The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are quite familiar with saving the world, having thwarted villains like Hydra, Inhumans, Hive, and Life Model Decoys at the end of every season. But each time it’s been a bootstrap, do-or-die affair, with the outcome far from certain. In this season finale, having destroyed the alien Confederacy spaceship that hovered over the Earth, our heroes still faced the homegrown threat of Graviton—their old ally General Talbot, his mind fragmented by the process of gaining his gravitonium-fueled powers. Like cartoon character Marvin the Martian, many fans went into the episode bracing for “an Earth-shattering kaboom!”
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are at the end of their fifth season, and everything has come down to this final dilemma. The pre-show ABC episode synopsis teased: “Coulson’s life or death is the challenge the team finds themselves in, as the wrong decision will cause the destruction of Earth.” Moreover, the episode bore the ominous title “The End.”
Earth-Shattering Events in the Comics
Threats to the planet Earth have been a staple of Marvel comic books from the earliest days of the Silver Age, which started with the creation of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Avengers. If you go to the Marvel wiki website and type in the words “earth threatening event,” you get the reply: “About 170,000 results for earth threatening event from Marvel Database.” In quick succession, the Fantastic Four faced a Skrull invasion from space, an alien infant so powerful that he could drag the Earth out of its orbit, and the world-devouring alien Galactus, who could bring about the extinction of the human race. The Avengers, with Thor on the team, often clashed with Asgardians with god-like powers, and eventually embarked upon one of the grandest Silver Age battles, the star-spanning Kree-Skrull War.
The scope of these grand events was replicated to enhance sales in what became known as “crossover events,” where stories would cross from one series of comic book into another. The stakes of these events grew from threatening worlds, to star systems, to galaxies, and even universes. Threats included the villain Thanos, god-like Celestials, massive interstellar wars, and a variety of magical or paranormal threats. All this culminated in the Secret Wars event of 2015 and 2016, which collapsed the Marvel multiverse into a single, massive world called Battleworld, ruled by Doctor Doom. Many fans thought this would reboot the Marvel multiverse, but the ending surprisingly restored the status quo with very little change, other than the elimination of the Ultimate Marvel timeline.
These ever-increasing stakes, lack of attention to character development, and massive amounts of damage and disruption which is often undone with a wave of the authorial hand at the end, have produced a certain amount of fatigue among comic book readers, and it looks like future events in the comics may have more limited scopes and smaller stakes to help counterbalance this reaction. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, is just moving into the “Massive Event” phase with Avengers: Infinity War and its upcoming sequel.
The Season So Far
Season Five has certainly taken the S.H.I.E.L.D. team in new directions. Before the agents could catch their breath after escaping the virtual reality Framework and defeating rogue Life Model Decoys (LMDs), they were kidnapped and sent into the future by the mysterious alien Enoch. There, they found the last remnants of humanity under alien Kree domination, clinging to life in the Lighthouse, a facility on a fragment of an Earth torn to pieces. Only Fitz was left in the present, and was quickly captured by General Hale, an Air Force officer charged with neutralizing S.H.I.E.L.D., who were blamed for destruction caused by rogue LMDs. Fitz escaped with the help of old team member Hunter and found Enoch, who had apparently sent the team into the future in order to help humanity, based on information received from the young precognitive girl, Robin. Enoch put Fitz into suspended animation and sent him into space so that he could rejoin the team in the future. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team was able to defeat the Kree and, thanks to the sacrifice of Enoch, assemble the elements needed to return to their own time. While in the future, the agents received hints of what the future holds for them. Daisy found that she had been blamed for the destruction of Earth and named the Destroyer of Worlds. Coulson fell ill as the treatments that had saved him from death began to break down. Yo-Yo met her armless future self, who warned that saving Coulson from death was what led to the Earth’s destruction.
