The new black and white episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 7, “Out of the Past” was surely the best of this season. While, the show seems to be deviating from MCU’s logic of time travel, but it is also trying to prevent making any changes to the timeline of the MCU. We should just stop trying to connect the show to the main MCU timeline and be happy with the way it makes its MCU references.
The following article contains Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 7, Episode 4, “Out of the Past.”
The latest episode gave us a throwback to how Phil Coulson’s sacrifice brought the Avengers together. And like always, it used that link to the MCU to tell its own story, or in this case, the history of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The promo for the fourth episode revealed that Agent Sousa was going to die. He was the fallen agent who became an inspiration for S.H.I.E.L.D. to act as an effective organization just like Coulson’s death inspired the Avengers.
While all the episodes till now have tried to keep the timeline of the “MCU” intact, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. make it their mission to prevent Daniel Sousa from dying in this particular episode. First, they make it seem that they will allow the timeline to change in order to prevent the death of a good man, a good agent who gave his life to strengthen S.H.I.E.L.D.. But that is not what happens. Sure, after watching the first trailer of this season and comparing, it with the events of the first 3 episodes, it became obvious that Daniel Sousa was not going to die in Episode 4. The only question was, whether the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents would go as far as changing an entire timeline to save the life of one man.
Well, they pulled off the save very smartly. The final few minutes of the episode totally manage to surprise its viewers. Daniel Sousa had become aware of Hydra’s infiltration within S.H.I.E.L.D. Because he was going to expose Hydra’s presence, Wilfred Malick, the father of future Hydra leader, Gideon Malick, had ordered a hit upon Sousa’s head. Hence, after delivering a S.H.I.E.L.D. gadget to an associate of Howard Stark at the Roosevelt Hotel, Sousa was murdered and went down as a big name in the files of S.H.I.E.L.D.. He was murdered by Hydra, but S.H.I.E.L.D. thought that he was actually murdered by Russians, hence that’s the history which was written.
All this was supposed to happen, but it isn’t really what happened. Coulson & co caught up to Agent Sousa after he made the delivery and incapacitated him with the S.H.I.E.L.D. Icer and took him to Zephyr 1. Then, Coulson posed as Sousa by wearing his overcoat and hat, and his LMC-Chronicom body took two bullets in the back. He fell in the pool and his advanced body allowed him to keep his mouth underwater and pretend that he is dead. Daisy & Jemma then retrieved Coulson’s LMD and did everything necessary to let S.H.I.E.L.D. believe that Agent Sousa died. Hence, the timeline was kept intact, but Coulson & his team managed to pull Sousa out of history, just like Steve Rogers got pulled out of his time and slept for almost 70 years to end up in the future.
Now, Agent Sousa gets to be alive and work as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent of the future. It’s almost like the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have got their own version of Steve Rogers. Daniel Sousa is a righteous man. He had (and still has) a thing for Peggy Carter. The only difference is that he isn’t a super-soldier. But still, something tells us that he will prove to be a great asset to S.H.I.E.L.D.. And Jemma could provide him an advanced leg brace and make him more efficient by fixing his leg in the next episode itself. Let’s see how Sousa proves to be of importance in the final season.
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