarge’s existence have predictably led Season 6 to have a heavy focus on grief but the fantastical nature of the latter means it isn’t always the most relatable depiction of the topic.  Simply put, when real people mourn, they don’t then run into exact duplicates of the people they’ve lost.  So, to some extent, Daisy’s refusal to believe that Sarge existing means anything changes in regards to Coulson is the most healthy reaction.  It’s really May who’s in the least healthy place, with her constant hope for (another) miraculous return for Coulson.  This hasn’t really been a big issue so far but it threatens to topple the Daisy storyline.  Fortunately, the writers cleverly recontextualize Daisy’s reaction, and even more impressively, do so in a way that’s based on her history as a character.  Simmons points out that Daisy’s refusal to believe that there may be a possibility of Coulson returning through Sarge is the latest example of a pattern of behavior with her, namely that Daisy has a tendency to run away before properly dealing with trauma or other emotional problems.  She did it when she first got her powers, she did it big time when Lincoln died, and she did it again when Coulson died when she practically jumped at the chance to go to space to look for Fitz, rather than adjust to life at S.H.I.E.L.D. without her surrogate father.  It’s a graceful bit of writing that not only gets the story out of a potential corner but does so through one of the series’ most compelling relationships (if anyone but Jemma had given Daisy this advice it probably wouldn’t have landed, neither for Daisy nor the viewer).  By episode’s end, Daisy’s newfound hope to get Coulson back is affecting, rather than feeling like a step backward into denial.

And the way that hope comes about is genuinely powerful.  While Daisy might recognize the wisdom in Simmons’ advice eventually, she can’t take it until she sees the potential Sarge offers for herself.  Once again taking over while S.H.I.E.L.D. is without a director, Daisy spends most of the episode trying to provoke Sarge (by inflicting mortal injury on him repeatedly) into unleashing Pachakutiq’s full power, in the hopes that he can be used to take out Izel.  But when her plan works too well and Sarge breaks out of containment Daisy decides to put him down, hoping that she’ll at least be able to confirm whether his sword will be able to kill Izel.  Sarge, who is still himself firmly against Izel, is all for the plan, encouraging the hesitant Daisy to take his head off before he can be made to serve his mortal enemy.  And as he pleads for his own murder, a vital bit of Coulson slips out of Sarge, adding to Sarge’s command to “Do it,” one more vital word that changes everything: “Skye.”  It’s a level of emotional shock that marks great television and it’s sold perfectly by Gregg, who somehow manages to convey that he’s now speaking for two different characters, and Bennet, whose stunning heartache causes the viewer to feel the same.

As is always the case heading into a S.H.I.E.L.D. finale, the viewer is left with a lot of questions.  Some of the most pertinent ones currently are how will Izel be defeated, what’s up with the Chronicoms (and on a meta-level, will that storyline ever become interesting), and, of course, is anyone important going to die?  But “From the Ashes” mostly raises two others.  First, there’s the issue of whether Ghost Rider (or rather a Ghost Rider) will make an appearance.  I say no to Gabriel Luna making a cameo just based on the production timeline but the odds of Clark Gregg’s head lighting on fire again seem to be at about fifty-fifty.  Visually, what we’ve seen of Pachakutiq’s powers don’t look similar to everyone’s favorite fire demon’s but the way Sarge describes anger constantly churning inside him sounded very much like how Robbie Reyes described living with the Rider.  Last, and most importantly, however, there’s the question that the show’s been posing all season: can Coulson be salvaged from Sarge?

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