Upon their return to the present (with the addition of Deke, an ally from the future), the agents find themselves pursued by General Hale’s forces, and took refuge in the present-day Lighthouse, a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility that did not appear even in Nick Fury’s secret files. General Hale turned out to be a secret Hydra agent, who has a daughter, Ruby, bred from birth for combat. Hale has taken General Talbot prisoner and brainwashed him. Ruby cuts off Yo-Yo’s arms in an attack, seeming to reinforce the warnings of future Yo-Yo; she is eventually outfitted with a pair of robot arms. Hale set off an explosion in the Lighthouse that opened rifts to a “fear dimension,” causing much trouble for the S.H.I.E.L.D. team. The agents discover that Hale was plotting with an alien Confederacy, and rescue Talbot. Fitz and Simmons finally get married, and it’s revealed that Deke is their grandson. Hale has created a chamber that could fuse a person with gravitonium, making them into a human weapon, and has assembled a team to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team foils this plot, and Yo-Yo killed Ruby.
Grieving, Hale goes to the alien Confederacy and gives them the location of the Lighthouse, attempting to trigger Talbot’s mental programming. Talbot, in a misguided effort to help, enters the chamber, merging with the gravitonium. He is driven mad in the process, and formed an alliance with the aliens. S.H.I.E.L.D. boards the alien ship, and Deke reprograms their missiles to turn back on them while May is able to defeat their leader in single combat. Coulson’s illness becomes worse, leading to his collapse. Talbot returns to Earth with incredible planet-threatening gravity powers, killing people along the way and threatening his own family. By this point, Fitz and Simmons have developed the means to either use the Centipede formula to create a serum that could save Coulson, or combine it with the alien berserker odium formula, creating a serum to kill Talbot and end the threat to Earth. But there is only enough Centipede formula to do one of these things, and the team’s loyalties are fractured.
The production team had a smaller budget to work with this season, but did a good job with what they had. The Lighthouse of the future, with a different paint job and set dressing, became the Lighthouse of the present, and the sets also served as General Hale’s secret lair. CGI was used sparingly, but there were some good exterior shots set in outer space that kept the interior action from feeling claustrophobic. At the end of the season, we even saw a little in-joke where May flirted with breaking the fourth wall by remarking, “All these hallways look the same.” Especially in the second half of the season, there were many touches that linked the current adventures with missions from the team’s past. We saw references to the Centipede formula, gravitonium, Daisy’s mother, and Hydra, as well as guest appearances by Hunter, Robin, Deathlok, Daniel Whitehall, Werner von Strucker, the Absorbing Man, and The Superior.
Just before the finale, ABC announced that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would be returning for a sixth season—reportedly a shorter, thirteen-episode season that will not appear until the summer of 2019. The fan base for the show is not as large as the network might like, but the show has strong support from those who do watch it, and the ability of the production team to put together such a strong fifth season on a limited budget no doubt contributed to the decision to renew the show.
The Season Finale: “The End”
The episode starts with an argument over the Centipede formula, which Yo-Yo grabs using her super speed, arguing that it should be used to stop Talbot. The argument draws out two key motivations for the team: to save lives, as expressed by Daisy, and to hang onto hope, as expressed by Mack. But May short-circuits the argument by destroying the odium, and Simmons prepares the formula for Coulson. He hesitates, however, because he saw a previous version of that formula drive someone mad. May tries to talk him into using it, but we cut away before seeing if he does.
Following the directions he has coerced from Robin by threatening her mother, Polly, Talbot crashes the damaged alien ship into the center of Chicago and begins pulling gravitonium from the ground. The team heads in on the linked Zephyr and quinjet. Daisy pulls the core team together, admits she doesn’t feel that she’s cut out to lead the team and nominates Mack, and everyone except the modest Mack raises their hand in agreement. Coulson emerges from the shadows and concurs, asking Mack what they should do. Mack says they will save lives. Coulson hands Daisy her Quake Gauntlets.
