5.7 Together Or Not At All Along with their character development, the episode reunites most of the cast and sends a chunk of them to Earth. The episode opens right where Fun And Games ends, with Daisy, Fitz, and Simmons on the run from the octagon. Daisy pokes fun at Fitz, telling him that he could have joined in the fight; he replies with the most adorably tough guy line of the night, “No, it wouldn’t be fair. I do push-ups now. Double digits.” Sounds like Lukaku is going to have some competition when Fitz makes it back to the present! Simmons is free of the facepaint, but still has the implant in her ear, which Fitz has to remove while a powerless Quake chokes out a Kree. S.H.I.E.L.D. continues its tribute to Star Wars, moving on from the first act of Return Of The Jedi to The Force Awakens, with their escape ship blowing up in right in front of them. Daisy, Fitz, and Simmons get in an elevator, but Maston-Dar* saw a sitcom once and pulls the wires out of the panel so their elevator shuts down. Daisy however, saw Die Hard and knows to go to the top of the elevator. Fitz and Simmons continue to be adorable; she says it’s great to be on the run again and he replies “together.” There’s a great piece of editing here as the camera tracks up with Quake as she climbs up the opening in the elevator… and out to a shot of Earth. May is on the run (or hobble, given her busted leg) as a Vrellnexian hunts her. Just as they’re about to get her, the creature is stabbed… by Enoch! May is understandably mad at him for the whole “sending her 75 years in to the future” thing, while he makes it worse by acting like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Meanwhile, back on the station, Maston-Dar cockily checks the elevator, only to discover that the agents escaped. In anger he grabs a nearby fruit basket peddler** and demands to know where they went. The dude clearly doesn’t know, so he slashes his neck, spraying blood all over the wall. The next peddler then looks up at the opening in the ceiling, which, come on. Maston-Dar is supposed to be a master hunter, but he didn’t think to look up? Here we get more meat for Kasius’ character. He defends himself to his brother’s posturing, pointing out that he did the best he could, but was overwhelmed. Kasius, with no training or experience, was put in charge of Kree forces and sent to defend a base in an overwhelming situation. Two of his generals were dead and he fled instead of dying, with Sinara protecting his life during their escape. He was exiled for escaping and not fighting to his death and his brother holds it against him. Fitz, Simmons, and Daisy find an air filtration system and discover that the artificial gravity for the station is made through… gravitonium! Its impressive how well S.H.I.E.L.D. has repurposed and built upon their early, weaker stories and made them more important in hindsight. Maston-Dar shows up but the three run away straight into Deke (ugh). Like the petulant teen he is, he broke a window in his room and escaped through space. It’s a kind of witty scene that leads to him unintentionally delivering the cheesy metafictional line, “We are OUT of time.” Mack, Phil, and Yo Yo sadly inform Flint that Tess was murdered. Flint leaves to cry and Mack goes over to comfort him. Flint feels responsible for Tess’ death. Not only were they hunting him, but he feels like his powers are useless because he couldn’t protect her. And if he couldn’t protect her, could he protect Mack? Aww, Flint is a sweet kid and he and Mack are bonding. Given that Mack and Yo Yo later decide to stay with him at the Lighthouse to fight, it seems like Mack is building a new family to replace the one he lost in the Matrix. Daisy, Fitz, Simmons, and Deke (ugh) find Coulson, Yo Yo and Mack. Unite the Seven! They then realise Flint has disappeared, and the show cuts to a tracking shot of a hooded figure walking through the Lighthouse to where Tess was hanged. The Kree in charge asks the hooded figure if he knows where the Inhuman is. The figure, like a Jedi, pulls back their hood to reveal that it’s Flint. There are audible gasps in the background to try to make the reveal shocking. It’s not and that comes across as a bit silly, but it’s still a well shot moment and is definitely something a teenager would do. He’s forced to the ground by a second Kree and some pebbles fall out of his pocket. He turns them in to a pointy rock and has it fly in to the eye of the first Kree. Sinara then knocks Flint out and uses him as bait to catch S.H.I.E.L.D. Hilariously, they failed to predict that the advanced alien race might have advanced alien technology that could shoot holes through walls. Coulson points out that they’re a “room full of secret agents, scientists, and superheroes” and that they should be able to come up with something. Maston continues to blast holes in the wall and there are some beautiful shots of Sinara in the dark, with a beam of light coming from the room splashed across her face. That room full of secret agents, scientists, and superheroes eventually agree on a plan developed by Deke (ugh) to use his gravity belt buckle to go up a conveniently placed shaft. He volunteers to go first and drop it down, but Daisy and Phil have spent time around him and tell him he’s going last. Fitz and Simmons go first, with Fitz quoting Henry V and Simmons quoting Doctor Who. Maston-Dar places explosives in the holes in the wall to make an even bigger hole in the wall. What he didn’t expect was that Sinara would make her own hole… IN HIM. Sinara walks over his dead body to see the shaft door closing. S.H.I.E.L.D. has escaped them a total of FIVE times this episode. There’s a moment in the episode where Daisy calls them “Mr. and Mrs. Boba Fett.” It’s fitting given how tough they’re portrayed while not actually being very good at their jobs. Sinara informs Kasius and Faulnak that our heroes and Deke (ugh) escaped to Earth. Faulnak calls out his brother for incompetency and says that if the puny humans can survive on Earth, so can Maston-Dar, so he’ll go hunt them there. Sinara informs him that Maston-Dar was killed… by her! Faulnak walks away and then supervillain laughs at her murdering his employee. He says that he underestimated her and her desire to climb up the ranks. He offers her a job working with him, where he believes she can have more success than with his loser brother. Kasius looks distraught while Faulnak continues to flirt with Sinara. The camera shows Faulnak looking at Sinara and suddenly seize up; the camera then pans down to show that Kasius stabbed him in the back. Faulnak falls to the floor and Kasius tells him, “Sinara is not some object to be taken.” He then monologues to Faulnak that they both knew the REAL truth, which was that their father sent him on a suicide mission. Those two generals weren’t killed by the other side, but by Sinara, because she agreed with Kasius that they should leave. Fitz and Simmons continue to disagree on who proposed first, while Coulson loses control of the ship and they start careening towards Earth. “We are so STUPID,” shouts a self-aware Deke (ugh). In the post credit scene, May wakes up in the Zephyr and sees Enoch. He tells her that “they” grabbed and anchored them during the gravity storm. Who does he mean by “they?” Several Rey cosplayers along with an old lady (Willow Hale) enter; the lady shows May a toy bird, implying that she is Robin Hinton, an Inhuman child from season 3 that could see into the past, future, and present. Again, S.H.I.E.L.D. doing an impressive job making forgettable stories from earlier seasons become major plot points; hopefully they’ll find a way to bring back the excellent Remington Hoffman. *Maston-Dar first appeared in The Inhumans: The Great Refuge and was created by Skip Dietz and Robert Brown. In the comics, he’s a generic looking caucasian Kree with a white ponytail. In the show, he’s a hot blue dude with a pitch black wavy mohawk and The Wicked + The Divine style face paint played by the hunky Remington Hoffman. This is easily one of the best updates in the MCU. Read Marc’s review of the previous episode, Fun And Games, here.
