Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Season 7 recap, “Know Your Onions”

The Story So Far… Our team finds themselves in 1931 New York, trying to prevent the Chronicoms’ plans to take over Earth by dismantling SHIELD in the past before it’s created. Our heroes slowly learn, though, their plan to dismantling SHIELD isn’t to simply destroy the roots of the organization, but to destroy the actual need for SHIELD. And that means killing the lineage of one of their old nemesis, Gideon Malick, the co-head of HYDRA! So now they have to protect Freddie, Gideon’s father, from being killed in order to ensure their greatest enemy, and ultimately SHIELD, comes to pass! Jeez, time travel is a mindscrew.

Invisible time-jet! Woohoo!

New York City, 1931. Enoch finally finds the revived May on the Zephyr, and she seems…off. She remembers what happened to her (that whole being stuck in a Hell dimension and getting stabbed), but seems a little cold somehow. We’ll come back to her in a second, because while Mack and Deke are busy watching over Freddie Malick (while still not being aware who he is) for his big secret delivery, everyone else (say hello, Simmons and Yo-yo in period costumes!) is back at Koenig’s speakeasy, trying to not only help the red dressed HYDRA agent survive her gunshot wound, but figure out what to do about Freddie. They consider all the options, like maybe letting Freddie die or putting him on a good path, but this all would lead to the same problem: HYDRA doesn’t exist, and therefore, SHIELD doesn’t either.

Freddie has to hitch a train ride out of town for his delivery, and Mack and Deke tag along to make sure things go without a hitch (and once again, still have no clue who Freddie is). As for our crew still in New York, they have to hide in the speakeasy when those Chroni-Cops come by looking for Freddie. The bad guys don’t find our heroes, even when Yo-yo’s speed powers peters out at an inopportune time, which suggest her exposure to the Shrike last season may had more a lasting effect than expected. After that, they learn from the recovered red dress woman that she’s a friend of Freddie’s father, and Simmons finds a spilled drop of that fluid given to Freddie and makes a startling discovery: it’s the key part of a formula that made up the super–soldier serum, and was tested in the future on the Red Skull! While our heroes can’t reach Mack or Deke through their communicator, they figure out where Freddie is heading to: Hell, not the literal place, but a trading spot known for a lot of deals gone wrong.

Enoch should have put extra coin into getting the Super-Deluxe Hunter upgrade.

Back on the Zephyr, May gets into combat gear to go help her team, but Enoch tries to stop our strangely acting hero from doing so. Good thing the team arrives back at the Zephyr, with Koenig in tow, and May’s reaction to seeing LMD Coulson is…nothing. At all. Huh. As the team flies to the meeting spot, things get a little tense aboard the train when Mack and Deke want to know what is in this seemingly innocuous liquor delivery, and Freddie is unwilling to let them find out. And we got a ticking clock now, because the time window to jump is 17 minutes from happening, which means whoever isn’t on the Zephyr when the clock hits zero is going to stuck in 1931! Daisy is able to finally reach Deke on his communicator, as that trio has arrived at Hell, and after telling him who he is…tells Deke to kill him!

When Deke arrives to do that, Mack reminds him “hey, I’m the boss here, remember?”, and get this tense moment interrupted by those Chroni-Cops shooting at them. With May back under sedation (which was shockingly not a problem), Daisy, LMD Coulson, Enoch, and Koenig land to retrieve Freddie and fight off the Chroni-Cops. Freddie takes off with the serum, and whatever future was meant to happen, happens. The Chroni-Cops realize their plan has failed and fall back to catch the time wave. Our team does the same, but they don’t have enough time to retrieve Enoch before the Zephyr vanishes into the time stream.

At least it’s not all bad for Enoch, as he gets a job at Koenig’s speakeasy serving drinks, and he’s a machine, so…we’ll probably see him again. Right?

Maybe not best to tell him how one of his grandkids gets brutally murdered by a turncoat S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

–Not the most exact science how the clock for the “time slides” works, I mean it’s up there with warnings for earthquakes, for Pete’s sake!

–Actually a relief to see Freddie is not some innocent in this whole thing, knowing about HYDRA and even going as far as to wound Koenig to escape. Yep, definitely a Malick.

–I’m expecting some awkward talk next episode regarding Daisy ordering Deke to kill Freddie over her boss’ head like that.

–At least Enoch knows how to mix drinks. So, he’ll be fine.

–“I was dead.” “You still are.”

–“No need to make this personal.”

–“Are those the Martians?”

That’s it for now, but come back here next week for the recap of “Alien Commies From The Future!”…