“Everyone’s dream is someone else’s nightmare.”
“The Other Thing”, felt like one of those good dreams that sticks with you for the rest of the week. Both earth and space story-lines moved forward as we got to see reunions, farewells and one last glimpse of our Phil Coulson. Unfortunately though, by the end of the episode, nightmares are what awaits our team as we found out the reason why Sarge and his crew came to our earth and friendships were torn asunder. So let dive into “The Other Thing,” by seeing how things are going with the team on Earth after May’s kidnapping..
A FAMILIAR STRANGER
Most of the episode is spent with Sarge and his crew, who do a heavy sell to get May to join their group. The first idea is to lock her in a room with a person infected with one of those weird alien spikey creature things. May succeeds in killing it with a identical blade that Yo-Yo used on Keller in the last episode. So it’s good to know there things have one weakness.
The little test doesn’t endear May to Sarge, so he decides to tell her everything about their mission. They are hunters….and the spike alien bird creatures are what they are hunting. Except they are usually too late to stop the creatures known as Shrikes from infecting the earths so…they end up having to destroy them. I have to say from the way Sarge made it sound, they’ve been chasing these things a while and not doing a very good job at it.
While all this is happening, May reflects back to her last days with Coulson before he passed away. It’s a side of May we rarely ever see: happy, smiling and living a dream with the person she loves. But like most dreams, it ends way too soon, as Coulson passes away beside May in paradise. Ming-Na Wen does a terrific job of showing so many emotions in those flashback scenes of someone who knows what is going to happen, but trying not to let it ruin those last moments of love for her. I know we say it every week but Ming-Na Wen is such a great actor, and she has made Melinda May into such a iconic character who is bad-ass as they come but still deep inside as sensitive as us all.
Now I know some of the fans (okay me), thought that May might have trouble fighting someone with the face of the person she loved. Well, I was wrong. After dispatching Snowflake in a clever, yet simple manner, we see May at her most brutal, as she is literally choking out Sarge with a rope. After a quick battle and a taunt by Sarge ( “If he was your dream, I’m your nightmare.”) May punches out Sarge and takes control of the big rig. So, May took out almost the whole group by herself, and is now taking them to the Watchtower as her prisoners.
Melinda May gets shit done.
But when May brings them back to the Watchtower, who’s going to be there to greet her? Well a few space-bound agents make their return to old planet Earth….but not all of them.
HELLO AND GOODBYE
As for the space side of things, things progressed even further in the search for Fitz. Well, actually they’e found Fitz, but now the new mission has become “Rescue Fitz: Part 32.” It seems that the mysterious man who captured Fitz at the end of the “Kitson” episode was hired by the Chronicoms. Seems as though the Chronicoms planet was destroyed (most likely by the Shrikes), and they want Fitz to help them figure out time travel so they can change that fate. Sounds easy don’t it?
After meeting up with Enoch and becoming friends with him, Daisy and Simmons have him meet up with the representative of the Chronicoms, who is very familiar with Enoch. After some back and forth threatening, Enoch tells the Chronicoms that the only way to get Fitz to do what they want is to threaten Simmons.
Yeah, sorry Enoch, but I think any hope of becoming Fitz’s best friend forever might have went out the window with that leaking of information.
So as everything is looking bad and the team is about to fight overwhelming odds once again, Simmons shows yet again why she is willing to do anything to save Fitz and her friends. Jemma tells the Chronicoms that she will go with them and help Fitz if they let Daisy, Piper and Davis go free.
This leads to the most emotional scene of the episode (okay, tied with the flashback moment where May realizes Coulson has passed away in Tahiti) as Jemma says her goodbyes to Daisy.
A friendship that can never be broken. #AgentsofSHIELD @chloebennet pic.twitter.com/SUkIpI800d
— Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (@AgentsofSHIELD) June 15, 2019
Daisy has seen everyone she’s ever gotten close to leave her, in one form or another. Losing Simmons would fill her with another pain that would be unbearable. Now, we all know that this isn’t the end of their journey, but Daisy doesn’t and that hurts her in ways we couldn’t imagine. Jemma and Daisy have always been like sisters, and that bond has been constant in this season so far. From the drug-induced declarations of love for one another to the arguments over anything and everything, they have shown that closeness that two people who have grown to love and care for each other as a family feel. So the tears Daisy has at the end of the episode as she is saying goodbye to Jemma aren’t tears for fear of losing a friend. Those are tears of the fear of losing a piece of your family.
So Daisy, Piper and Davis have returned to Earth to find a few big things waiting for them: mainly the bad guy has the face of the person Daisy cared the most about in her entire life. And also, a bunch of alien spikey creatures could destroy this planet very soon.
The two story-lines are finally slowly connecting and it feels about time, too. While it’s disappointing to not have the entire team together again, it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens when Daisy meets Sarge and her reaction to it. The intensity of the season has picked up a few notches with this episode and it’s exciting to see.
MISSION BRIEFINGS:
- We get a all too short scene with Yo-Yo and Mack as he tries to comfort her after Keller’s death. I feel bad when didn’t get to spend a lot of time dealing with what happened there and how it’s affecting Yo-Yo but I am glad we got this moment between the two at least.
- Benson concludes that the monoliths are somehow involved with the Shrikes and what they are doing to the planet. We got a little more insight to Benson’s character here but I’m still not connecting to him. I don’t dislike his character, I just feel ehhhhhh about him.
- Next week’s episode looks to be very heavy on the FITZSIMMONS…….and I CAN’T WAIT.
What did you think of “The Other Thing” ? Let us know in the comments section below.