After the attempt to repair the time drive fails, the Zephyr is caught in a time storm.
Tropes:
- Almost Dead Guy: It takes several minutes for Enoch to die after removing his Electrochron Displacement Mechanism.
- And I Must Scream: Coulson is aware of every loop even though he's only conscious for the ones where Daisy wakes him, since he starts each loop in the recharging station. Among all the other problems he's facing, that one he finds particularly grating.
- And Show It to You: Self-inflicted example by Enoch, who rips his Electrochron Displacement Mechanism, the Chronicom equivalent to a human heart, out of his chest and offers it up to fix the time drive.
- Awful Truth: After her implant is removed, Jemma learns something about Fitz that is so terrible she fails to put it into words.
- Bad Liar: Sousa's attempt at waylaying Enoch in one loop (asking when the team has lunch when he's already been around for at least a week) is laughably poor.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Daisy kisses Sousa one loop after he admits that he's looking out for her because he likes people like her who never give up and wants to be there for her. Since things aren't sorted out in that loop, Sousa has no memory of it by the end.
- Black Comedy: Deke ends up being killed by Enoch in one loop, but both May and Daisy are pretty cavalier about it, since he'll be fine once the loop resets.
- Blood from the Mouth: Sousa dies this way from the booby-trapped implant removal device.
- Bottle Episode: The majority of the episode takes place inside the Zephyr due to a time storm, except for the ending.
- Clone Angst: Existing in an artificial body is giving Coulson some severe existential issues. The year he spent without a body only made these even worse, and during this episode, he shows signs of depression as a result.
- Curse Cut Short: Coulson spends most of one loop trying to free Yo-Yo from the Quinjet. A few seconds after managing it, the loop starts to reset.Coulson: Son of a bi— [loop resets]
- Cutting the Knot: Just as the gang are about to start a difficult discussion about whether Enoch should sacrifice his life to save the team, Enoch casually rips his own heart out and hands it to them.Jemma: Enoch, you'll die.
Enoch: And the rest of you will live. I would like to think Fitz would do the same for me. I would like to think all of you would. - Deadly Gas: The first two attempts to remove the implant are foiled by Enoch causing a gas leak in the room and sealing the door.
- Death Is Dramatic: Enoch's death takes several minutes, enough time for him to have a heart-wrenching final conversation with Daisy and Coulson.
- Dies Wide Open: Jemma ends up dying with her eyes still open in the loops where she dies from a gas leak.
- "Eureka!" Moment: While Coulson laments that his personality is the result of programming, he catches on to the saboteur's identity: Enoch, having been programmed by Simmons, who doesn't remember doing it because of her implant.
- Evil Feels Good: In The Stinger, Kora admits that she's always felt dangerous, but now, she likes the feeling.
- Eye Scream: In the loops where Daisy doesn't close the cockpit doors, Mack gets blinded by a radiation surge.
- Fantastic Racism: When Coulson says one of them could have been replaced by a Chronicom, May coldly says "It happened before," while staring daggers at him.
- Foreshadowing: In the first loop (that we see), Deke mentions the distance to the event horizon. In the subsequent loop when Daisy catches on, the number is smaller. Daisy doesn't notice until Coulson points it out, at which point it's made clear that they're on the clock, the time looping isn't endless.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Daisy and May are glad they don't have to be sad about Deke's death as the time loop is about to reset.
- Gilligan Cut: Each attempt to stop Enoch is met with more and more people, followed by a jump to all of them either badly injured or dead.
- Gone Horribly Right: Simmons programmed Enoch with a directive to preserve the integrity of her memory implant at all costs, even if it means killing Simmons herself. This directive supersedes any other imperative and Enoch has no power to resist it. Unfortunately, this means the knowledge of the time drive is locked inside her mind and Enoch will kill to keep it that way, regardless of the danger it poses to the ship and crew.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The feared scenario of "jumping inside of another time jump" from the previous episode results in the Zephyr getting trapped in a "time storm", an ever-shrinking vortex that will eventually crush the ship to the size of an atom and possibly make them cease to have ever existed. The drive, meanwhile, has also trapped the ship in a time loop that keeps resetting, and only Daisy and Coulson retain memories of the previous loops. Additionally, if Daisy is killed during a loop, she will lose all the knowledge she’s gained. The catch is that while the Zephyr is looping, time outside the ship progresses normally, so the ship is falling into the vortex at a steady rate and will eventually hit the event horizon if they can't figure out how to fix the drive and jump out. Somewhat unusually for this trope, the original time through is not shown. The episode starts with one of the loops, one following a loop where Daisy was apparently killed as she doesn't know what's going on.
