SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for “A Life Spent,” the latest episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. may have just received a sign of life from the surface of the Earth. In "A Life Spent," the latest episode, Coulson, Mack, May and Tess realized Virgil had been communicating with someone outside of the Lighthouse.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents made this discovery when they joined Tess on a job. As they grew acquainted with Virigl's trawler, a spaceship that collects Earth debris, they found an old radio locked away in the cockpit. The radio had been locked away inside of a cabinet with a lost knob, which had been hidden in Virgil's little globe.
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As they cruised through space, arguing over what to do with their knocked out superior, the radio crackled to life. However, the voice on the other end was unintelligible. "It's a transmission," Coulson realized.
"The source is right in front of us," Mack agreed. However, all they saw through the trawler's windshield was a massive space rock, which Tess pointed out. "That's impossible," she said. "How is anything coming from a lifeless rock?"
When Mack pointed out the transmission could be reflecting, May fiddled with the dashboard. "I think you're right. It's only bouncing off of [space rock] 616, but the signal's origin is... It's coming from the surface of the Earth," she revealed
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After they were forced to return to the Lighthouse, Coulson and the others got to fiddling with the radio they discovered. They were able to retool the sound so that they could understand what the voice on the other end was saying: "Virgil, come in. Do you read? We haven't heard from you in three days. Please respond, Virgil. Have you secured the delegation?"
"We're the delegation," Coulson said, incredulous. "So this person knows we're here, knows why we're here... We need to find them. We need to find a way to get out there."
Of course, there's one minor issue: the Earth's surfaced is uninhabitable. In fact, it's so uninhabitable that the Kree send humans there as a form of execution. At the end of the episode, Gril's right-hand man Zeb was shown on the surface of the planet. It took only moments for him to be swarmed and killed by a flock of Vrellnexians, the "roaches" the team encountered as soon as they arrived in the future.
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Considering that, then, the revelation of the broadcast has some major implications. While the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were led to believe that the Lighthouse contains the last of the human race, the broadcast may prove that idea wrong. Further, it could show that the Kree didn't kill off all of the True Believers like they thought. In fact, the True Believers' faith may not have stemmed from the Lighthouse at all. If the broadcast did originate on Earth, it poses several questions, including how these humans survived and how they went undetected by the Kree for so long. What's more, the broadcast may not originate from a human source at all, but rather another alien race that wishes to come to humanity's aide. And could this have had anything to do with Fitz, who we have yet to see this season? We'll just have to wait for next week's episode to find out.
Airing Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 stars Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Henry Simmons, Ian De Caestecker, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Elizabeth Henstridge, Nick Blood, Jeff Ward, Eve Harlow, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Coy Stewart.