After the Chronicoms changed the timeline, the team must get history back on track. Coulson works with Sousa to make a delivery.
Tropes:
- Affably Evil: While Wilfred Malick is ruthless, his willingness to spare Deke shows that he's not without a certain sense of honor.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Mack is oddly dismissive of the MacGuffin considering the last innocuous metal brick S.H.I.E.L.D. messed with turned out to be an alien-built Inhuman detector
that could turn humans to stone. - Bad Boss: Wilfred Malick shoots one of his men for kidnapping the wrong person.
- Bait-and-Switch: The suspicious receptionist is actually one of the good guys, as he delivers Sousa's package to Howard Stark.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Not only are the Chronicoms still causing trouble as usual, but HYDRA is active now and is determined to see Sousa killed, which is exactly what happens in the historical records. By the end of the episode, Luke offers to team up with Wilfred Malick, the apparent current leader of HYDRA, to prevent HYDRA's eventual defeat. It's also initially thought that the Russians are at play as well, though this ultimately turns out not to be the case.
- Deadly Distant Finale: The episode focuses on Sousa's last mission before his death. Subverted, as he lives through the end of the episode (see Tricked Out Time below).
- Deliberately Monochrome: Most of the episode is filmed in monochrome because Coulson has been rendered colorblind after the EMP at the end of the previous episode. The colors come back when Simmons fixes him.
- Despair Event Horizon: After being left behind again, Enoch comes to the depressing realization that he's alone in the world.
- Distressed Dude: Deke is abducted by Malick's thugs.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Enoch is slightly unnerved about being looked over by the team so much.
- Dumb Muscle: Wilfred Malick's thugs grab the first guy they see at the right location without making sure that it's actually who they're looking for. Malick shoots one of them for being that incompetent.
- The Empath: As a side effect of her time in the other dimension, May is able to feel the emotions of others by touching them, though she still can't feel her own, and the ability doesn't work on LMDs like Coulson or Chronicoms (hence her emotionless state dealing with them two episodes ago).
- Exact Words: Discussing romance, Coulson tells Sousa that while he did find someone, he couldn't "stick around" long enough to make it work; he doesn't name names, but the other Coulson's relationships with Audrey and May were both cut short by his death.
- Facepalm: Mack does this when he hears an Alice Cooper song on the radio, since the team had been hoping to get back to their time with this jump.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: By the end of the episode, Sousa has joined S.H.I.E.L.D. on their time-travelling adventures, literally becoming out of the past as the episode title indicates.
- Flashback: As Coulson narrates about Sousa, we see a flashback of some of the latter's past heroics, which is footage from Agent Carter (fittingly, still in black and white).
- Foreshadowing: When May is expressing glee at the MacGuffin, she can clearly be seen touching Simmons' arm. Even apart from that, May showing such a level of interest in any kind of tech gets her odd looks from Daisy and Yo-Yo.
- Gambit Roulette: The plan to save Sousa while still keeping history intact relies on the fact that the HYDRA assassin would never see the face of "Sousa" after shooting him in the back (Coulson masquerading as him goes into the pool face-down to help with this ruse), banking on the fact that the assassin won't have time to stick around and verify or else risk being caught. However, given that another HYDRA goon was recently executed by Wilfred Malick for abducting the wrong guy, it's somewhat egregious.
- The Ghost: Howard Stark, who doesn't directly appear, but influences the plot nevertheless, as the package has to reach him.
- Honey Trap: One of the HYDRA agents who tries to seduce Sousa, though he sees right through it.
- Internal Reveal:
- Yo-Yo reveals May's panic attack back at Area 51 to Simmons when May is being evasive about it.
- Coulson tells Sousa the truth about where (and when) they come from. He accepts it a lot easier than Coulson thought he would (which was part of why Coulson didn't tell him in the first place).
- I Owe You My Life: The reason Malick spares Deke, though he warns him that their debt is settled, and he won't be so kind next time.
- The Klan: This episode once again draws a parallel between the HYDRA infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Ku Klux Klan presence within the political institutions of the mid-XX century United States when Wilfred Malick refers to HYDRA as "the Organization", just as KKK members did to conceal their membership.
- MacGuffin: The device Sousa was to deliver to Howard Stark — a nondescript obelisk whose function is never elaborated on, with only the vague assertion from a giddy Simmons that it is the basis for a lot of future tech, including Zephyr One itself.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Luke stays behind to team up with Wilfred Malick and guide him so HYDRA won't be wiped out in the future.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Twice over for Deke; after pointing out the incompetence of one of Malick's thugs, Deke is horrified when Wilfred shoots the man dead, and by the end of the episode, having seen what kind of man Freddie became, he regrets not pulling the trigger on him in 1931 and is game for the next attempt the team makes at changing history for the better.
- Noir Episode: Added to the Deliberate Monochrome, Coulson's glitch causes him to have internal narration where he gives a run-down of events in the style of Philip Marlowe.
