The Positives and Negatives of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D 7×06 “Adapt or Die”

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s sixth episode of season 7, “Adapt or Die,” gives us a deadly dose of seriousness to our season of time-travel adventures. The team goes through a ton of physical and mental pain in “Adapt or Die.” The heaviest pain going to one Alphonso Mackenzie.

One of the things that TV shows love to do is put their fans through the wringer. Usually that through an entire season but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gives us a season’s worth in “Adapt or Die.” So let’s highlight the positives and negatives of this game-changing episode!

POSITIVES

Poor Mack. It was great to finally meet his parents and seeing the joy he was having to see them again after so long. He even got to do the “Introduce your parents to the serious girlfriend” thing that we’ve all done. So if your heart doesn’t break when they’re revealed to be Chronicoms, you have no heart. Being a leader is difficult in any situation but this one is the one that will break anyone. Henry Simmons doesn’t get enough love for how well he makes us feel everything Mack feels. When Mack’s heart breaks as he pushes the chronicom that looks and acts like his mom out of the plane, our heart breaks too.
Coulson sacrifices himself once again — this time to take out the Chronicom hunters. Human or Machine, Phil Coulson will always do the right thing to save the people he cares about.
One strength of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is always to make us care about these characters no matter how long we’ve been with them. Another is the ability to get us to ship almost any pairing on the show. Once again they have succeeded with Sousa and Daisy. Don’t get mad Agent Carter fans, but the spark between the two is real. They have a good dynamic that hopefully gets explored more in the back half of season 7.

“WE ARE GOING HOME AGENT JOHNSON.” That’s the moment that ships are built on.
May’s superpower comes us big in “Adapt or Die” so many times that we lost track.
Finally we find out what’s happening with Jemma! It seems that she and Enoch put a implant in her so that she can’t remember where Fitz is. After a bit of confusion on Deke’s part about the situation (that’s nothing new), Enoch is able to fix “Diana” and Simmons gets everything back to normal. Including not knowing where Fitz is.
Deke calling Enoch a member of the FitzSimmons family = ALL THE FEELS IN THE WORLD.

“Agent Macklemore” — Yo-Yo calling Mack that to his parents to avoid any time-travel confusion was a rare funny moment in a very serious episode.
The end tag has Mack and Deke getting stuck in the 80s after the Zephyr makes the jump without them. How long will these two be in the 80s?

NEGATIVES

No Fitz again. But it does feel like we are closer to seeing him again, right? Right?
Please stop hurting Daisy. Between that slimeball Malick taking her powers and put her through that torture, it hurts. So glad that Malick quaked himself that lets Sousa escape with Daisy.
Please let this be the last time we ever hear the name “Malick” again on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Coulson/ Sibyl confrontation felt fine but also lack any sizzle to it. Perhaps because even with Coulson blowing up the Hunters and himself, we realize that it is far from the last time we will see either again.
Realizing that we are half-way through the last season. Going to need a moment to come to terms with this.