“Missing Pieces” is episode one of season six of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
In the season five finale, “The End”, the cracking of the Earth was stopped when Daisy blasted Talbot into space. Because she used the medicine originally intended to save Coulson’s life to increase her power. So, Coulson, and May, went to Tahiti, for him to spend his last days or weeks. The others were heading into space in the Zephyr, to find Fitz. Who had died. But that was Fitz from the future. In the present, Fitz has been put in cryofreeze by Enoch, in “Rewind”, to travel to the future the slow way. So, he’s still alive. So, he will never travel to the future. So… time travel can get confusing. Fitz – this Fitz – will likely get a bit of a surprise as Future Fitz and Simmons were married. Time travel is still confusing.
Fitz is currently in the cryochamber when an alarm sounds and a distant explosion is heard. Enoch apologises to the still-frozen Fitz. He has a bit of a conundrum; Enoch had planned to guard the vessel for the next 73 years, 261 days, but he must know calculate Fitz’s best chances of survival. Which is an extremely difficult computation, considering the circumstance. Then a spinning energy blade slices the ship in half.
One year later and Piper and Davis are landing the Zephyr on a platform. Piper contacts Daisy then the ship itself is contacted. They have entered D’Rillian atmosphere without clearance so should prepare for boarding. The boarders are greeted by Daisy, and one is told to scan her to see who she is by the leader. Daisy is after fuel. She isn’t going to pay – they are going to give her it. Then her identification – Quake – comes back. She shakes their guns apart and the guards run away. Daisy takes down their leader, Trok, and Simmons tells him they are looking for someone.
On Earth, Mack is in the Lighthouse’s control room looking at a map of the world. There are strange readings that no-one understands; they started after Simmons left and she’s now light years away. May and several others are in Quinjets. The signal is traced to a park in Indiana, and May’s Quinjet is the nearest. Some boys are playing basketball there; one gets distracted and another grabs the ball from him. Which shatters when it bounces on the ground. Birds fly out of the ground then a man claws his way out of a wall. Another tries following, but the wall solidifies around him. May arrives but the man, Jaco, shoots it out of the sky.
Afterwards, back at the Lighthouse, the matter is discussed. They can’t use the word anomaly to describe what’s happening – May says they used it up last year. Keller, who was on the Quinjet with May, has a theory. The park and the city bus that had holes torn through and the lake in the desert that froze solid are all on ley lines. Keller points out that Mack did ask for any ideas, even stupid ones. Mack leaves for his morning check-in – he has hologram recordings of Coulson. By the sounds of it, when Mack talks to May, Coulson will have been dead for a year tomorrow. Mack also wants May to settle on a department head.
Simmons has Trok suspended upside down. She tells him she doesn’t know much about D’Rillian anatomy, but will when she cuts his corpse open. However, given D’Rill’s low gravity, she is certain that he will die of something suspended upside down in the Zephyr, as he is used to a gravity only 68% of theirs. They found out that Fitz’s ship had been cut in half and have been chasing down suppliers, such as one known to sell traceable fuel, as the ship should not have been detected. Trok admits he does sell such, but not to that ship. He did buy the broken half of it for parts though. Fitz’s cryochamber is onboard the ship – but it’s empty. Only four people, including Simmons, are now on the Zephyr, and both they, and the ship, have got worn down by the search. And they are now out of clues. Plus, the Confederacy is really unhappy with them.
On Earth, Joco seems to be one of a number of people coming through from… somewhere. And one of those is a bit of a shock. So, who are they and what are they doing?
The tail end of the previous season made a number of references to the events of Infinity War. Rather oddly, this episode makes no mention of either what happened at the end of Infinity War or the events of Endgame. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so it really should have. Apparently, the writers weren’t sure it was going to return for another season. So, currently, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is disconnected from the events of the films.