The team announces their presence to first responders, and they begin evacuating survivors. In a building, Mack and May find Robin, and Mack goes into the alien wreckage to find Polly, his shotgun-axe at the ready. He finds her, only to be attacked by the last of the alien warriors, and May and Fitz rescue them.
Coulson and Daisy, with Davis piloting the quinjet, head toward Talbot. Coulson admits he didn’t take the formula, and says it must be Daisy who faces Talbot. He thinks the time for talking may be past, and this time it will take her superpowers to save the world. As she runs away from the quinjet, we see the scene that was replayed during their adventures in the future, supposedly the last time the world saw Daisy Johnson. Daisy uses her quake powers to slam into Talbot, and tries to talk him out of his actions. Even though the alien threat is neutralized, he continues to amass more power for no clear purpose. She tells him he doesn’t need to become a hero, he has been one ever since he enlisted. She tries to remind him of the love of his son. But he has heard too many speeches, and thinks he is the only one who can save the planet. Daisy asks him to join them, and he agrees, but has a different idea of “joining,” wanting to absorb her and her powers. Talbot takes her high into the air, and slams her into the ground so hard they leave a crater.
Davis finds that Coulson has collapsed in the quinjet, and Yo-Yo and Simmons struggle to save him. When they clear the alien wreck, Fitz is buried by falling debris. Just as Talbot attempts to absorb Daisy, she finds a syringe hidden in her gauntlet and realizes it is the formula prepared for Coulson, and will boost her powers. Accepting Coulson’s sacrifice, she injects herself, and with the additional strength, propels Talbot into the sky at a speed that must be well in excess of 25,000 miles per hour, because he is headed into deep space. As we see his features freezing, we realize why the show made it clear in previous episodes that his powers would not protect him from the vacuum of space.
When they uncover Fitz, he is badly injured, and dies with Mack at his side. The differences and disagreements the two of them had recently had fade away as Mack tries to comfort his friend “Turbo.” A moment with Robin makes it clear her view of the future has changed: the time loop is broken. At their base, while Simmons tends to Coulson in his hospital bed, Mack breaks the bad news to her.
We cut to a memorial plaque being prepared, and assume that the team will be gathering to remember Fitz. Simmons finds Deke’s room empty except for the multitool he inherited from Fitz, leaving his fate unclear. The team burns Robin’s pictures of a future that will no longer come to pass, and smash remnants of the Kree monolith that propelled them into the future. They pour drinks in the hold of the Zephyr, and Coulson says this is a celebration, not a funeral. The team shares memories, and Coulson chokes up and gives a speech about them being heroes. It turns out that they are gathered for Coulson’s retirement, and the plaque is for him. From their conversation, we gather that while Fitz died, another version of him is still in cold sleep somewhere in space…and the Zephyr has been refitted for space flight. Coulson offers a toast: “Here’s to us. Who’s like us? Damn few.” Coulson leaves Mack in charge, and admits to Daisy that he only has days or weeks left to live. He tells her he’s proud of her, and they both say, “I love you.” He opens the rear hatch, puts on his sunglasses, and walks out onto a beach. On the flight deck, the new team assembles, comprised of Mack, Daisy, Yo-Yo and Simmons, along with the apparently promoted Davis and Piper. Coulson is joined by May, also wearing sunglasses. He says it’s a magical place, and we realize his story is ending in the real Tahiti. They hold hands and watch the Zephyr take off for its next adventure.
The show wisely ended the action just before Thanos’ pivotal “finger snap” moment at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. That would have added one more huge element to an already over-stuffed episode, and would have required a fair amount of explanation and set-up and thrown off the impact of a very satisfying ending.
This episode would have been a fitting end for the series as a whole, but contains just enough open-ended threads to promise an exciting future. The new team has a solid base back at the Lighthouse, as well as the collective gratitude of the city of Chicago and an immediate mission to go search of Fitz. While Coulson could return for the recently announced sixth season, I almost hope he doesn’t, except perhaps in flashbacks, because he got such a good sendoff. And like so many people who have shipped FitzSimmons over the years, while I tend to hate seeing deaths undone in later episodes, I’m glad their story is not at an end.
