The Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s television and film output now operates as a single interconnected production line, with Marvel Studios treating Disney+ series as prerequisite viewing rather than optional expansion. For instance, Loki is confirmed to carry directly into Avengers: Doomsday, while WandaVision led to the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This level of coordination is a recent development, though. Before the Disney+ era, Marvel’s television arm operated on a separate branch, filling gaps between films while being mostly ignored by Marvel Studios. That old hierarchy left several ambitious network shows underwatched and undervalued, and no series suffered more from that positioning than Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, which ran seven seasons on ABC starting in 2013.
Agents of SHIELD spent its first season struggling to justify its own premise, with Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team chasing disconnected threats that felt disposable next to the films dominating theaters that same year. The turnaround arrived with the 17th episode, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” which synced directly with the Hydra reveal in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and finally gave the show a mythology worth following week to week. From that point forward, the series committed to adapting deep-cut comic concepts with real ambition, moving from artificial to actual demons as it built a versatile universe for its amazing cast of characters. That structural confidence eventually produced episodes that perfectly showcase the series’ biggest strengths. One of these brilliant episodes turns out to be a time-loop story that rivals even time-bending series such as Doctor Who.
The seventh and final season of Agents of SHIELD operates as a sprawling celebration of the show’s history, sending the core team on a mission through past decades to stop an alien race known as the Chronicoms from erasing the organization from existence. Using their mobile-headquarters-turned-time-machine, the Zephyr One, the crew navigates various historical eras while maintaining the timeline’s integrity. However, the narrative drastically narrowed its focus during the ninth episode, “As I Have Always Been,” which premiered exactly six years ago today, on July 22, 2020. In the episode, due to a malfunction in the ship’s time drive, the Zephyr One becomes trapped in a time storm that forces the vessel to jump incrementally closer to a total spatial collapse. Within this crisis, Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennet) and the Coulson LMD realize they are trapped in a repeating time loop, burdened with the task of solving the mechanical failure while the rest of the crew remains oblivious to the impending destruction.
Instead of treating the time loop as a mere plot device, the script by Drew Z. Greenberg uses the repetition to force character breakthroughs. For example, the recurring cycles allow Daisy to lower her defensive walls, leading to an earned romantic connection with the displaced 1950s agent Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj). Furthermore, the loop exposes the tragic reality that Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) has a localized memory implant suppressing her knowledge of Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker). Daisy also has to face her discomfort with LMD Coulson — a walking replica of the father figure she had mourned years earlier — and eventually embrace him as a genuine part of the crew she cares about. Finally, the resolution requires the Chronicom ally Enoch (Joel Stoffer) to sacrifice his own life to repair the drive, leading to an emotional farewell to a fan-favorite character.
Agents of SHIELD fans consistently mention “As I Have Always Been” as their favorite, and the installment currently carries a 9.5 score at IMDb, the highest of the series’ 136 episodes. It’s curious to note that the episode was directed by series regular Henstridge, in her directorial debut. While it seems risky to deliver a key episode of the final season to an inexperienced director, “As I Have Always Been” leverages Henstridge’s deep understanding of the cast to ground the sci-fi premise. The devastating interpersonal stakes are precisely why audiences continue to celebrate the installment as one of the finest achievements in Marvel’s television catalog, even if Marvel Studios continues to ignore it.
All seven seasons of Agents of SHIELD are currently available to stream on Disney+.
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