Directed by Kevin Hooks
Written by Nora & Lilla Zuckerman
Coulson and his team try to decipher Virgil's plans while Daisy works to rescue Jemma.
Tropes in this episode:
- Badass in Distress: Due to Deke's betrayal, Daisy ends up captured by the Kree, potentially to be sold as a living weapon.
- Ceiling Cling: Daisy tries this in the elevator when a Kree happens to use it to deliver produce, but a second Kree shows up with an additional delivery and the wait is long enough to make her slip and reveal herself.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The boy in the Trawler.
- Death World: Earth's surface has become this. While it still has enough atmosphere to breathe, it is lifeless, ravaged by storms, and infested with roaches. Being exiled to the surface is effectively a death sentence. Virgil's contact has taken refuge on the surface, though, so there must be somewhere safe to hide.
- Dungeon Bypass: After losing the Kree tablet which allowed elevator access, Daisy uses her powers to burrow through the floor into the Kree living area.
- Establishing Shot: After the first two episodes made the Lighthouse seem like a space station orbiting what remained of the Earth, this episode opens with one that makes it clear that it is actually embeded in the planet's crust.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Jemma succeeds in helping Abby gain a handle on her powers with compassion, a concept lost on Kasius and spoken of with a look of disdain and a tone of disgust by Sinara.
- The Exile: People who break the rules are banished to what remains of Earth's surface, which is the same as a death sentence given the roach infestation.
- Face–Heel Turn: Deke sells Daisy out to Kasius, warning him of her infiltration so they can capture her. The only explanation he gives is that he's playing the long game.
- Frame-Up: Yo-Yo plants Grill's gun on Zev to get Grill to spare Coulson, May, Mack and Tess.
- Gladiator Games: Kasius arranges these to test if the young Inhumans are worthy to be sold.
- Honor Before Reason: Mack refuses to accept Tess' Make It Look Like an Accident plan to get rid of the extremely dangerous Zev because that's not how S.H.I.E.L.D agents do things. They have a code and will not bend to Tess' twisted world view! This leads to Grill deciding that he will subject Mack, Coulson, Yo-Yo and Tess to a slow death. Yo-Yo has to do some quick damage control with her Frame-Up to save all four of them, which she does by indirectly killing Zev, which is what Tess wanted to do in the first place.
- Human Aliens: Basha belongs to a species indistinguishable from humans, except for their red eyes.
- I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Kasius threatened to harm Abby's family if she couldn't control her power.
- Indy Ploy: Deke criticizes Daisy for this when she is trying to rescue Jemma with very little idea of what she's walking into, since any mistake could blow back on the rest of the Lighthouse. She thinks he's looking out for his own skin and ignores him.
- Intangibility: Abby's density control allows her to pass through solid matter.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Deke accuses Daisy of running "totally blind" into a "buzzsaw" instead of letting him form a plan and work finesse. Granted, he makes a point about playing the long game.
- Mythology Gag:
- A fragment of the destroyed Earth is designated No. 616, which is the number for the main Marvel comics continuity, Earth-616.
- The fighter breaking his arm punching Abby is shot very similarly to the iconic shot of a thug punching Luke Cage in the face.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Kasius and Sinara have Jemma help a young Inhuman named Abby learn to control her powers and Jemma does a fair job of it. Abby is then pitted against a seasoned warrior in gladiator-style combat to demonstrate her powers. Abby wins and is promptly sold to an alien noble as a living weapon. Jemma can only watch helplessly as this all happens. Kasius decides to rub salt in the wound by telling Jemma that her work with Abby helped him sell her for a high price. On the other hand, if Jemma hadn’t helped her she would have been killed alongside her family.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The Champion hands one out to Abby in a scene that is incredibly uncomfortable to watch, given how a very large man is beating the absolute crap out of a teenage girl. She eventually pays him back.
- No-Sell: The Champion is able to take Abby's blows with ease, given he is taller, stronger and evidently has more body weight and bulk than her, while she gets tossed around and beaten up. Then he winds up for the finisher, and breaks his arm when she becomes super dense. Then when he grabs her with his remaining arm, she desperately asks him to stop, all the while her intangible arm goes straight through his chest. When the two finally notice, her density shifts again, in effect punching a hole clean through his body.
- Once More, with Clarity: The scene of Coulson looking out into the space that capped the finale of Season 4 is finally given some context here at the end of the episode.
- Punched Across the Room:
- Daisy shoves Deke into a wall with her powers when he tries to stop her from rescuing Jemma.
- One of the Kree that Daisy fights does this when he finally manages to land a solid punch on her. She returns the favor by quaking him through a wall.
- Red Baron: Daisy gets a new title—Destroyer of Worlds. She's not fond of it.
- Superhuman Trafficking: Kasius exposes all humans to terrigen on their 18th birthday. Those who change are tested for their combat potential; the useful are sold as weapons, while those that aren't combat fit are killed in the arena.
- Super-Toughness: Abby's density control allows her to become as dense as lead, causing the opponent she is up against to shatter his arm punching her.
- Tele-Frag: By phasing part of herself into an object then increasing her density, Abby displaces anything intersecting her matter. The effect is that a glass explodes or a person winds up with a fist-sized hole in their chest.
- Tempting Fate: After running rings around the two Kree guards, Daisy comments that she remembers them being tougher. Cue one managing to punch her and send her flying, making her get serious.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: Tess wants to do this to Zev after they've knocked him out and locked him in the cargo hold of the ice trawler, since he'll surely report them to Grill upon returning and that will cost all of them their lives. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents refuse to kill him in cold blood, giving him enough time to cut the fuel line and force them to return.
- Would Hit a Girl: The Champion has no issues laying a beatdown on Abby. By extension, also Lady Basha and Kasius since they set up the match in the first place.
