Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 5, Episode 5 Review

Remember when Agents of SHIELD did "4,722 Hours" back in Season 3? The standalone bottle episode focused entirely on Simmons' ordeal on a hostile alien planet? Well, that episode was almost universally acclaimed and has thus spurred writer Craig Titley on to produce another bottle episode for Season 5 with a similar approach. Due to other working commitments, actor Iain De Caestecker wasn't able to reprise his role as Fitz from the start of this season, and thus is given an episode entirely dedicated to him here, and I think its safe to say that "Rewind" is the episode of Agents of SHIELD I've been looking forward to all season (which, admittedly, isn't all too long in the grand scheme of things).

Joining Fitz on his quest to find the SHIELD team is returning agent Lance Hunter (Nick Blood), who left along with Bobbi Morse (Adrianne Palicki) in the third season. Since then, their spin-off series Marvel's Most Wanted was cancelled after only a pilot episode, and Palicki has moved on to star in Seth MacFarlane's The Orville. It made sense that Hunter would return to the show, and while he was never my favourite character, his guest appearance here feels somewhat earned. His dynamic with Fitz is surprisingly entertaining and watchable throughout the episode, along with some light touches of humour ("the best pilot money can buy..." and "release the ferrets" being clear standouts) to prevent the episode from being too dark. Because, ultimately, when so much of your episode revolves around a depressed Fitz locked up and trying to reach his friends again, its difficult not to feel quite down-beat by the end of it all - but, writer Craig Titley sprinkles in these humorous moments to ensure that we still have fun with what still is a comic book show after all.

There was also a nice bit of continuity with the inclusion of Robin, whose father was a guest character back in Season 3. While it's not a story-line that had stuck in my memory, its inclusion was very nice for long-time fans, and added to the satisfying resolutions to the kidnap story-line. We finally got our answers...and it actually didn't take too long at all. The mysterious man who kidnapped the team at the end of Season 4 was in fact fulfilling a prophecy from Robin to save the future of the human race, and is in fact a nice alien called Enoch. It wasn't the answer I was expecting, but I certainly felt satisfied with this episode's pay-off.

In fact, this episode satisfied me completely as a viewer. Rarely do television series actually come up with resolutions to ongoing story threads that feel satisfactory, never mind the fact that its all been pretty well-paced so far this season. The showrunners of Agents of SHIELD have clearly learned from last season that people appreciate shorter, tighter story-telling, and not just the same, repetitive twenty-something episode story-telling that a lot of other main US network shows tend to aim for (I'm looking at you, DC). "Rewind" was a practically perfect episode of Agents of SHIELD, but is one that works much better as a segment of a greater whole rather than as a standalone piece.

Do I have any criticisms with this episode? Well, yeah: there were a lot of plot conveniences all tied to this Rusty fella who Hunter kept going on about. Seemed a bit of a cop-out to me. Oh well.

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