Alright, friends, we’ve made it: the two-hour finale of Agents of SHIELD‘s second season has aired, and we are left in its wake. Was it good? Was it bad? Did it feel really long? Lets discuss it all in the spoiler-filled review and comments.
1. Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them?
As the season wraps up, things are quite different: the SHIELD team as we knew them is in disarray, for better or for worse. Bobbi and Lance have made it through alive, but barely; Mac has stayed on too. Agent 33, Gonzales, Gordon and Raina are all dead. May is leaving for the time being, Ward is the new head of Hydra, and Cal has been magic place’d. Oh, and Coulson lost his freaking hand. How about that?
SHIELD‘s second season had its ups and downs, and the finale was certainly… a thing. It felt long, it didn’t have the same punchiness that the last season finale was over, and there were moments where I just kind of wanted it to be over so I could write this review and go to bed. However, what I do appreciate is that they left things in a very strange and uncertain place; last season was optimistic in its finale and we had this bright-eyed open end to look forward to, but this one… this one puts the characters in such a precarious place that it’ll be very interesting to see how the healing process has worked in between now and when the next season starts.
Oh, and there’s one extra twist. But we’ll talk about that in a bit.
2. Natural Omega 3 Fish Oil
So, the Inhuman thing. That’s probably the big pain point of this half-season, right? The SHIELD v SHIELD plot was straining on some fans, I realize, but for me it was more about the Inhumans being introduced in such a way that it kind of didn’t make sense the further into the plot we got. And now, as the season ends and Terrigen Crystals have been transformed into Fish Oil for random people to consume and either die or become Inhumans? I dunno, gang; seems a bit fishy to me.
But in all seriousness, it’s a weird place to leave that story on. They’ve opened up the Inhuman box and they can’t close it, that’s for sure, but the Fish Oil thing… I’ll be honest: I’m sort of reminded of the end of the modern day Battlestar Galactica revival, where the ending is basically the show’s creators looking straight into the camera and winking and saying, “Eh? Eh? Get it? Get it?” I have a strong distaste for those kind of wink-and-nudge endings, and don’t particularly care for this either.
3. The Evolution of Skye
So, the huge focus on this season was about giving Skye an identity beyond that of “mysterious techno-genius.” Skye was the catalyst of so many things, from how Hydra and Cal interacted with SHIELD, to the whole Inhuman plot; Skye stood at the center of things, and it’s through her that we see all the biggest changes. In this way, Skye is somewhat in the role Coulson was last season; where last season saw a million questions about why Coulson was alive and the plot revolved around that, this season was about Skye being Inhuman and what that means going forward for the landscape of the Marvel Television Universe (I’m hesitant to say “Cinematic” here because, well, obviously they don’t give much of a toss).
At the end of Season 2 and looking back on this, it does slightly bother me. My thoughts on SHIELD Season 2 are remarkably similar to my thoughts on Age of Ultron in that yeah, I enjoyed it, but something feels off about the storytelling — perhaps even misguided. For SHIELD, I’d put my money on the habit of the show to just pivot everything towards one character as the center of the universe; the first half was a lot better about spreading the love across multiple characters, but when the Big Bad of the season was revealed and everything came down to a “I did it all for you, Skye!” moment… that’s when you sort of lose me. Didn’t we get enough of that from Grant Ward?
Continued below4. The Thorn that Protects the Rose
I do want to take one more moment out to give props to Ruth Negga as Raina. I guess this ties into my thoughts on Skye, but Raina talked a lot in her final moments about her parallels with Skye, and they’re readily apparent. I think the smartest thing that the show did was create Raina’s transformation alongside Skye’s while showing us how the two women dealt with their new powers and gifts. We may be losing Negga to AMC’s Preacher, but her time on this show as one of the most enigmatic characters was very well done, and out of all the people leaving the show after this season I will miss her the most.
What will be interesting to see now is that with all the outside factors of Skye’s life gone, how will she fair in Season 3 now that we’re starting the Secret Warriors? Which brings us to…
5. Next Season, on Agents of SHIELD
I’m cheating in this section as I’m actually going to mention three thoughts, but I’m sure you’ll all forgive me.
First up: Ward, Leader of HYDRA. Ward was an interesting enough villain at first, but I feel now is the time to denote him as the new Sylar (a reference to the formerly popular Heroes villain who could never die, both in terms of powerset and in terms of Zachary Quinto’s contract). I think keeping Hydra around has its place in SHIELD as they certainly work for the Cobra to Coulson’s GI Joes, but I would’ve loved for the Ward storyline to finally be over. There’s only so far you can take this crazy ride before it just runs out of gas, and the needle is definitely pointing to Empty.
Next up: the Secret Warriors. We obviously can’t confirm what’s going to happen with this, but Coulson and Skye both seem to be hinting that it’s time for a team of powers — and what team introduced Daisy Johnson to the Marvel U? The Secret Warriors, of course! And even though John Garrett Daniel Whitehall are no longer around to menace them (hint: read the comics), I’d be interested to see what new characters get pulled in to be part of the team I doubt we’re going to get Phobos (which I’ll just sigh quitely to myself about), but I’d be happy if Druid, Eden or Slingshot.
Last but not least: what the fuck happened to Jemma? What a fucking rude way to end the fucking season, for fuck’s sake! We’ll be spoiled as to whether or not she’s a character in the new season when a news post announcing casting comes out, of course, but… damn. That was awful.
