WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the latest episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,"The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D," which aired Wednesday on ABC.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has developed a signature of sorts by altering its title card with every new season. This sort of change signals a new adventure, and the new title card on display is meant to reflect the storyline currently unfolding, whether that is a battle with the forces of Hydra or a mission at the end of time itself. For its seventh and final season, however, the Marvel series has taken this tradition to the next level by altering its title card with nearly every new episode.
This change is a result of Season 7's story, which sees the titular team travelling back in time to prevent the Chronicoms from erasing S.H.I.E.L.D. from history. With its ever-changing title cards, the series has delivered homages to the mystery movies of the 1930s, alien invasion films and private investigator noir films of the 1950s, as well as the hip television shows of the 1970s, among others. And with its episode set in 1982, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps this trend going with yet another new title card.
In "The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D," Mack and Deke find themselves stranded in 1982 after the rest of the team disappear with the Zephyr when the time-machine malfunctions. As a result, Mack and Deke are the only agents left to deal with the Chronicoms' return in the 1980s. The alien synthetic beings' spaceship was destroyed by Coulson in "Adapt or Die," and now, their artificial intelligence leader Sybil has downloaded her consciousness into a computer. After reaching out to a tech specialist, he slowly begins to build her a body, which ends up looking like a serial killing version of Johnny 5 from the Short Circuit films.
This isn't the only time Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. references the media of the '80s. Sybil's return, for example, is then punctuated by the reveal of the episode's title card, which is essentially a black computer screen on which "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" is being typed on, all in the appropriate, throwback green font of the first generation of computers.
Elsewhere, the episode is filled with homages to '80s films and TV shows, from Commando to The A-Team and The Terminator. Plus, the story of "The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D" also pays homage to the tech and hacker movies that were all the craze in that time period, which makes the newest title card a simple but totally effective introduction to one of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most fun episodes.
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.