The episode had a lot packed into it, almost too much, and it took a second viewing to take it all in. Actress Natalia Cordova-Buckley did a masterful job in this episode, especially in portraying Yo-Yo’s anguish during the passionate argument that opened the show. Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen had some fine understated moments, especially when the two of them danced around the love they couldn’t express in words. Henry Simmons was solid as always as Mack, and he and Iain De Caestecker did fine work in Fitz’s death scene. Chloe Bennet did a good job in her quinjet argument with Coulson, her fight with Talbot, and the final scene with Coulson. Elizabeth Henstridge was superb, especially in the wordless scenes toward the end of the episode. Briana Venskus and Maximilian Osinski, who have been doing solid work in the background as Piper and Davis, would make fine members of the core cast going forward. And finally, recurring guest star Adrian Pasdar was compelling throughout, giving us just enough of the man Talbot had once been to keep us caring about him right up until his tragic end.
Final Thoughts
The episode, while it gave us some epic action scenes and grand stakes, quite correctly focused on the characters and emotions that give such momentous events their meaning. We like seeing earth-shattering kabooms averted, but it is far more important to see what happens to the characters we have grown to know and care for over these last five seasons. I found this to be a more than satisfying end to the current arc.
Now it’s your turn to discuss the show: What were your favorite action set pieces, favorite character moments, and favorite quips from this episode? Now that the story is complete, how did you like the fifth season as a whole? What do you think about the possibilities for the show, and what would you like to see as it moves forward into a sixth season?
Until next season, as always, I leave you with the words of the omnipresent Stan Lee, “Don’t yield, back S.H.I.E.L.D.!”
Alan Brown has been a fan of S.H.I.E.L.D. from its comic book beginning over fifty years ago. He still remembers reading that very first adventure in Strange Tales #135.
I thought this was an immensely satisfying season finale, and I would have been equally satisfied (if disappointed at the loss of a beloved show) if it had been the series sendoff.
I’m glad they finished this off before the snap. I think it would have been cheating to have that be the manner of defeat for Talbot. And with the next (final?) season announced to start after the Infinity War sequel, that let them keep their hands clean of the biggest impacts of the movie.
I was fairly certain Coulson was putting on an act. He knew the stakes, and his personal code wouldn’t have allowed him to save his own life at the expense of destroying the world. Like our fearless leader, I too hope that he is mostly kept out of the next season. Not that I don’t like the work Clark Gregg has done as AC, but that was a perfect swansong for his character. He finally got to see just how magical Tahiti can be.
The death of Fitz was masterfully acted by all three actors in the scene, especially Henry Simmons and Iain de Caestecker, although Ming-Na Wen’s silent reactions were equally moving. I was heartbroken for Simmons, but I love that the breaking of the timeloop means they can go off into the Final Frontier, and find the version of him frozen and accompanied by Enoch. He and Simmons deserve their Happily Ever After (although they will have quite a lot to fill him in on).
>Even though the alien threat is neutralized, he continues to amass more power for no clear purpose.
I believe it was actually Thanos he was amassing power to defend against – Cassius’ father warned him that it was too late for Earth, Thanos was already on his way, and that’s what sparked his quest for more power.
I have to admit, I almost feel disappointed that this isn’t the series finale, because it’s such a perfect full-circle conclusion for the series. It revisited elements from throughout the show’s past and brought things back to essentially the very beginning, with Centipede and gravitonium and Tahiti. It’ll almost be a shame to have that symmetry broken by another season. Although I’m sure these writers will find a way to make it say something worthwhile instead of just going through the motions.
