The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 premiere gathers old friends, new faces, and an old face on a new… friend? Here’s what to expect in the season premiere, “Missing Pieces.”
Ahh, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. It’s been too long.
In fact, it’s been almost a full year since the tear-jerking finale of season 5. A quick refresh: When we last saw our agents, Daisy defeated Talbot-as-Graviton. Fitz died and Simmons vowed to find his time-travel duplicate. Elena was able to relax after months of dire warnings going unheeded, and Mack was voted Director. And of course, Coulson and May retired to Tahiti to spend Phil’s (apparently) final days in peace.
All in all, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 5 finale felt like a fitting last act for Marvel’s first foray into live-action television. So what can fans expect when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 roars back onto screens for further adventures?
Shifts in time…
Though absolutely brimming with mystery, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 premiere quickly establishes the story’s new terms of engagement. One is that time has passed — a year approximately equal our own — and the other…
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Well, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. takes full advantage of all that business about time travel, fluctuating futures, and fate from its previous season. Don’t be surprised if the show begins to deviate significantly from events in the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, even as it honors the themes of loss and recovery explored in installments like Avengers: Endgame.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. team plays by its own rules now, and displays neither the inclination nor the need to apologize for that powerful choice.
…and space
The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 premiere also continues to embrace its new penchant for intergalactic adventures. Agent May and Elena remain in the Lighthouse base with Mack as he shoulders the burdens of being Director. Their challenges are familiar, even as their new roles in Coulson’s palpable absence are not. The earthbound anomalies they face are by no means ordinary, but at least this half of the crew can take comfort in terra firma.
Meanwhile, Daisy and Simmons (supported by the always charming Agents Piper and Davis) currently have a lot more in common with the Guardians of the Galaxy than they do with their counterparts at S.H.I.E.L.D. The search for Fitz has plunged them neck-deep into alien territory, complete with nasty space gangsters, faster-than-light travel, and the looming threat of the Kree Confederacy.
But whether searching the distant heavens or cleaning up messes back on Earth, the rules for both sids of the team have changed. Along with this has come personal changes — not all of which may be for the better.
Promotions and emotions
Though as focused as ever, Elena has learned how to smile again, throwing herself into her work and relationships with renewed zeal. May, while still keenly attuned to Coulson’s absence, invests her energy into building S.H.I.E.L.D.’s future. Interestingly, this dedication to Coulson’s legacy seems to have had a lifting effect on the eternally-taciturn agent.
Mack, however, clearly struggles with the endless demands of his new position in “Missing Pieces.” It turns out there is a downside to laying the highest of responsibilities on a personality as righteous as his, and that is a renewed capacity to make himself… er, borderline miserable.
Up in space, Daisy feels the strain of the long search for Fitz, but is otherwise rather more steady than usual. The rigors of space allow Daisy to use her powers freely — a major point of anxiety in season 5 — and the pressure outside seems to have relieved the pressure within. The same can emphatically not be said of Simmons, who has sharpened to a point of pure and somewhat ruthless purpose. It remains to be seen whether her single-minded search for Fitz has strengthened her, or made her perilously fragile.
A new slew of crew
The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 premiere also introduces several new players in this multi-orbital cast. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been recruiting during their time offscreen, shifting dynamics within the core team and lending a sense of depth to the organization that has been missing for… well, a while. May also seeks to restore important arms that had been crushed and forgotten over several violent years, which opens up the possibility that life around S.H.I.E.L.D. may eventually return to something resembling normal.
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That is until the strangers arrive, anyway. The inscrutable Sarge, played by Clark Gregg, naturally provides the biggest mystery (specifically, ?????) but his compatriots aren’t too far behind. “Missing Pieces” isn’t terribly forthcoming as to the identities and motives of this group of weirdos, other than that they possess unusual methods of travel, questionable senses of style, and might be kind of crazy. But they have clearly arrived in May and Mack’s world for a reason, and it’s probably not one that aligns particularly well with the S.H.I.E.L.D. crew.
Hope is the thing that is weird
There’s no question about it, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 premiere is weird. In places, it skirts the line of “balls to the wall insane,” and this is clearly just the season’s opening salvo of strange.
But amid all of the change and craziness, there is a quirky sense of potential, and even hope that threads through “Missing Pieces.” Coulson seems to be dead, yes. But can we (and May) know for sure with his doppelgänger so immediately at hand? Simmons and Daisy sift through the vastness of the galaxy to find the single grain of sand that is Fitz, a quest that seems doomed to fail. Until, just maybe, it doesn’t.
And in the new frontier of time and space, it feels like just about anything might be possible. Charting their own course, masters of their own sky, the intrepid agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. shake their heads, brush off the dust of old adventures, and get back to work.
It’s wild and sad and different — and it’s exactly where they need to be.
The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 premiere, “Missing Pieces” airs on Friday, May 10 at 8:00 p.m. on ABC.