S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Season Seven is turning out to be some of the most fun in the Marvelverse so far. This episode was a little overly cheesy-wacky in places, but in ways that fully fit with the 80s action-TV styles at the time, if just a bit extra self-parodying. In there were obvious references to Breakfast Club, Max Headroom (we saved the hard drive), Dr. Who ("Exterminate!"), The A-Team (those new-team member intros), Short Circuit (you tell 'em, Mack), the Speak and Spell ("'cause that would be embarrassing for a robot"), Chopping Mall and bad 80s slasher movies in general, plus arguable potential nods to Battlestar Galactica (with those Cylonesque eye-bars), WarGames (the intro title screen and the initial contact with computer guy), Weird Science (computer guy's build project), and I'm sure more that I'm not remembering right now. All Season Seven episodes have done at least a little of this so far, but the 80s are just so ripe for pop-culture references that some of us would still recognize that this episode felt like a feast of 'em.
Meanwhile, we got what I see as two primary story advancements (connectors between what's happened so far and what's next):
Mack recovers. (Yay!)
Sibyl recovers. (Uh-oh.)
And the beat goes on...
And, I gotta say, yes, Deke can be a total mess and seems to screw up half of what he tries to do, but, dammit, he tries so damn hard...
2020-01-01T06:00:00Z2021-01-01T05:59:59Z