Tears

Source: ABC Studios/Marvel Television. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Ava Kolker as Robin Hinton, Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May.

If you missed last week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., catch up here. This week, we have a fun-filled episode full of time travel and heartbreak. Let’s go!

Our episode starts in the past – or rather, the present. In 2018, Melinda May is flying the Zephyr through a gravity storm. Robin Hinton assures May that they will survive this crash. They suddenly crash. Back in 2091, aboard the crashed Zephyr, an elderly Robin is telling time-travelling May the same thing, but she doesn’t understand – she was pulled from the time-stream, and never lived the timeline in which she crashed. Another true believer, a man named Samuel Voss, explains that Robin has important things to say, but her mind is like a deck of cards shuffled out of order. Her predictions are correct though – she predicted that S.H.I.E.L.D. was about to crash on the ruins of the surface of the Earth, and here they are.

Phil Coulson, Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons reunite with May while their frenemy Deke Shaw reunites with Voss, who was a close friend of Deke’s dad Owen. Voss tells him that his dad is a few days out at a radio tower, and should be on his way back.

Aboard the Lighthouse, Kasius and Sinara come up with a battle plan. Sinara will go to Earth and follow the agents that are surviving there aboard the crashed plane, while Kasius will dedicate his resources to stopping anyone who helped them still aboard the Lighthouse. On Level 10, Flint, Mack and Yo-Yo make their way through the corridor, when suddenly the power and water go out on Kasius’ orders. The residents of the Lighthouse start blaming Flint, saying he should have turned himself in. Mack stands up for him – they want to fight, they’ll fight him.

Fitz and Simmons are unable to get Robin to make sense, so Coulson and May go to talk to her. She tells them that Coulson can bring all the pieces together, and leaves them with an ominous message: Today is the day that it all ends. Coulson and May meet with Daisy and say they need Quake when it all goes down, so Daisy goes to see Fitz and Simmons to get her inhibitor removed. Along the way, she runs into Deke. Deke tells her the story of how his dad got sent to the surface. They aren’t on good terms, and Deke just hopes he forgives him. Daisy assures him that she didn’t meet her parents until she was in their 20’s – all he will want is to make up for lost time.

On Level 3, the level with all the vrellnexians, Yo-Yo, Mack and Flint look for the weapons cache that Fitz stored in the past. Flint would rather just die there, upset that all his friends seem to want him dead anyway. Yo-Yo reassures him, having gone through the same thing. Instead of a vrellnexian, they see a Kree using a gas to scare off the creature. Yo-Yo leaves to scout the floor, while Mack and Flint find the cache of weapons: splinter bombs, I.C.E.R.S., and Mack’s baby: The Shotgun-Axe. Yo-Yo tells them that there are no vrellnexians on the entire floor, and they realize that the Kree scared them up the elevators.

In the derelict remains of their old lab about the Zephyr, Fitz and Simmons discover a large machine that wasn’t there before. They try to figure out what it’s purpose is, when Voss tells them it’s what opened the portal and brought them here. Deke’s dad built it based on old schematics. He leaves Fitz and Simmons and they resolve to ask Owen when he returns. They realize they are alone and begin to take advantage of their first alone time in a long time.

Coulson and May still can’t get answers from Robin, so May calls Enoch over and asks how he got Robin to talk in the past. He explains that she would only talk to her mother, or if he stayed with her for several days. Waiting isn’t an option, but it may be their only option. Coulson wants to return to the Lighthouse to save the others, but May refuses to risk anyone else. She believes that if she can’t protect the team, she brings nothing to the table. Robin approaches with a drawing of a plane flying through asteroids.

Back in 2022, Robin finishes a more crudely drawn drawing of the same thing. Fitz, May and Simmons discuss how their living situation looks after the destruction of Earth. It’s dismal. May proposes that they use Robin’s drawings, but Fitz asserts again that time travel is impossible, and you can’t change time. May begs them to work on her schematics for the time machine anyway – the same machine that will later pull them through the portal. Robin tells Fitz that he gave them everything he could.

(Foreshadowing Fitz’s death?)

In 2091, May and Coulson decide to side with Voss and take the fight to the Lighthouse. In Voss’ locker, they find a chunk of the monolith that brought them to the future. They decide to shift focus on finding the rest of the monolith so they can go back home and prevent the world from being destroyed, but Voss wants to storm the Lighthouse. They bring the chunk to Fitz and Simmons for studying. The duo are currently trying to remove the power dampener from Daisy, and determine that it is impossible with their current tools without killing Daisy. Fitz and Simmons realize the monolith chunk fits in the machine, and Coulson decides to see if they can get Robin to help them get home.

