“A life spent, a life earned”
To put it another way, kill or be killed.
That’s the Golden Rule in the future world the agents of SHIELD are in. They get a couple of examples of this rule this week as Gemma meets an unusual girl, and the agents try to get on the remains of Earth to figure out why they are here.

SPOILERS BELOW

The Kree, especially Kasius (Dominic Rains), live well in a piece of what used to be the Earth. He still enjoys his latest prize and slave, Gemma. Even Sinara (Florence Faivre), one of his minions, is getting jealous. Gemma is ordered to help a girl who’s supposed to prepare for a ceremony. She is Abby (Ciara Bravo), an Inhuman. She’s having problems with her new skill of controlling her density.  She can be so light she can pass through things, or be as hard as lead.  The Kree expect her to do well or her family will suffer.  Gemma tells her to pretend to be a field of stars, and control the space between them. That actually works.

Then the ceremony begins: Abby is expected to defeat a very big and deadly guy with her power. Witnessing this is someone called the Lady Basha (Rya Kihlstedt), who wants Inhumans as warriors for her needs. It shows, at least, there are aliens just as cruel as the Kree. Seeing the big man toss Abby around like a rag doll is the most painful scene the show has ever made. It also shows how cruel life has become. Abby is able to recover and take Gemma’s advice, She suddenly becomes hard as a rock and the guy winds up breaking his arm trying to hit her. Then, she is able to cause serious organ damage by reaching into his body. Abby has a valuable power that she’s forced to use in a very cruel way. Gemma’s heart is broken when she sees Abby being sold to Basha, but she can’t protest. Kasius controls Gemma in every way, thanks to the device inside her. Sinara is still jealous of Gemma, especially because Kasius is fascinated by Gemma’s compassion (which Sinara says as if she was spitting out a peach pit).

Meanwhile, Coulson and his crew are able to join a mission on the trawler. Grill (Pruitt Taylor Vince) expects them to do a double haul because they owe him. Actually, they have a plan where they hope to find a scroll that will help them find Simmons. They also hope to get closer to what’s left of Earth to find out what really happened. Grill doesn’t trust them so he sends Zev (Kaleti Williams) to make sure they behave.

Daisy and Deke (Jeff Ward) talk a lot, especially how he still thinks it’s her fault the Earth is destroyed. She still says she can’t do that, and he says she might in the future, He even pulls out the “Multi-Verse” card, claiming while Earth is destroyed in his universe it could happen in hers. He gets a slap in the face for his trouble. It is a clash of how both want to deal with life in the late 2000’s. He prefers laying low so that mankind still exists, while she wants to fight and help people. This is also reflected when Coulson and May discuss their situation in the trawler. He thinks maybe helping these people in the future is their destiny, but she wants to go home. She’s had enough of being in virtual worlds and outer space.
Coulson finds in Virgil’s book that he’s interested in a chunk of Earth known as 616 (as in Earth-616, where the Marvel Universe exists). He also finds out his good luck charm, a small globe, hides a knob which opens a ham radio where he’s been talking to someone. Zev catches them, but some fancy flying by May and fancier fighting by the crew knocks him out.

They debate what to do with them. Tess (Lisa Harrow) says they will be in major trouble if Grill finds out, Maybe Zev might be caught in an “accident.” Instead, with he help of fast hands by Elena, they plant a gun on him, which is forbidden. This is a key development in how the agents are dealing with their new world. They don’t like “a life spent, a life earned”, but sometimes people, even the agents, do what they can to survive.

Daisy, though, prefers to fight. She pulls a River Tam by hiding on the ceiling of an elevator. She eventually has to clobber a couple of Kree. When she gets to where Gemma is, she is gassed and ambushed by Kasius. Right next to him is Deke who says he’s just playing the long game. Even though Daisy vows to kill Deke, chances are Kasius will do it first thanks to his long game. He’ll keep Deke around until he’s no longer useful, which could be any moment.

Finally, that scene that ended season four is repeated, where Phil tells himself to get back to work. He discovers the transmission is from the Earth surface, and whoever it is also knows about Virgil and SHIELD. Tess doesn’t understand, because being on Earth is a death sentence. She apparently doesn’t know how Kasius lives there.

She is right, though. The last we see of Zev is him being lunchtime for the Vrell Nexian herd. Still, though, no Fitz, but he’s expected to show up soon.

Next week, Daisy is forced to show her powers, and might find herself in a fight club.