When Fitz died (and before I remembered there was a spare Fitz out there), I was surprisingly sad and hurt, but more so, I just felt bewilderment. This can’t happen! They’re FitzSimmons! How can one exist without the other? No, that’s just not how this works. I’ve never been much of a “shipper,” but the show has gone to such lengths over the years to make their partnership seem intrinsic and inevitable that the idea of it not continuing created enormous cognitive dissonance. But of course I was right — that’s not how they work. They will be back together — at least, once the Avengers undo what Thanos did in the end of the movie I still haven’t seen.
@2/ghostly1: You’re right. Talbot saw himself as a superhero who could take on Thanos more effectively than those screwy, undisciplined Avengers. Although Alan’s right in a way too, because by that point, it was probably just an excuse for Talbot’s growing addiction to the power.
I loved the ending, even though I really wanted a post-credits teaser in the Lighthouse where several of team SHIELD suddently faded out of existance, to coincide with the movie. While there were a couple of tie-ins with what was going on, I can’t believe that such a large team would be spared, and waiting until after Avengers 4 to even see these guys again means we miss out on any real tie-ins there too. Seems like a missed opportunity.
Still, I love Coulson and May in Tahiti. You’ll have to check Ming Na Wen’s Twitter (@MingNa) for her reaction to Googling “Parasailing”. Its hilarious.
I should also add that I will second AlanBrown’s reaction to Elizabeth Henstridge’s silent scene in finding out about Fitz’s fate. Without a single word being said, you could see on her face the exact moment when Mack told her that Fitz hadn’t made it. Generally, excellent acting all around in this one, especially in that last act.
When the Chicago policeman receives the news that SHIELD is there and he says something like “thank, God,” really says that no matter what the politicians and others have said about SHIELD, people still believe in and trust them to help. A nice legacy for the characters we’ve followed.
@4/Jayson: I feel they were right not to toss in a tie-in to the movie just for the sake of tying into the movie. A story’s first priority should be its own needs. And this episode needed to be a wrap-up for the season’s arcs and, as far as its creators knew, for the show itself. An Infinity War tie-in would only have been a distraction from that, much like the Age of Ultron tie-in ultimately turned out to be (all that build-up and then the whole thing was just dropped in a few moments in the first post-movie episode). Using Thanos’s invasion as the motivation for the Confederacy’s arrival and Talbot’s actions worked because it served the show’s own arcs, but cast members just randomly disappearing in the final moments would’ve been pointless.
The summary of the season jumps from present to past tense a couple of times…
I guess it’s good the current Fitz died so they had more reason to go searching for the Fitz on ice. It would have been horrible for him to wake up in the future and have everyone he loves long gone, even if his future self lived a happy life with Simmons. It’s also a good out for the changing-the-timeline questions we’d all been asking. One of the unkillable three had to die after all their talk about not dying. This way it’s not completely soul-crushing since we get a version of Fitz back, though I still teared up during the scene between him, Mack, and May.
Simmons: “He doesn’t have that much to catch up on.” …just an entire season where he saw that the world ended in the future, traveled back through time to change it, got married, briefly(ish) became his hydra-self, met his grandson… That’s a lot even for SHIELD.
I enjoyed it, but the timeframe bugs me; in IW, there can’t have been more than a day or so between the New York attack (which was referenced a few episodes ago) and the Wakanda battle. (Spoiler) And remember that Fury was just hearing about the Wakanda incursion when the Snap caught up to him. (/Spoiler)
The cleanup in Chicago (and the creation of that plaque, and the preparations for Coulson’s departure) must have taken more than the few hours they would’ve had left.
