In Review: Agents of Shield (S7 – E1) – The New Deal

Synopsis: Coulson and the agents are thrown back through time and stranded in 1931 New York City; with an all-new Zephyr set to time-jump at any moment, the team must hurry to find out exactly what happened.

The Story

The Chronicom’s have time-traveled back to 1931 and waste little time in assuming the identity of three police officers. Following the same time stream S.H.I.E.L.D. has managed to track them to New York and are setting up for the mission, but first have to activate a Life Model Decoy of Coulson, which contains the former director’s consciousness. The LMD has the added bonus of some Chronicom technology.

As Coulson, Daisy, Mack, and Deke head into the big city to find out what the Chronicom’s are up to. Simmons stays behind to continue her search through the time stream for Fitz.

The Acting

Clark Gregg absolutely returns to form as the LMD version of Coulson who is just as much the fanboy as the real version of Coulson was. We get some wonderful scenes of Coulson relishing the fact that they are in a time period that saw the beginnings of huge changes in America, but we also get some insight into the early days of a certain organization, which Shield was formed the defend against.

Also making a welcome return is Patton Oswalt who plays a gangster bootlegger version of Koenig, which Daisy takes a dislike too.

Overall

This is an excellent start to what will be the final story arc of Agents of Shield. Seeing our favorite characters go back in time to 1930s America is a really cool move in that it allows for a little more comedy to add to the action and drama. I loved the involvement of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the storyline and how that played a part in a typically clever story twist.

Simmons’s interrogation of the captured Chronicom was cleverly done and provided a nice sense of tension in how it was intercut between Coulson and Daisy running around the speakeasy chasing after the wrong target.

Overall. A brilliant start to what will hopefully be a strong final season for what has been a great series.