TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 7 Episode 8

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 7 Episode 8 “After, Before”

Director: Eli Gonda

Starring: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Jeff Ward, Joel Stoffer

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 45 minutes

After the last episode zoomed in on Mack with support from Deke, this one is about Yo-Yo, and, to a lesser extent, May.  “After, Before” digs into the past of Shield’s resident speedster as she attempts to get her powers back but the additions it makes to Yo-Yo’s backstory feel random, and ultimately her experiences here don’t really change her that much.  Between that and the scattered nature of the episode’s other material, it’s another messy installment that can’t make its task of managing a few necessary plot beats to set up later developments that entertaining.

In addition to being a poetic description of the weirdness of time travel the title “After, Before” is a rather straightforward description of what occurs.  Following a brief sequence depicting what the rest of the team was up to during what was for them the very short amount of time Deke and Mack were stranded (which was not much of interest, really)  Simmons deduces that the time between jumps and the length of time each jump covers are both rapidly decreasing and that the ship will be destroyed in a couple of days.  To make matters worse, the group is unable to access the time drive due to a dangerous wave of cascading energy it’s emitting at a rapid rate.  Their only hope is to get Yo-Yo’s powers back so she can make the repairs between waves.  To do so, the still-recovering Daisy suggests that the group take advantage of being stuck in the early 80s and send Yo-Yo to receive advice on managing her powers from Daisy’s mother and Inhuman leader, Jiaying (Dichen Lachman, returning from Season 2).  Meaning, Shield has to go to Afterlife, long before they ever discovered it, and before Daisy was even born.

The questionable quality of writing in the episode is immediately apparent.  The choice to send any group to Afterlife without Daisy is a logical one for the characters, given both her injured state and the possibility of causing changes to her personal timeline, but is baffling from a storytelling perspective.  Yes, I’m sure there will be the desired mother-daughter reunion eventually (the way things play out for Jiaying here, it’s almost certain she’ll be back) but having to literally confront her past like this should be a big deal for Daisy from the get-go, especially given how she just went through exactly the kind of horrific torture Jiaying is fated to be met with.  Instead, the character is sidelined once again, with her only really notable scene being an admittedly nice dialogue with Coulson, which is more about his existential issues with being a form of robot.

But, anyway, on to the Inhuman heroine, the episode is actually interested in.  Sending Yo-Yo to Afterlife is in itself a solid idea.  She didn’t get her powers or join Shield until after the Inhuman haven closed up shop and instead had to deal with her transition on her own so it’s interesting to see how she reacts to experiencing the closest thing her people had to a functioning society (remember, we don’t talk about the Inhumans show) and culture.  Jiaying’s suggestion that it’s only Yo-Yo herself that’s preventing her powers from working should also lead to some nice, introspective character work in theory and at first it seems like it’s going to, when May suggests sparring as an alternative therapy to meditation.  This results in some flashbacks to a time when Yo-Yo was a kid when her family’s house was robbed and she quickly ran back and forth from where she and her cousin were hiding to grab a treasured family necklace.  The noise makes the robbers think Yo-Yo’s uncle is holding out on them and they kill him.  It’s supposed to be a moving experience about overcoming past trauma when Yo-Yo realizes this memory has shaped her psychology in drastic ways and not only is able to use her powers again, but casts off the “bouncing back” limitation they’ve always had, but the addition of the memory is so sloppily handled that pretty much the whole storyline falls flat (except May playing therapist because of her emotional sponge powers, which is predictably amusing).  The timing of it is one thing (seriously, who thought it was a good idea to reveal a supposedly foundational bit of backstory for a main character until there were only five episodes remaining in the series?) but the nature of the storyline is also so on the nose that it doesn’t feel genuine.  Yo-Yo, and even more than her, Natalia Cordova-Buckley are both deserving of more attention but the episode fails them by not making their time in the spotlight worthwhile.

The rest of the Afterlife material is a bit more interesting for the ways in which it adds to the show’s mythology.  When May and Yo-Yo arrive they witness a young woman trying to escape and being halted by guards.  Her name is Kora (Dianne Doan), a young Inhuman with immense energy powers that she can’t control.  Jiaying seeks a humane way to neutralize the threat to Afterlife while also helping Kora, and agrees to help Yo-Yo despite her unusual story because she hopes her condition might lead to the discovery of a way to remove Kora’s powers.  Jiaying’s more hard-edged second-in-command, Li (Byron Mann), favors a more lethal approach, however.  Dichen Lachman did a good job making Jiaying both compassionate and ruthless at different points during her Season 2 stint but this pre-torture Jiaying is definitely the softest we’ve seen her (give or take the few flashbacks to even earlier in her life), a contrast that’s sure to become more important when she inevitably meets Daisy.  But her attempts at kindness are ultimately futile, as when Kora makes another break for it, intending to kill herself, she is stopped by Nathaniel Malick, now in control of his stolen quake powers and looking to raise hell.  After being told of his own originally fated demise by Sibyl, Nathaniel has adopted a quasi-anarchist philosophy and seeks to tear down what he sees as corrupt institutions of control as a middle finger to fate.  He turns Kora to his side with absurd ease and with the help of some goons packing Chronicom weapons, lays siege to Afterlife, and plans to shake up the process of deciding who goes through Terrigenesis.  Thomas E. Sullivan continues to do adequate work giving Nathaniel an unsettling presence but the character isn’t really compelling enough to warrant the amount of time being spent on him.  I certainly hope he’s not being set up to be the final season’s Big Bad.  The attack on Afterlife also explains that Jiaying has a personal stake in keeping Kora safe when it’s revealed she is her daughter.  This is another reason why leaving Daisy out of the main plot was such a poor decision.  Not only is she not around when it’s revealed she has a sibling but she’s not even told later in the episode.  The only small consolation offered by this twist is that it means she has to have a larger role going forward.

A young Gordon (Fin Argus), teleports Jiaying, May, and Yo-Yo to the safety of the Quinjet but just when it seems like we’re being set up for Daisy to meet her mom Jiaying demands to return to Afterlife to protect her people.  Having overcome her issues Yo-Yo makes the needed repairs to the ship but mere moments later Enoch notes that the time drive is still malfunctioning and the Zephyr jumps again, making an already weak episode also feel less relevant.

Notes:

• After at least a season and a half of putting the Inhuman mythology on the backburner, this episode really threw us back in the deep end of it.  When was the last time someone even said the word Terrigenesis?
•  I feel like if Cal was in the picture at this point there would be some mention of him, so I’m assuming Daisy and Kora are half-sisters.  A Kyle Maclachlan cameo would be a dream come true but I don’t really see it happening.
•  Jemma gives Sousa a more modern leg prosthetic which is nice.
•  Speaking of Sousa, I know I’ve brought up how quickly he seems to have developed feelings for Daisy a lot and again, I actually think a romance between the two has potential but him settling in to watch over her as she sleeps in the healing pod was weird.  They may be on a time machine but they still met like what, a week ago?