Coming out of the elevator, Level 10 is littered with bodies. The Kree directed the vrellnexians from the infected floor to a main living floor, as punishment for not turning in Flint. They save a woman who was berating Flint earlier from the roaches, and she tells them that they are everywhere. Mack has an idea on how to take back the floor.

In the past, the Kree have taken over. Walking through the hallways with May, a young Robin keeps asking for Flint – a teenager who won’t be born for another 50 years or so. Yo-Yo decides to fight the Kree: their resources aren’t worth enslavement. May tries to talk her out of it, but Yo-Yo says that this isn’t what S.H.I.E.L.D. stood for. Robin insists that Mack will help Flint, but Yo-Yo is upset. Mack is gone and he is never coming back. She leaves with an axe.

In 2091, Deke confronts Voss. The piece of the monolith belonged to his mother and then to his father, and his dad wouldn’t even let him touch it. He would never leave it behind, and especially not in Voss’ locker. He asks what happened to his dad, and Voss knocks him out.

Flint takes Mack to the air filtration system and Mack empties the gas into it, directing all the vrellnexians to one room: The room where Yo-Yo is. Using her super-speed, she fixes splinter bombs to all of the aliens. By the time she snaps back to normal speed, all the creatures are disintegrating in front of her. Efficient!

Daisy goes to talk with Robin, and is really happy to see that Robin still has the carved bird from her dad Charles. She apologizes that Robin had a hard life, and that Daisy couldn’t do more to protect her. Robin says that her mom always kept her safe. She has something she needs to tell her mom, but she can’t remember, and time is running out. Voss tells her not to worry about it – Robin has conversations like that all the time. There is something he wants to show her.

In the lab, Fitz and Simmons figure out how to – theoretically – work the machine. Fitz goes to tell the others, but finds they are locked in. He quickly realizes this isn’t a cute game Simmons is playing.

In the past, Fitz is stressed, and sick and tired of young Robin. He brings her to May, complaining that she just told him when and how Simmons dies. Again, he insists that they can’t change time and that nothing they do matters, screaming in May’s face that they’ve tried and failed. He tears down the schematics. He says that Voss couldn’t change time, even Daisy couldn’t – she saw the aftermath, and still destroyed the world. Robin tells Daisy to look out, because he has a knife.

Voss shows Daisy something – the last footage anyone saw of her alive, in the evacuated city of Los Angeles. It’s right before she caused a 12.8 earthquake and cracked the planet like an egg. He tells her he can’t let that happen, and tries to kill Daisy before she can go back to the past. The gang fight off Voss and his mutineers, and Robin enters, saying this is the last day. Unable to win against Daisy, Voss stabs Robin, saying he can’t let her give Daisy the answers.

As Daisy and Coulson continue to fight mutineers, May tries to take care of the bleeding old lady. She asks for her mom, but May tells her that her mom isn’t here, but she will take care of her. Robin reminds May that she said she would always be there at the end. In the past, Robin calls out for her mom. May asks her if everything is alright.

Oh, God. May adopted her. May was her mom. May moved on from Bahrain. All she wanted was a kid! The tears! The tears!

Robin tells May that she hates having her powers, and hates seeing everyone die. May reassures her, saying she will always be there in the end. In the future, Robin explains that May raised her. She was the only one who didn’t see her as a freak, and thought she could save the world. In the past, Robin tells May that there is something she needs to tell her: How to get back home. May tells her that she won’t tell her that until years from now, on the Zephyr. Robin protests that May won’t remember her, so May tells her to remind her. In the future, Robin does just this. With her dying breath, she whispers how they can save the world and go back.

They arrest Voss, and he reminds them that he tried to stop them from destroying the world.

On the Lighthouse, Mack, Yo-Yo and Flint free everyone. They decide to take up arms. It’s a revolution!

As the gang mourn Robin’s death, they are at a loss. They don’t know what to do besides die here on this rock. Daisy remarks that at least that way she won’t destroy the world. May says that she knows how to get back, and asks who Flint is.

In the stinger, Sinara arrives on Earth and asks Kasius for her orders.

God, that episode was hard to cover. And really sad! That May reveal hit hard. All I could think of was Andrew and May wanting to have a baby. Rest in peace, Robin Hinton. You were the coolest character-I-thought-was-a-one-off.

This episode is a strong 9/10.

Speaking of earthquakes, feel free to check out the Runaways finale here. Otherwise, see you next week!