- Hammerspace: After one Curb-Stomp Battle with Enoch, Sousa asks "Where'd he get all those weapons?"
- Has a Type: Sousa notes he has a thing for Determinators, though he describes it in far more detail. Daisy lampshades that he's being rather specific when he adds her powers into the description.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Enoch willingly hands over his Electrochron Displacement Mechanism in order to fix the time drive, even though it's his analogue of a heart and will result in his death.
- Idiot Ball: Daisy and Coulson waste a lot of their limited time-loops trying to subdue Enoch by force when they could literally just ask him to go lock himself in a room somewhere and wait to be retrieved simply as a personal favour without mentioning anything about the implant. Even by the time that they do reach Jemma's implant, they're still working off the assumption that Enoch definitely will find out what they're trying to do and put up violent resistance.
- Internal Reveal:
- Daisy and Coulson learn of Jemma's memory implant. Thanks to the loops, it's not clear if they shared this with the rest of the team after fixing things.
- In The Stinger, Kora learns that Daisy is her sister.
- Just in Time: The loop is stopped less than a kilometer from the event horizon.
- The Key Is Behind the Lock: Enoch's directive to protect the implant can be overridden, but doing so requires a password that Simmons would only know if the implant weren't installed.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Enoch advises Daisy to cherish her remaining time with her S.H.I.E.L.D. family, as he claims to know she won't be with them much longer in the future. Whether he was literal or being figurative about having seen her future, it is a meta-reminder that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is expected to conclude after this season.
- Logo Joke: When Daisy looks out the cockpit window at the cosmic storm, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. logo appears and goes away once Daisy stops looking. When the time loop starts, Daisy repeats her steps, and looks out the cockpit window again...to see the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. logo a second time; driving home the "Groundhog Day" Loop plot.
- Manchurian Agent: Enoch isn't aware of the directive Jemma installed, it only triggers when somebody attempts to remove her implant.
- More Expendable Than You: When Daisy realizes someone has been through the drawer that contains the implant removal device, Sousa reasons that it's been booby-trapped and grabs it himself, since that way they only lose one loop instead of however many it would take for Daisy to figure things out from scratch. It predictably kills him.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Enoch seems to use this, or at least violence, to protect Jemma's memory implant. Enoch tells Sousa not to remove the implant in a few loops, but doesn't say why he shouldn't.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Whatever Simmons remembered after her memory inhibitor is removed causes her to react this way.
- Mythology Gag: Deke's 1980s cologne is called "Tattletale". "Tattletale" was the code name of Franklin Richards when he was in Marvel's 1980s comic book Power Pack.
- Negative Space Wedgie: Well, Negative Time Wedgie, at any rate. The Zephyr gets stuck in one as a result of the malfunctioning time drive jumping during a jump.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Enoch never gets to say goodbye to Fitz.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Several Gilligan Cuts leave out the sight of Enoch repeatedly thrashing first Coulson and Daisy, then the rest of the team.
- One-Man Army: While previously May was able to give him a good fight when he was still holding back, Enoch shows what a terrifying combatant he is when unrestrained, by taking care of the entire team, at least once even when they all attack him at the same time.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After looping so many times that Daisy has traveled 97km towards a vortex of complete annihilation (and implied to be a longer period of time before we start watching the episode), Daisy finally has the answer as to how to save the team. She quietly walks onto the bridge, shuts the cockpit doors and tells Mack and May that "Everything's gonna be OK. Trust me." Following this, she asks Jemma to come to the LMD lab with Enoch and then asks Deke the distance to the vortex in such a calm manner that the three instantly listen to her and let her take the lead.
- Photographic Memory: Coulson's LMD brain shows this ability, since he remembers what happens in every loop he was awake for and what plans he and Daisy previously tried.
