‘Agents of SHIELD’ Season 5 Premiere: “Orientation” Recap With Spoilers

The episode opens with shots of a child’s drawings. The man who took Coulson’s SHIELD team enjoys some pool time. He takes a blandly labeled container out of his fridge. He takes off his human skin to shower, puts it and a suit on, and drives to an air hangar. He meets with a man who has a blank van. The man digitally swaps the paint on the van’s side. The agent loads up the van with a tactical strike team and they drive off.

The van arrives at Rae’s restaurant. The strike team turns out the electricity on the restaurant’s block then turns on floodlights and storms the diner. Some guards outside make small talk while the agent’s team load up the SHIELD team minus Fitz, who was “not on the list.” The van drives away, and the lights are restored.

The SHIELD team is unloaded, and as soon as they regain agency a monolith washes over them. Coulson finds himself looking out over an asteroid field through a broken window in some kind of spaceship or space station. Everyone around him is frozen in time.

Coulson grabs a bar bolted to a wall just as time resumes, and a man is sucked out of the window.

Two other men argue about having shot out the window and letting that man die. Coulson reveals himself, and one of the men seem to have been expecting him. Before the man can explain, they hear an animal-like noise from outside the room. One of the “Roaches” grabs one of the men and pulls him outside.

Coulson insists that the other man, Virgil, explain what’s going on. Virgil says he’s a true believer in Coulson, just before Mack shows up and knocks Virgil out.

Yo-Yo appears somewhere else on the ship. She begins beating on someone with a gas mask until that someone pulls the mask off and reveals that she’s Simmons. Simmons examines some dead bodies on the ground and finds they’ve been dead for a while, but were drained of all fluid. Mack and Coulson arrive, dragging Virgil’s unconscious body.

A man in a helmet levitates into the structure through the same broken window that Coulson was looking out of.

Part 1, Act II

May finds herself with her leg impaled by a metal pipe.

Mack chastises Coulson for not bringing his fancy hand. Mack says he’s quitting as soon as they get back to Earth. Coulson doesn’t know anything about SHIELD operating in outer space. Coulson takes an item out of Virgil’s pocket and hands it to Simmons. They don’t recognize it, but they do find a postcard from Lake Ontario as well.

May struggles to free herself. She pulls the pipe out and limps away as something prepares to break through a nearby door.

Virgil wakes up and is as much in awe of the rest of the SHIELD team as he was of Coulson. He says he’s been studying them all for years, and that he’s always believed the stories that they’d come and save humanity. Suddenly, a Roach stabs Virgil through the head, and begins chasing the SHIELD team. They’re cornered, but Daisy Johnson shows up just in time to destroy it with her powers.

May hides while the man with the helmet examines the body of the dead man who created Coulson with Virgil. The man uses a knife to pull out some kind of device with a keyhole symbol on it from the dead man’s arm. The man finds May, and says he’s been looking for her.

Part 1, Act III

May and the man fight until the man uses a device to alter gravity and send May floating in the air, and then he pins her against a wall.

Daisy asks Coulson if this situation has anything to do with Coulson’s bargain with Ghost Rider. Coulson says this is all new to him. Simmons and Daisy note that Fitz was left behind, but that May is around somewhere. Coulson suggests they split up, but Mack doesn’t like the idea. They decide to stick together instead, slowly creeping down the hallway.

The man with the helmet has May bound and gagged. The man pulls out a knife and notes thatthe “metric” on her arm. He stabs his knife into her wrist.

Yo-Yo uses her powers to scout ahead. She finds it clear. Simmons explains to Coulson that the place seems designed to support human life. To build it, Coulson estimates they would have had to start in the 1980s, under Howard Stark, which doesn’t seem right.

The group finds the room where the man had May. Its empty, but they find blood and May’s coat. Daisy notes the words “water reclamation” on a control panel. They fire up the panel and find that it’s been used to mine water from “water oceans,” asteroids. They surmise there must be a ship on the station that they could use to send a message back to Earth, but the controls are off limits to humans. Just then two Kree burst in the door and knock them all out.

Part 1, Act IV

The group is imprisoned. The Kree discuss leaving the transgressors to be punished by “him” for breaking their rules.

Mack and Yo-Yo are hanging in chains. One of the Kree walks in and starts punching Mack.

Simmons theorizes that the Kree have been kidnapping humans and bringing them to this colony for years. The door opens and May and her captor are their. The man plays it off like they all know each other for the Kree guard, telling the Kree that Virgil stole their metrics. He bribes the Kree to let them go.

The other Kree continues to beat on Mack. Another Kree suggests Mack, who is standing up well for a human, could make a nice gift to Kasius to work the crater. They agree to spare Mack, but turn to torture Yo-Yo instead.

The man is annoyed that Virgil died before paying him for the job. He’s out, but Coulson is determined to rescue Mack and Yo-Yo. The man’s name is Deke, and Coulson makes it clear he’s not going anywhere until they find their way out. May activates the gravity device to pin Deke down. The group splits up: Daisy to rescue Yo-Yo and Mack, Coulson to interrogate Deke, and the rest to find the ship. Deke tells Coulson the Kree want submission.

May and Simmons head down in an elevator and find its far larger than they thought. They realize this isn’t an outpost but a staging ground for an invasion.

Part 1, Act V

Daisy follows Yo-Yo’s screams. She bursts in and frees Mack, knocking down one Kree in the process while Yo-Yo kicks the other in the head.

May and Simmons find the trawler. Simmons realizes the device she took from Virgil is the key to the ignition. They take off.

Deke explains that the Kree didn’t build the “Bunker.” Deke realizes that Coulson isn’t from “processing.” Coulson tries to explain what part of Earth he’s from but Deke is just more confused.

