Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: How The Kree Bring Humans Back to Life

We were solidly in the camp that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Tess (Eve Harlow) deserved a better death than the sudden hanging she got on last week’s episode. Unlike Virgil (Deniz Akdeniz) – ah Virgil, we hardly knew you) – Tess had endeared us with her scrappy fighter ways and take no BS attitude. Then she was killed by the Kree for something she only semi-had a part in, and it collectively broke our hearts.

Not to worry, Tessiacs – she returns! “Have the doctor awaken our latest acquisition,” Kasius (Dominic Rains) says. “It’s time to remind the humans I am not their enemy. I am their god.”

Kasius tries to prove his godhood with the rebirth of Tess, who plays both messenger and warning to her friends. Looking ghostly white and all kinds of disheveled, sporting some awful black bags under her eyes, Tess explained the brutal way she had returned from beyond the grave:

“I fought, then I begged. They dragged me to the Exchange. Knives are cold… I don’t feel the same… I was dead, and then screaming, my heart on fire. Kasius was there, smiling.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a character come back from the dead screaming. In the original season of S.H.I.E.L.D., we discovered that Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) had not been on a holiday in Tahiti to recover from his Loki stabbing in Avengers. Instead, Nick Fury had used Kree biology to revive him in an experimental procedure – specifically, using a drug called GH.325, which was derived from Kree blood and was capable of healing lethal wounds and even bringing people back from the dead.

This was, of course, not lost on our crew:

“S.H.I.E.L.D. dealt with something like this before,” Yo-Yo explained.

“In our time, we’ve seen Kree biology bring people back,” Mack (Henry Simmons) added.

Want a little more? Well, Tess had just enough information to be really creepy:

“Kasius said that he’d smothered the fires of death with the blood of the eternal. That’s how he talks. It’s horrible… Kasius is a god. That’s why I’m standing here, as proof.”

God? Probably not. Arthur C Clarke once said it best when he wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We already know the Kree are technologically impressive – we just didn’t really know how impressive until right now. The “blood of the eternal” comment likely means that the Kree bring humans back in the same way that Coulson was brought back: using Kree blood, or a serum derived from it. This means that Tess may not be out of the woods yet, as the use of GH.325 was associated with horrifying side effects – in particular, residual genetic memories from the alien DNA that ultimately led to psychological breakdowns among the test subjects.

Now, how does this life-after-death factor Kasius has play a role in the rest of the season’s episodes? Well, we still have to deal with the question of who is Kasius’ new seer. A favorite theory is that behind those metal doors lies the only other future-teller we’ve seen in S.H.I.E.L.D. so far: fan-favorite Raina (Ruth Negga). Of course, the last time we saw Raina, she had just been killed by Daisy’s mother, so her return was thought impossible until now. With Kasius’ ability to rework a good murder, however, we could see her return yet.

No matter who is it, you can bet that this new Lazarus-technology Kasius has is going to do something big by the time the gang finally gets back to Earth. It makes us a little more hopeful that if one of our favorites does end up dying, well, it might not be the last we’ll see of them.