The season 7 prmiere of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. happened last night and I’m still thinking about how amazing it was.  

It’s bittersweet to type this review as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been one of my favorite shows since its debut back in 2013. Seeing how far the cast has come has been such a special thing to watch and I’m so glad I got to witness this first-hand. With everything going on in the world right now, the show couldn’t have returned at a better time. We could use some quality entertainment to help distract us from the pain.

Following the the finale of season 6, episode 1 of season 7, “The New Deal”, starts off with the team time traveling back to 1931 to prevent the Chronicoms from taking over Earth. Helping them is a LMD (life model decoy) of Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), who has all the memories of the dead human character we lost at the end of season 5. Meanwhile, Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) is still recovering from the near-fatal injuries she suffered in the season 6 finale. The Chronicom Hunters will stop at nothing to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. and the team will have to make some difficult decisions to fight them — including saving Hydra.

Please note: there will be some light spoilers ahead. So if you haven’t watched episode 1 yet, please be warned.

As a life long fan of the show I was extremely satisfied with the season premiere. The team has built up such a great group dynamic over the years. As soon as the show started and they were all on screen together, I thought ‘everything is right now again.’ While the team has a new addition in Deke, he fits in with the gang well.

I thought it was smart that early in the episode they had Deke address the rules of time traveling. Although Endgame gave us their set of rules, it seems as though Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is building on top of that, while trying to not interfere with any of the rules that were established in the Russo Bros. directed flick.

The thing I loved about the premiere is that they really leaned into the campiness of the time travel situation. Sending the main characters of your story through time is nothing new, but because of the well written story and the groundwork that was laid out over the course of the past seven years, it feels somewhat refreshing in a way.

Since the second season, the show has been a deep-dive into enhanced people, Inhumans, different planets, the framework and even being on a different plane of existence. Therefore, putting the team into a much more grounded place coupled with them having to save Hydra to save the world, is the perfect way to wrap up the season and in a sense, mirror how the show started.

When it comes to the last season of a series (depending on the show), the writers will throw in nods or easter eggs to things that happened in the past. It’s almost like a love letter to the fans. This was no different for the premiere of the seventh season. Patton Oswalt shows up as the original Koenig which was awesome because they did confirm ahead of time that he would show up, but I wasn’t sure when. So, it was definitely a pleasant surprise when he popped up. I have a feeling he won’t be the only familiar face. I have a good feeling this season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be much like the last season of Parks and Rec.

Due to the team time traveling to the 1930s, racism, bigotry and sexism is definitely prevalent (and still bad right now in 2020, but that’s for another article) I’m glad the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. writers didn’t glance over this aspect or ignore it when it came to Mack and Daisy. As the series is rooted in comic book lore and comic books have always been rooted in social issues, the writers highlighting these issues was certainly needed.

Yoyo is also faced with an issue because of their current time placement. She can’t take her advanced robotic arms out in public and risk changing the timeline, but at the same time she doesn’t want to take them off because she doesn’t want to pretend like it never happened. Ultimately, she does decide to make the switch and what follows is a beautifully acted moment by Natalia Cordova-Buckley.

I would also like to give a quick shoutout to Henry Simmons. The whole cast is great and they have all grown in amazing ways, but it has been so cool to see how far Mack has come. He went from a hardworking S.H.I.E.L.D. Engineer to the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. just by doing the right thing. His character truly has become the heart of the team and he is the epitome of what S.H.I.E.L.D. represents.

Now that Coulson is basically a superhuman, we get to see him experience a lot more of the action. There were a few moments that he got to kick some ass alongside Daisy which put a huge smile on my face. When you look at how the two first met in season 1, both humans (for the most part), both were missing something in their life. Now to have them as super-powered badasses that are about to cause a lot of trouble for people is incredible. It’s like a father-daughter crime fighting duo.

The episode ends with May on the ceiling of the Zephyr looking very menacing, so we can definitely expect to see that play out over the next episode. Overall, I thought this was an excellent premiere that sets up what seems to be an epic last season. Although I’m sad the show is ending, the agents are going out on their own terms and I couldn’t be happier about that. We have 12 more episodes with them to go, so let’s enjoy it while we can!

Watch the cast have a virtual discussion about the season premiere right here. What did you think of the season 7 premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?