'Agents of SHIELD' Episode 1 Review: Time travel, LMD Coulson and HYDRA give Season 7 a promising start
Spoilers for 'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Season 7 Episode 1 'The New Deal'
After six scintillating seasons, 'Agents of SHIELD' is back for one last ride. It promised a stunner of a start and probably gave a lot more than that. For all the enemies the agents have faced over seasons, HYDRA was always their major threat and the new season brings them back again. It is safe to say after the season opener that 'AoS' Season 7 was always about the organization. The Chronicoms are just one of those foes who had a brilliant scheme of taking out the man responsible for the enemy that gave the need for creating the SSR.
'The New Lead' quickly gets the viewers up to speed. Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) is back but is an LMD (Life Decoy Model) who has a hard time reliving the memories of the past two years, but the android is very much the Coulson the world has seen. It is just typical Coulson when he remarks, "Two years in 10 seconds. It's like the worst episode of 'This Is Your Life' ever," to Mack, after being woken up. Despite being introduced, Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennett) shuts him down after he appears overwhelmed in assimilating the information.
The Chronicoms get a head start when they impersonate a few officers from the NYPD. The agents follow them closely and hope to find out their plans before the Zephyr would essentially take them to a different point in time. By now, it is clear the ship acts as a sort of a time machine. The jaw-dropper comes when Franklin D Roosevelt is credited to be one of the founding members of the SSR. This leads Mack Mackenzie (Henry Simmons) and his team to deduce that FDR was the target. However, Freddy (Darren Barnett) is revealed to be the man who's in the Chronicoms' crosshairs. The episode introduces Freddy working for Ernest Koenig (Patton Oswalt), a baron who runs a secret speakeasy. The backstory is he was found on the streets, but in reality, he was the man who would go one to be the father of Gideon Malick, one of the founders of HYDRA.
With the team focusing on saving FDR, a message from Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), who interrogates a captured Chronicom, leads the team on the field to rescue Freddy, but not before he meets with a contact who hands him a serum of sorts. By now, fans would already be establishing the connection between 'Captain America: The First Avenger' and 'The New Deal' after the serum. Was this the one that led to the creation of the Red Skull? It is too early to speculate, but it is still a possibility.
That said, the episode also focuses on Yo-Yo and May briefly. The final minutes of the episode see Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) missing from her tissue regeneration pod and is ready to pounce on Enoch. It does seem like she's still in shock from her last violent scrimmage with Sarge (played by Gregg) and may take time to process things. 'The New Lead' is a promising start with plenty of action, classic Coulson humor and some shell-shockers. Speaking of Coulson, this LMD version is instantly likable and comes in with a few upgrades.
There is still enough story to be told, for starters, the first question is if this season explores SHIELD's history in-depth. If they do, then we might be getting some insight into The Winter Soldier program as well.
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD' airs Wednesdays 10 pm ET on abc.