WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the latest episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,"As I Have Always Been," which aired Wednesday on ABC.
Throughout all of Season 7 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Mack, Daisy and the rest of the team have been traveling through time, chasing after the Chronicoms to stop them from erasing the spy organization from history. It's been a non-stop ride ever since the start of this new mission, with the titular team visiting the years 1931, 1955, 1973, 1976, 1982 and 1983. However, for the series' latest episode, there isn't a fun new era to discover -- no new time-displaced costumes or people from a different period to befriend. Instead, the team is stuck in the time stream itself, and the Zephyr is approaching a vortex that will claim their lives.
To make matters worse, Daisy and Coulson are trapped in a time loop, where both characters are forces to go through the same events over and over again while the Zephyr moves ever closer to certain doom. The only hope the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have is to figure out how to fix their time machine. Their goal might be simple, but the method is anything but -- and it leads to one of the series' most hilariously dark sequences.
At first, it takes a little bit of time for Daisy to realize that she is stuck in a time loop. However, before long, she finds that Coulson is experiencing the same thing as she is and, as they repeat the same events over and over, they start to piece together what is happening to them. It's only after learning that Simmons has a device implanted in her brain that prevents her from accessing her memories that they figure out what they must do.
The device's purpose is to keep Simmons from remembering where Fitz is in order to protect him from the Chronicoms and, by extension, the mission as a whole. However, Jemma also has other knowledge locked away, such as how to repair the time machine. Therefore, they convince Simmons (repeatedly) to agree to remove her device temporarily -- but they run into another complication. It turns out that Enoch has been programmed (by Simmons, no less) to protect the device inside her at all costs. Yes, even if that cost is the life of other members of the team.
The first few attempts to remove the device leads to the death of Simmons and Daisy. Then, as the time loop continuously resetting events, Daisy comes back to life and has to try all over again. In order to try to stop the powerful Chronicom, she starts recruiting more and more people to help -- and this is what leads to a humorous sequence where Enoch continuously beats and even kills members of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team.
Except we don't see Enoch fight any of them. Every time they hatch a new scheme to try and defeat him, the episode simply cuts away to show the team after the fight, bruised, bloodied and beaten on the floor in hilarious poses. And every time, more and more people are added, until the entire team shows up to stop Enoch, only to find themselves on the ground moments later. Some of them are still alive, others appear unconscious and someone asks if Deke is dead.
When given confirmation, May asks if they should be alarmed by Deke's demise, but she is quickly dismissed because it essentially doesn't matter. Yes, Deke may be dead, but time will reset and everyone will be back in one piece and alive at the start of the next loop.
The entire sequence is played for laughs, even if the subject matter -- the death of various members of the team -- is quite serious. The nature of the time loop allows the series to have some fun, and it pays off tremendously.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s final season airs Wednesdays at 10 pm ET/PT on ABC. The series stars Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Henry Simmons, Iain De Caestecker, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Elizabeth Henstridge and Clark Gregg.