"From the Ashes" – Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S06E11 Review

"From the Ashes" is the penultimate episode of season 6, as next week's "The Sign" is the season finale. Although Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been renewed for one final season. Got all that?

Good. The episode itself was... okay. Nothing majorly inspiring. If you the viewer were a big Coulson fan, then we sort of have him back. And he has superpowers! Rather vague superpowers, which include smashing things really hard. And presumably possessing people, if Sarge has the same power as Izel. The latter doesn't seem very useful.

The episode begins with Izel flying to Guatemala to pick up the long-absent Marcus (Barry Shabaka Henley) and his nameless assistant. Izel tells Yo-yo not to warn Marcus and then possesses Mack to try and get the coordinates to the temple out of Marcus. Yo-yo slips Marcus a clue (#WeMissYouLucasBryant!), but Izel soon picks up on it and kills the nameless assistant to show she means business.

Izel then locks Mack and Yo-yo up in the containment module and makes Marcus face a recreation of his dead husband Thomas (Robb Derringer) via the monolith/creation energies in the Gravitonium sphere. Thomas torments Marcus with memories of how Marcus had him taken off of life-support after his car accident. Then Izel kills him and promises to do it again and again. Marcus cracks and gives her the coordinates.

When Izel tosses Marcus in the containment module, Yo-yo speeds out and grabs the Gravitonium sphere. Izel possesses Yo-yo and beats up Mack, but this gets them out of the module long enough for Mack to release it so that Marcus can escape and warn the others.

They get to the temple and Izel handcuffs Mack and Yo-yo, and then makes pretty swirling energies with the Gravitonium sphere. She tells Mack and Yo-yo she needs them to imagine up the monolith, to create the portal, to bring her people through so they can possess the Shrike host bodies and rule the galaxy. Or the universe. Or something. Our captive duo say they've faced their worst fears and that's all the monolith does, and the Gravitonium sphere creates Flint (Coy Stewart) from their memories. He's their worst fear? Or that future timeline? Did Flint really represent the worst it had to offer? I suppose they'll explain it next episode.

Back at the Lighthouse, Deke tries to impress his grandparents Fitz-Simmons by coming up with a way to stop Izel from using her possession power. Eventually they figure they can use a sonic barrier like the one Sarge has to do something techno babble babble babble with resonance fields and keep Izel from occupying the same atoms as her host bodies. Fitz gives Deke a manly pat on the shoulder and they go to work.

At least I think Deke is trying to impress Fitz-Simmons. Jeff Ward is all over the place as the character, acting hyper and solemn and wistful and trying-to-impress.

Melinda and Piper have a couple of arguments, as Piper is still smarting over Davis' death last episode. But the main secondary plot is Daisy trying to get Sarge to reveal what he really is. He talks a lot about how he's nothing now he's realized he's an incomplete copy of Coulson. Daisy says she doesn't care, reads a letter Coulson sent her, and then breaks Sarge's neck. He comes back to life and stuns her, then escapes looking for the crystalline sword he had a few episodes ago he was going to kill Izel with.

Daisy grabs the sword and tracks him down, and Sarge tells her to kill him before he turns into an Izel-type being and kills them all. She realizes that's the kind of thing Coulson would do--sacrifice himself to save everyone else--drops the sword, and hugs Sarge. So now Sarge is on their side, sort of, because he has powers similar to Izel. Superstrength and possession. Melinda is kind of glad to have "her" Coulson back, but it isn't really him and it's hard to tell what is going through Melinda's mind because she mostly does impassive.

In the end tag sequence, the Chronicoms argue over whether to rebuild Chronyca-2 or conquer a new planet and turn it into Chronyca-3. Atarah is in favor of the former, Malachi in favor of the latter. Malachi finally shoots Atarah dead and tells his bunkies to start with the conquest. Given the show is set on Earth and we have a season finale next week, my guess would be they plan on conquering Earth and that will be a main plot of season 7.

There are two balls for the creative team to juggle: what Izel is up to and what they're doing with Sarge. The episode keeps both of those balls in the air, although it still feels a bit distant what with the fact the monoliths were at best a season ago. The big emphasis on them now feels more like navel-gazing and someone's wiki research more than anything.

Thanks to some emotive acting by Chloe Bennett, the whole conflict over Sarge feels more significant. She laughs and cries over Coulson's letter to her, even if we don't find out who wrote it until later. Clark Gregg is always good, even if they have to muck up his "kill me" pleas with some CGI of his body slowly reverting to whatever the heck it is. Season 6 has at least given Gregg a chance to do more than just be the father-figure and loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. Director.

No sign of Snowflake and Pax. Maybe they'll show up next week for the finale: is there some reason Sarge wouldn't want what's left of his old crew working with him?

If the Chronicom Hunters are supposed to be the Big Bad for Season 7, it's hard to be too impressed with them. Atarah was probably the most impressive of them and she's "dead". They need someone a bit more imposing than Malachi to lead them.

There's lots of little moments, but with Agents there always are. Fitz suggesting they take amphetamines to counter Izel's powers, and eventually realizing it's a bad idea, is funny. Henley gets some moments as he experiences his dead husband confronting him over his role in said lover's death. It'd be more impressive if Marcus hadn't been off-screen for six episodes. It's hard to feel much for the character since his main role--being Mack's scientific advisor with Fitz-Simmons off in space--evaporated when they returned. Maybe if it had been a full season we could find out more about him to the point we'd feel his pain.

Karolina Wydra as Izel makes a decent villainess. It's not a very "deep" role, but there's no reason it should be. She beats up people, uses their fears against them, and most of her sinister presence is conveyed by the actors of the people she possesses.

Mack and Yo-yo still make a good couple. Killing off Keller is a bit of a cheat: the show doesn't have to dwell on resolving the love triangle between the three. But at least Keller gets a mention!

Overall, "From the Ashes" is a decent episode that keeps everything moving to next week's season finale. We got Coulson back--sort of--and Flint makes a reappearance if you were a big fan of his character.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?