- Plot-Driven Breakdown: The doors to the Quinjet short out in each loop, locking Yo-Yo inside. This keeps her and her ability to speed anywhere in the ship in the blink of an eye locked down, as otherwise Enoch would never pose as much of a threat as he does. The one time they attempt to break her out, it takes the entire loop and defeats the purpose. They do manage to get her out quickly a couple loops from the end, though it isn't explained how.
- Plot Hole: One "early" loop shows that Yo-Yo can't help solve their issues this time because she's stuck behind a locked door, and the work to get her out takes an entire loop of time in itself. Despite this, in a few of the later loops she is mysteriously seen back with the team helping out.
- Ret-Gone: Deke says that, once the ship passes the event horizon, they will cease to ever have existed.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Coulson and Daisy are the only two people that can retain their memories after a time reset. There is no solid reason given why this is, though Coulson mentions that in past loops the two of them chalked it up to shielding from the pods they were in. However, Daisy can lose her memories of the time loop if she dies before a reset (which sets back progress as she has to relearn the situation).
- Sanity Slippage: Life as an LMD is doing a number on Coulson's mental health, and the time loops aren't helping. He spends a big chunk of the episode a lot more agitated and manic than usual. It's increasingly played for drama as he wonders if he, as a "thing", even has a soul.
- Seen It All: None of the team are particularly thrown off by the reveal of the time loop. Sousa admits that all the craziness he's been through with the team does affect him, but he just doesn't let it show.
- Shout-Out:
- When Coulson and Daisy are discussing previous attempts to break out of the time loops, Coulson mentions what they did in "loops 23 to 42-ish" (two of the numbers from Lost).
- Coulson comments that he "spent a year as Max Headroom".
- Spoiler Title: Given that "As I have always been" are the Arc Words of Enoch (and to a lesser extent other Chronicoms), it's safe to assume he plays a major role in the episode, even if that's not apparent initially.
- Stay with Me Until I Die: Daisy and Coulson do this for Enoch as he shuts down after yanking out his Electrochron Displacement Mechanism.
- The Stinger: Nathaniel is teaching Kora to focus her powers, and says her little sister (Daisy) will be so proud.
- Tempting Fate: Mack, Yo-Yo, May, and Sousa admit in one loop that they don't expect to be able to stop Enoch, but they can at least slow him down until Simmons's implant is removed. Unfortunately, too much time has been wasted in this loop and it resets before the latter.
- Title Drop: Enoch's final words are "As I have always..."
- True Companions: Enoch admits that he gave up his life for the team because he knows they would have done the same for him. Daisy makes sure that he knows, in the end, that he was a good friend to all of them, Fitz especially.
- Trust Password: Daisy has Simmons make up a fake word so she can repeat it to her in subsequent loops to prove the time loop is real. She picks "Phlebotinum".
- Unexplained Recovery: In each loop, by the time Daisy reaches the bridge, Yo-Yo is in the Quinjet and the doors malfunction, sealing her inside. The one time they try to get her out, it takes so long that the loop resets before she can do anything more than squeeze through the gap. Near the end, however, Yo-Yo joins Sousa, May, and Mack in trying to slow down Enoch, with no explanation as to how they got her out so quickly.
- The Unreveal: Simmons gets her memory inhibitor removed in order to figure out how to fix the Time Drive. After she passes on the key information to Coulson and Daisy, she begins to break down about something related to Fitz. It gives an impression that he is in more danger than has been let on or worse.
- Wham Line:
- From Coulson: "How long did it take you to figure it out this time?"
- From Enoch: "Your friends will survive, but the team will not."
- What Are Records?: While Coulson is explaining a time loop the team is trapped in:Coulson: The time-drive is stuck. It keeps looping back on itself over and over again.
Daisy: Like feedback.
Coulson: I've been thinking about it like a record skipping.
[(Daisy gives him a condescending head tilt
]
Coulson: Every time I say that, you give me the same look. Vinyl's back! You're supposed to know records again.
[the loop restarts again] - What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Coulson has had a while to think about this. May still considers him a replacement.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Coulson tells Daisy that as an LMD, he will long outlive the rest of his team and eventually have to watch each of them die before his very eyes.
- You Are Not Alone: After Enoch removes his EDM, Daisy and Coulson stay with him to the end.
- You Remind Me of X: Sousa doesn't say to Daisy, "You remind me of Peggy Carter." But he comes very close.