They did a good job with subtexts in this episode. Talbot’s story ended up being a surprisingly good illustration of the tragedy and difficulty of dealing with a loved one that has delusions as a symptom of illness — a good person becoming a threat to self and others. Luckily in real life those people don’t have world-destroying superpowers, but still, Talbot did not deserve what happened to him, yet he had to be stopped. Tragic and painful for him and his family. And he wasn’t wrong about how many times Coulson has deceived him. Daisy’s speech about the heroism of service (referencing military but also gesturing at medical, police, and fire & rescue) brought one of the basic metaphors of superhero stories down to earth — lots of people have actually risked life and limb for others, and the spin on this was less “respect the troops” and more “look for the helpers,” which I liked. Each character’s decisions followed Mac’s directive to save lives above all — a very Captain America-esque sentiment that sums up the best themes of the show. And by doing that, they broke the time loop.
I’m guessing that the continued existence of Deke’s future multitool means that Deke himself does not cease to exist when they break the time loop, but is out there seeing the world and drinking Zima. I don’t think many fans want him back, but they left the option open. I think perhaps seeing the multitool is what reminds Simmons that a live Fitz is out there in space somewhere, and she can go get him. I think the show earned that reset button, because it was planted way back at the beginning of the season and works in the time travel plot. It would be a shame if he slept for 80 years and then came back to Earth to find everything is fine and he’d missed his life.
Fitz was confirmed dead a few seconds after he had been confirmed to still being alive elsewhere, so I don’t think that counts as undoing a death. On this topic: “HE DIDN’T MISS MUCH”!? Fitz spent six months trying to get over his Framework experience (which he will have to do again), he trained as a space warrior, he proposed to Jemma and got married, he travelled back in time, he met his grandson… Although we’re not losing Fitz, we’ve lost a good deal of his experiences!
I’m still not sure what was different in this timeline. Is it that without Yo-yo’s warning, Coulson would have taken the serum? I guess I would have to rewatch “The Last Day” to see the differences…
Now that scene with Dr. Strange makes more sense: “I went forward in time… to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict. Fourteen million six hundred and five times. We won in only one of them but to be fair, the Earth kept getting destroyed for unrelated reasons…”
What happened to Deke? We know he left to see the outside world, but did he pop out of existence as Fitz suspected?
Also, he did pick up that cartridge from the navigation system of the spaceship when they were trying to re-program the missiles, which I imagine might come in handy if SHIELD are off into space (again)…
Cybersnark @10: I figure that whatever happens in Avengers 4, someone will use the time stone to erase The Snap from the timeline, so that most people are completely unaware. That means that for our TV show characters, life goes on, and they aren’t aware that Captain Marvel and Nebula and whoever — Hawkeye, probably — have been on their own time travel adventure to undo everyone’s deaths. So the whole scene in Tahiti with the plaque could occur several days later. That’s my rationalization and I’m sticking to it.
@9 You are right! The narrative describing the season to date jumps from past tense to a mix of present and past tense when the team first returns to the present from the future, before settling down into a consistent present tense. My original intent was to use past tense throughout the season to date recap, but I think all the time travel and time loop issues turned my brain inside out! :-)
Regarding the definitive feel of a conclusion at the end of this season, I feel that Agents of SHIELD might end up being like the series Babylon 5. Thinking the show would not be renewed, they gave a pretty definitive end to the show at the end of their fourth season, only to be picked up by a new network. With a lot of the big narrative arcs wrapped up, the fifth and final season ended up feeling like a little something extra, a bit of lagniappe for the fans. Although, with Agents of SHIELD, I would love to see the sixth season be just the first of a string of additional seasons.
Fitz is currently frozen on Enoch’s ship, with Enoch himself. Hopefully they will both stay for the entire season. Enoch was replaced almost as soon as he left the Earth, which means his people are watching closely (and since Noah died almost immediately, they might want to come and see what’s happening on Earth). After Avengers 4, humans will (very likely) have been involved in a rewrite of the laws of time on a massive scale; I don’t think anyone in the universe will be against cancelling the great Snap, but people who are essentially robot Time Lords might object to leaving such power in the hands of humans. I have a feeling that Chronicoms will become more important in the next season…
I’ve followed this show since its start, sometimes even watching live; but I tuned out during the middle of this fifth season. The grimdark scenes in the future Lighthouse were interminable (apparently I had been watching the show for its moments of levity), and the return of characters from prior seasons were inscrutable (it’s easier to remember characters in their cartoonish iterations, wearing brightly-colored signature outfits).
