The team travels to the 1970s to stop another Chronicom attempt to change S.H.I.E.L.D.'s history.
Tropes:
- Alternate Timeline: Thanks to the Chronicoms, Project Insight is 40 years ahead of schedule and all the Malicks are alive when only one should be.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- While it's known that Wilfred Malick died in 1970 in the original timeline, the actual cause of death was never revealed, even though the Chronicoms are able to avert it somehow. Conversely, it's known for certainty that Nathaniel Malick died shortly after precisely because Gideon made him a sacrifice to Hive, and this death is also prevented in the altered timeline.
- Nathaniel still being alive would mean that he wasn't used as a Human Sacrifice to Hive by his brother as in the original timeline. As Hive needs a regular supply of human hosts to survive, this could possibly mean someone else was chosen instead.
- Armor-Piercing Response: Sousa is briefly furious that no one understands how the time drive works or when and why they jump. Deke shuts him down.Sousa: I was taken out of my life for this!
Deke: We all were! - Benevolent Boss: When "Chastity McBride" asks if he wants to buy her a drink, Stoner gently lets her down, making it clear that as her boss, engaging with her on that level would be inappropriate. He also remembers her by sight three years later, despite only meeting her once before.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Played by Patrick Warburton, General Stoner is the comically serious, but he doesn't buy Coulson's wild story about sentient, time-traveling aliens (STTAs, a mix of synthetic and organic, it turns out) for a second and May has to knock him out before he can call the guards.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Nathaniel is shown as the quieter of the Malick brothers, sitting alone during the S.H.I.E.L.D. celebration while Gideon tries to hit on Daisy. By the end of the episode, Nathaniel kidnaps Sousa and Daisy and is planning on using Whitehall's methods to acquire her powers through vivisection.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Luke and Freddy Malick have formed one since 1955, with the former allowing the latter and his son to cheat their destined deaths in 1970 and launch Project Insight decades ahead of schedule. However, it's made clear the Chronicoms are the far greater threat, and Malick is even killed by the episode's end.
- Big Damn Heroes: Enoch arrives in his car to save the team after they escape from the party.
- Birds of a Feather: Sousa's behavior in the episode is quite similar to that of Captain America's in The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Like Cap, he has to deal with vastly different technology because of literally waking up in a future time period and the gray morality of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the present. He even has to help stop Project Insight, just in another time period.
- Bond One-Liner: As Wilfred goes on and on about how the Chronicoms already know every move the team will make, Deke guns him down, asking if they saw that coming.
- The Bus Came Back: General Rick Stoner, previously only seen as a recorded tour guide in the Lighthouse, shows up to introduce Fred Mallick at Swordfish.
- Call-Back:
- Back when they first met him, the Malick brothers showed some contempt for Whitehall; here, Nathaniel dismissively describes him as having "a total Mein Kampf vibe".
- To Deke and Yo-Yo's discussion in the previous episode, right after Deke shot Malick. "He's supposed to be dead! Status quo, remember?"
- The whole situation around Deke killing Malick is very similar to the one where Ward killed the fake Clairvoyant back in Season 1, aside from Deke not being a Hydra mole like Ward was. Deke even provides a similar Bond One-Liner as Victoria Hand did back then.
- Coulson gives Mallick a fake name: Patrick Cutik.
- Call-Forward:
- Daisy's remark to Gideon ("Don't worry, I'll pay you back later") refers to the fact that she's the one responsible for his death when Hive has her kill him after enthralling her, which he accepted since Hive killed his daughter for his cowardice.
- Nathaniel calling to get Whitehall's procedure to take Daisy's power refers to Whitehall rejuvenating himself using Jiaying's organs and regenerative ability.
- Casanova Wannabe: Gideon Malick tries hitting on Daisy, who is obviously disgusted.
- Changed My Jumper: Unable to comprehend or appreciate the fashion trends of the 1970s, Sousa opts for a business suit scarcely any different from the one he wore as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Daisy notes that it works anyway, since "uptight squares" are a constant in any time period.
- Cliffhanger: May and Coulson have been captured in the Lighthouse, Deke and Yo-Yo are alone on the ground, Daisy and Sousa are captured by Nathaniel, and the Zephyr just revealed its position to any Chronicom vessel.