Mack, Yo-Yo, and Daisy knock out the Kree and use one of their hands to activate the control panel.

Simmons says she recognizes some constellations

Deke says the Bunker was built at least 90 years ago and that he was born here.

Daisy’s team realizes the machinery has all been repurposed, and its giving their locations in longitude and latitude. Mack asks for the post-card.

Coulson explains where they were taken from, but Deke wants to know when. Coulson realizes the monolith was different. They didn’t travel through space.

A school bus floats by the trawler.

Mack flips the postcard and finds a message from Fitz that reads, “Working on it.”

Part 2, Act I

May and Simmons are taking in what they’re seeing as the trawler is struck by two asteroids. The controls stop responding. Simmons takes out the key then reinserts it to restore control. The fly forwards, and the remains of Earth come into view.

May and Simmons rejoin Coulson and Deke and trade notes. Deke offers them metrics to help them blend in. They’re interrupted by a woman named Tess who is looking for Virgil. They break the news to her. Deke explains that Virgil hired him to hide these people, who are the people from the past that Virgil kept talking about. Tess offers to double Virgil’s price in exchange for Deke’s continued assistance.

Deke finds Daisy’s team, and isn’t happy that they’ve killed two Kree, knowing they’ll kill a herd of humans in retaliation. Mack suggests leaving the Kree bodies with the human corpses to hide that it was murdered.

Tess tells the SHIELD team that all they know is that the Earth was torn apart by some cataclysmic event. Then the Kree showed up, destroyed all records, and took control of what and who was left.

Part 2, Act II

Tess leads them to the Lighthouse, an overcrowded area where the remaining humans live. Tess says the Elders talked about how SHIELD would come and save them all, but the Kree killed the Elders, and Virgil was the only one left who still believed. They notice one well-dressed human who serves on the Kree’s upper levels. Tess tells them to blend in and takes Coulson to Virgil’s room.

Tess explains to Coulson that she’s never been outside except on spacewalks. Tess is stopped by someone named Grill asking about the trawler. She says Virgil died, and they were training a new pilot.

Deke and the rest of the group continue dragging the Kree bodies through the halls infested with Roaches. Deke tries to flirt with Daisy, but it doesn’t work well.

Virgil’s room is full of “artifacts” from Earth. Tess tells Coulson that what’s left of Earth’s surface is unlivable for humans. The Vrellnexians live there instead. Coulson finds a journal in Virgil’s belongings. It looks like there’s a flight log of some kind inside.

Simmons and May realize the humans have no technology. Things in the area tense up when a female Kree enters with several guards. A human servant announces that Kasius has seen fit to feed them, and some food falls out of a pipe. A fight breaks out, and the human servant is stabbed. The Kree female kills the man who stabbed the guard. Simmons tries to tend to the servant’s wound. The Kree drag the servant away and take Simmons with them as well.

Part 2, Act III

Daisy’s team reunites with Coulson’s group. Deke has a tense conversation with Tess. He’s worried Virgil’s beliefs are true, which would lead to a massacre. The SHIELD team debates what to do next. The SHIELD team decides to gather more information. Deke orders Tess to get them to blend in. Daisy tails Deke.

Simmons is brought to the upper levels, which are far nicer than the lowers leverl. Simmons is told to undress and clean herself. She then meets Kasius, who says even Hala doesn’t have a view like the Lighthouse.

Daisy loses sight of Deke. She uses her powers and discovers a hidden door and heads inside. The small room is lit by a red light. and there are several people passed out inside. She sees Deke just before she passes out as well, then wakes up in a Framework program.

Part 2, Act IV

Kasius asks Simmons about where she learned her medical skills. He tells the female Kree, named Sinara, to tell the guards to give the humans some breathing room to relieve some pressure. Kasius offers Simmons some grapes and notices she does not have a metric.

The SHIELD team hatches a plan to grab one of the tablets they’ve seen around. May distracts Tess, Coulson breaks a steam pipe to cause a distraction, and Yo-Yo uses her speed to grab a tablet.

The Kree arrive for a metric inspection. Coulson offers a trade to Grill. He offers a Kree tablet in exchange for installing three metrics. Grill wants more and agrees to let them work the price off.

Deke goes into a bar in the program and reads a paper. He tells Daisy to pull up a stool and have a beer. Deke says he rebuilt the Framework software from scratch and turned using its simulations into a business.

Tess is worried when she sees the Kree scanning metrics. She says its a “renewal.” The metrics light up. Those whose turn red owe a life, either their own or someone else’s. The place becomes chaos as the humans begin trying to kill each other.

Part 2, Act V

Grill magnetizes the metrics he just installed to pin the SHIELD team down. An angry human finds them there and plans to kill them to get payback on Grill. May shows up to defend them. He insists he has to because he owes a life, but Tess shoots him first. Grill covers for them with the Kree when the guard scans their metrics.

The servant who was stabbed is brought to Kasius. He is not pleased with the scar. He admits the stab wound can be covered by a tunic, but the cut on his head cannot. He is now imperfect, and Kasius has Sinara kill him. Kasius takes some metallic liquid device from the man’s ear and inserts into Simmons’ ear. She can no longer hear.

Deke argues with Daisy about rescuing Simmons and about the morals of Deke’s Framework den. A news report about Quake plays on the bar TV. Deke confirms Daisy’s identity, and says that he’s pieced the history together, and it was her that tore the planet apart.

Simmons is turned into one of Kasius’s servants.

Deke says SHIELD tried to save the world, and that’s what caused it to be destroyed.

Simmons and two other servants are led to Kasius. She only hears Kasius’s voice when he speaks to her. Kasius’s guests arrive in a spaceship.