You may recall how Doctor Who stories, in the 1970s and ’80s, exhibited “run here, run back, misplace one companion, now misplace another” plotting? The Lighthouse arc felt padded in the same way.
I’m still wondering why Enoch felt it was necessary to throw the team through the monolith with no prep or equipment; it’s not like Robin’s crayon-prophecy dictated *details*. Oh, and as the name of a (species? job?) “Chronicom” sounds too on-the-nose. And why weren’t the Kree bright blue? –the show could’ve used the saturated color.
@10/Cybersnark: I figure maybe the final scenes took place after “the Snap” and the team just all happened to be in the half that was spared. Maybe that’s why Deke wasn’t around at the end.
@11/rm: Yes. I loved Mac emphasis on saving lives, and Daisy’s emphasis on the heroism of saving lives. Too many superhero movies have cast superheroes in the mold of conventional action heroes who are fighters and killers first and foremost. The Whedons remember that superheroes are rescuers most of all, and that rescuers are the real heroes. (Which does make me wish Daisy could’ve found a way to save Talbot, but at least she tried her best.)
@15/Alan: Well, the original plan for Babylon 5 was always to do a 5-year arc, but given the iffy ratings, Straczynski decided to compress his last two seasons’ worth of story into season 4, which is why so much was packed into there. He cut out some of the planned storylines for that year and saved them for later. When the show then got a season 5, he put the storyline together out of a mix of elements from his leftover season 4/5 plans and his long-term plans for a sequel series. So more a restructuring than an afterthought, although it did feel somewhat like the latter.
I don’t think this finale really addressed the fractures and moral problems that had been brought up throughout the season. The whole storyline has been as claustrophobic as the sets; in the second half in particular the villains (Hale, Ruby, the Russian, Strucker) have been perfunctory, and all the real strife has come from bickering and infighting among the SHIELD Team. When your cast is basically likable and supposedly a family, it’s wearing to sit through weeks of everyone being angry at each other, and the writing has only occasionally been good enough to make it all work.
I will say that the death of two teammates at least goes a decent way toward making it believable that they would pull back together. And I think that in this episode, they really let the actors work in their most effective modes as these characters, which made this sort of a relief after an entire season of anxiety. The finale was also just fun, and was overall good storytelling.
One thing I really did appreciate: a twist that actually makes dramatic sense, and is not just a way of screwing with the audience! By letting us think that the ‘celebration’ was for Fitz, it allowed for us to process that he had just died, for real–and then effortlessly segue into grief for Coulson instead. That is nifty storytelling! And that is how you pull a John Crichton–even if he is coming back, the death has to actually mean something.
That’s the format of pretty much every Whedon production, from Buffy through The Avengers. Lots of other shows build tension that way too. The reason it works, IMO, is precisely because we do care about the characters (far more than plot details, at least for me).
I agree with @18 CLB – I think the Snap did happen after Chicago but before Tahiti. It just didn’t take anyone we saw. I imagine that part of the reason Season 6 doesn’t happen until Summer 2019 is that Avengers 4 will “clean up” all the loose ends and Season 6 can either integrate with MCU stuff again or be a self-contained season that doesn’t tie-in with the MCU much.
I do hope, however, that Season 6 actually references that our intrepid Agents have been looking for over a year for Fitz (and ideally opens with them either finding him or being very close to finding him).
A very good closing episode – the creators were very correct when they said it could work as a Season Finale OR Series Finale.
This was a mind blowing episode.