- Come with Me If You Want to Live: Enoch says this in his Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness when he arrives to save Daisy, Sousa, Coulson and May.
- Continuity Nod: There is a shot of a can of Bendeery English Ale, a favorite of Lance Hunter.
- Crazy-Prepared: Remember how General Stoner had the Lighthouse prepped for a number of scenarios and Coulson chose the wrong one by not waiting for the menu to finish being read out? Turns out that's a general trait for him.Coulson: General, I can't explain everything I'm about to say, but you have to believe me. SHIELD has been infiltrated by a HYDRA cell aided by sentient time traveling aliens.
Stoner: STTAs... Synthetic or organic?
Coulson: [Beat] A combination of both, actually. - Disc-One Final Boss: After being a recurring character this season thus far and hyped as part of the Big Bad Ensemble alongside Luke, Freddy Malick is ultimately killed by Deke.
- The Dog Bites Back: Daisy holds Nathaniel Malick hostage in 1973 to force Wilfred to let them go. Three years later, he catches her and Sousa hacking into the Lighthouse and stuns them with an ICER rifle, shoving them into a van so he can take Daisy's powers for himself.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: The Establishing Shot of New York City at the beginning of the episode includes the World Trade Center; this year (1973) was actually the year construction finished and the buildings were inaugurated.
- Escalating War: The Chronicoms are starting to get very irritated by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s constantly thwarting their plan, so they maneuver the team into a no-win scenario in a last-ditch effort to take them out.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Wilfred Malick allows the team to escape when Daisy threatens his son Nathaniel. Taken to task by Luke about it, he makes it clear that from his perspective, he had no choice.
- Evil Wears Black: Luke and the two Chronicom cohorts with him have now ditched their police uniforms for their old Chronicom Hunter gear.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Sousa takes some adjusting to get used to the crazier fashions and technological advances of the 1970s, and later dismisses Daisy's laptop because of its size. He's then amazed by Daisy's smartphone.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The list of Project Insight targets, in addition to those named onscreen, includes Victoria Hand, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita, and Robert Gonzales.
- Genre Savvy: Yo-Yo, in reference to James Bond movies, says that underground bunkers full of people in jumpsuits are never a good thing. Sure enough, said bunker is being used to build Project Insight.
- I Have Your Wife:
- Daisy threatens to kill Wilfred's son Nathaniel if he doesn't let them leave the club. He doesn't initially believe they'll do it, but the fact that history is already screwed with gives him pause. The Chronicoms nearly shoot through him to break the stalemate, so he stops them and lets the agents go.
- Having anticipated that S.H.I.E.L.D. would find Wilfred, Luke gives him leverage to do the same against them. Mack's parents were kidnapped and taken to the Lighthouse so any attempt to flood the base would drown them. Mack reluctantly abandons the plan so as to spare them.
- It's All My Fault: Deke beats himself up over not killing Freddy when he had the chance. He later rectifies this.
- Just in Time: After the team escapes from Malick and the Chronicoms, the Chronicoms jump ahead three years into the future, dragging the Zephyr with them. They arrive on the exact day Insight is to be launched. If they really wanted the project to be uninterrupted, they could have jumped further into the future. This turns out to have been deliberate, as the Chronicoms wanted them to think there was still time to stop Insight and have predicted exactly how they would behave under those circumstances. Even though Insight is stopped, Mack has to expose the Zephyr to do it.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Wilfred has an extra six years past what happened in the original timeline before Deke guns him down.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Deke shoots Wilfred in the middle of his Motive Rant.
- Kill Sat: Since gun-toting helicarriers are too far beyond the seventies even with the Chronicoms giving them a leg up, Project Insight is now a network of laser-equipped satellites that serve the same function.
- Mythology Gag:
- The jumpsuits worn by those working in the Lighthouse were taken from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s comic-accurate blue suits from the '70s Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. comics.
- May identifies herself to Rick Stoner as "Agent Chastity McBride", the name of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in Frank Miller's comic miniseries Elektra: Assassin.
- Gabe Jones and Jim Morita being on the kill list nods to members of the comics' Howling Commandos becoming officers of comics' S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Daisy using her powers in front of Nathaniel Malick gives him the ambition of getting those powers for himself.
