'Agents of SHIELD' Season 7 Episode 8: Jiaying's return brings back Season 2 memories, fans say she's 'creepy'
Spoilers for 'Agents of SHIELD' Season 7 Episode 8 'After, Before'
'Agents of SHIELD' Season 7 is pushing forward with more timeline mishaps than we ever expected. In Episode 8 'After, Before', the team finds themselves in terrible danger and that leads to the introduction of an old frenemy.
An Inhuman with the power of lifeforce absorption, Jiaying (Dichen Lachman) was the leader of the Inhuman sanctuary known as Afterlife and the mother of SHIELD Agent Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennet). In 'After, Before', Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) and Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez (Natalia Cordova-Buckley) seek her out in the 1980s to ask for her help with fixing Yo-Yo's malfunctioning powers.
Jiaying has always been a pretty complex character and the fans clearly still have mixed feelings for her, even in this blast from the past. During the episode's live discussion on Reddit, fans expressed a lot of animosity towards the character.
"Daisy suggested Jiaying? That's surprising," one fan wrote. "Jiaying does seem colder than usual. Even in s2 when she was f***ed up by hydra, she seemed to have more emotions," another fan pointed out.
Yet another fan said, and most fans seemed to agree, "Jiaying is like legitimately creepy." However, by the end of the episode, it appears Jiaying isn't the team's enemy, at least not yet. With the greater threat of Nathaniel Malick (Thomas E Sullivan) arriving on the scene, it looks like Jiaying and SHIELD are going to be allies, at least for the time being.
On the post-episode discussion page for 'After, Before', fans are busy discussing what this alliance could lead to. And that's bringing up a lot of fond memories from Season 2. One fan wrote, "So are we making Jiaying and Gordon allies this time? Gonna be awkward when Gordon meets Mack and Fitz at the very least. This was way before Lincoln and probably Alisha were at Afterlife though."
"It's gonna be really awkward when Jiaying meets Daisy," another fan noted. "Man, watching this episode makes me want to rewatch that whole season with Jiaying and the Inhumans," yet another fan said.
'Agents of SHIELD' Season 7 airs Wednesdays at 10 pm ET on ABC.