@21/Kalvin: As I said before, I feel it would work so well as a series finale that I fear adding another season (or more) would diminish it somewhat. At least, the next season needs to be something of a semi-reboot, beginning a new phase of the saga that’s notably distinct from what came before, so that “The End” still works as a conclusion to “Phase I” of AoS. Coulson not being the lead anymore could be one way to do that, though there would need to be other substantial changes as well. A sizeable time jump would be another way, provided there are some real changes in SHIELD’s status quo in the interim.
Regarding the Chicago cleanup: it’s okay, there is no way that city was Chicago, outside of the establishing shots! That’s just not what Chicago streets look like.
Also, I didn’t like the way they built up the ’emergency responders and military are heroes’ mentality in Daisy’s speech. Talbot is surely the kind of person who would buy it–but the cinematography of that speech made it feel like the show was pitching that to us, rather than Daisy pitching that to Talbot. I genuinely don’t think comparing military, police, fire, and EMTs to superheroes is helpful for, well, anybody–that’s not a knock on them.
@24. Even the establishing shots weren’t Chicago; that was the exact same plate of New York used in Infinity War, just with the crashing Confederacy ship superimposed over Thanos’ scout-ship.
Similarly, the shot where Graviton flies Daisy up and slams her back down to the ground was a reused shot from the Ghost Rider arc when she overloaded her powers, just with Graviton superimposed into the foreground.
@25/Cybersnark: It looked like Chicago to me. I thought it was Manhattan at first, which confused me, so I rewound and double-checked. I recognized the Sears Tower and the John Hancock building (although apparently neither building is still called that), and it did appear to be surrounded by a lake rather than rivers. And this was before anyone mentioned Chicago in dialogue. I recognized it from the landmarks.
I suppose they could have CGI’d recognizable buildings into some other cityscape–I wasn’t looking that closely. But yes, they definitely had buildings like the Hancock Building and the Sears Tower in the establishing shots that made it clear it was supposed to be Chicago.
It seems to me that it would’ve been far simpler to source a background plate of the Chicago skyline from some stock footage service and digitally add a spaceship to it than it would’ve been to source a background plate of Manhattan, digitally alter it to look like Chicago, and then digitally add a spaceship to it. I mean, city-skyline establishing shots are the bread and butter of series television. They can’t be that hard to come by.
This was a great season finale, and it would have been a fitting series finale (though luckily, it wasn’t). While we wanted to SHIELD to reflect something from Infinity War, having it tie directly into it would have diminished this episode as a series finale. It deserved, if it indeed was the end of the show, to be its own thing. And it was.
I loved how masterfully they made us believe that Fitz was really dead… well, one of him certainly was, then reminded us that he’s still out there and we can have him back. That was beautiful.
And Mack being made leader, and his declaration of “We save lives.” was simply perfect.
I liked that Daisy at least tried to talk Talbot down. As for the next season, I’d be sorry to see Coulson gone, but I would miss him too.
@2 – ghostly1: Yes, that was it.
@6 – MByerly: That was a nice moment, also that the cop still tried to face Talbot even though he was really outgunned.
@9 – Yonni: I hadn’t thought of that.
According to the official MCU timeline, the last four episodes of Season Five “AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.” occurred after the events of “INFINITY WAR”. I do recall Glenn Talbot justifying his actions in the last few episodes of that season, because of the news he had learned about Thanos’ arrival on Earth.
@30/Lee Jones: Those episodes are set during the movie, not after it. Episode 19 is explicitly during Thanos’s attack on New York, and the remainder are in the span between that attack and the end of the film. The movie’s timeline is vague enough that that could be a matter of hours or a few days, and the intent of the show’s writers was that the last four episodes all happened during a single day. So the end of the season was at least slightly before the end of the film.
What if the world had been destroyed? Wouldn’t that mean the snap never happened. The mind stone would’ve been destroyed! Was this the one scenario strange was talking about where they won?
Most assuredly, the scenario Strange was referring to has nothing to do with a TV show.