- Nothing Personal: What Daisy tells Nathaniel after taking him hostage.
- "Not So Different" Remark: When Sousa angrily confronts Jemma over her recklessness with tech she doesn't understand, Deke points out that Sousa isn't the only one who got plucked from his old life.
- Not So Stoic: Enoch lets a few notes of annoyance slip into his voice when he reminds the team that they left him stranded in New York for forty years.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Coulson, May, and Daisy when they realize that Wilfred Malick is still alive and planning to launch Project Insight 38 years ahead of schedule.
- Daisy when she sees Bruce Banner on the list of Insight targets.
- Old Soldier: While they don't appear, both Gabe Jones and Jim Morita are included on the list of Project Insight's targets, suggesting that they're still potentially dangerous enemies to HYDRA nearly thirty years after World War II.
- Red Herring: While past/future enemy Gideon Malick does appear, it's his brother Nathaniel who turns out to be the bigger threat; Gideon disappears from the story after the team leaves the bar.
- Sadistic Choice: After realizing that his parents are in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, Mack has to choose between the plan to flood the Lighthouse (which would kill his parents) or using the Zephyr to shoot down the Insight rocket (which would expose their position to the Chronicoms and paint a huge target on their backs). Unable to bring himself to let his parents die, he opts for the latter.
- Shout-Out: Enoch, a time-traveling mechanical being that looks human, says "Come with me if you want to continue to exist."
- The Sociopath: Luke at first cannot even comprehend how Wilfred could care about his son's life, but then realizes he can exploit the fact that others do experience actual empathy to use as leverage against S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Special Edition Title: This one has a Quinn Martin-style '70s intro, complete with a cheesy voice-over for each cast member.
- Spotting the Thread:
- Wilfred immediately recognizes Coulson at the party, being more perceptive about potential time-travelers after his encounters with Deke and now that the Chronicoms are aiding him.
- It's actually Sousa, not any of the present team, who realizes that the only way Hydra could be targeting specific names of important figures in the future (like Bruce Banner) is if they had someone from the future telling them about how important these people will be.
- Time for Plan B: Unwilling to doom his own parents, Mack abandons the plan to flood the base and instead shoots down the Insight rocket with the Zephyr, even though doing so will expose it to radar.
- Title Drop: Souza drops it, then lampshades how it's a very outdated expression, hence Coulson has no idea what he means. It means there's circumstantial, rather than direct evidence, of something.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Rick Stoner, according to Sousa, who is amazed that "Little Ricky", who could barely distinguish between different gun parts, becomes a general and a high-ranking leader of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- In 1973, Nathaniel Malick was a helpless hostage. Flash forward to 1976, he's getting the drop on and stunning Daisy and Sousa, with plans of using Whitehall's surgical methods to steal Daisy's powers for himself.
- Took a Level in Kindness: May treats LMD-Coulson much better in this episode, conversing politely with him and even discussing her worry about her emotional troubles.
- Undead Tax Exemption: Enoch was forced to give up regular day-to-day operations of the bar due to how it'd be difficult to continue running a business when you don't appear to age a day over a 40-year span.
- Wham Line:
- Wilfred revealing that Project Insight is being deployed in the seventies, four decades ahead of schedule.
- Nathaniel calling Daniel Whitehall, revealing that he wants to know how to transfer powers so he can take Daisy's.
- Wham Shot: Jemma rubs her neck, revealing a glowing implant beneath her skin.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Sousa calls Daisy out for using Nathaniel as a hostage, and later takes Simmons to task for using technology she can't predict or control and that is designed not to be understood.
- Worf Had the Flu: An intellectual example; Simmons is having memory issues of unknown origin, putting her off her game.
- Would Hurt a Child: As before, Insight is designed to terminate HYDRA's enemies before they can pose a threat. This includes killing future enemies as children, with Bruce Banner and Victoria Hand being on said list.
- You Already Changed the Past: Sousa, still trying to wrap his head around everything, wonders if he was always meant to survive. Daisy advises him not to dwell on it too much.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Coulson actually tries to convince Rick Stoner of what is going on. It actually seems to be working, but then a suspicious May touches Stoner and knocks him unconscious as she can feel that he wasn't really convinced.