- Noodle Incident: Sousa and Peggy breaking up is once again only briefly alluded to.
- Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: First time we see Enoch as the bartender of the Krazy Kanoe, he's naturally cleaning a glass.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: Appropriate for the time period, Coulson's scrambled circuits shift him into the noir thriller genre by turning his vision black-and-white and giving him an internal monologue.
- Pet the Dog: Out of gratitude for saving his life in the past, Malick lets Deke go without any trouble, though he does warn him that if they meet a third time, Deke is as good as dead.
- Private Eye Monologue: Coulson keeps one up throughout the episode. Played for laughs when it's revealed at the end that Coulson actually was hearing an internal monologue throughout the episode as a side effect of the EMP in the previous episode. It stops when Simmons fixes him.
- Reset Button: As Coulson's voiceover lampshades, the team was easily able to reach the hotel before Sousa's would-be killers got to him; they knew the exact time and location of Sousa's murder from history, and they have a jet, so they naturally get there with plenty of time to save Sousa and set up the faked death.
- Retcon: Coulson states that Sousa is the "first fallen Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.", though his name wouldn't have appeared on the wall of valour seen in the season 1 episode "Seeds", as Agent Carter didn't premiere until a full year after "Seeds".
- The Reveal:
- Sousa had figured out (well ahead of everyone else) that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised by the remnants of HYDRA, and tried to take evidence to his superior. Unfortunately, said superior was Wilfred Malick, head of HYDRA, who had him Killed to Uphold the Masquerade.
- May, after her time in Izel's dimension, is mirroring the feelings of everyone who makes physical contact with her, but can't feel any emotions of her own.
- Rule of Pool: Sousa's body (or rather, LMD Coulson posing as him) falls into a pool after being shot.
- Rule of Three: First Coulson calls Enoch, refuses to bring him back to the team and instead asks to be connected with the Zephyr. Then Yo-Yo calls and does the same. Then Deke calls ... and genuinely wants to reconnect with Enoch, only for Enoch to cut him off and connect him with the Zephyr.
- Running Gag: Characters who are stranded in the time period phone Enoch, but only so he can link them to the Zephyr thanks to a device he had built. It becomes tragic as it ultimately causes Enoch to think the others don't care about him. By the third time, he doesn't even wait for an explanation, just patches them through as soon as he hears it's one of them.
- Seen It All: Sousa is remarkably unfazed by being introduced to time travel; he quickly catches that the turbulence that woke him up was the Zephyr moving forward in time and calmly asks what time they've arrived in.
- Shout-Out:
- Plenty to the Film Noir genre. The title itself is a reference to the 1947 film of the same name.
- Also to The Wizard of Oz when Sousa mentions that the Chronicom melted like the Wicked Witch of the East. Coulson corrects him — it's the Wicked With of the West who melted.
- The Slow Path: The team connects with Enoch, but once again they leave him behind. They don't really have a choice; when the Zephyr leaves, Enoch is still thousands of miles away.
- Tap on the Head: Deke is knocked out by Malick's goons with a sap and brought to him. After waking up, he doesn't show any lasting sign of injury beyond rubbing his head.
- Time-Shifted Actor: As 24 years have passed, Freddie Malick is no longer portrayed by 29-year old Darren Barnet (who looked considerably younger), but by 39-year old Neal Bledsoe.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Freddie is definitely getting much closer to becoming the man that his future sons Gideon and Nathaniel spoke of than the frazzled bootlegger and bartender we saw him as in 1931, which is justified as he now appears to be the head of HYDRA.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Everyone assumed Daniel Sousa was killed by the Russians until Sousa himself tells the team that he figured out HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and Wilfred Malick is shown to be the one who ordered his hit. The trailer for the episode, however, outright says that Sousa was on the verge of exposing HYDRA's infiltration when he supposedly died.
- Tricked Out Time: Coulson impersonates Sousa's dead body, and is then taken away by the rest of the team. As far as anyone back in the fifties is concerned, Sousa is dead.
- Umbrella Drink: Enoch having become a bartender is serving this kind of drinks. At one point, he's seen toying with the umbrellas as the ramblings of a drunken patron is boring him to death.
- We Can Rule Together: Luke offers LMD Coulson the chance to join his side to betray the humans so that the Chronicoms can take over the Earth, seeing their commonality as mechanical beings, offering to show the humans mercy if he does so. Coulson obviously tells him to shove it.
- Wham Line: In a sense. At the end of the episode, the team jumps forward in time again, and immediately start scanning through radio stations to get a bead on when they are. Cue "No More Mr. Nice Guy", which establishes that they've landed circa 1973.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't find out what happened to Ernest Koenig, presuming that the Krazy Kanoe is still the site of the former speakeasy he owned 24 years prior.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Luke taunts LMD Coulson about the fact that he is effectively immortal and will see everybody around him wither and die.
- You Have Failed Me: Malick shoots one of his thugs for mistakenly abducting Deke.
