Well, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is over. Seven seasons and it all comes down to this. How does the show conclude? We had a two hour event and two episodes, so it’s only right it gets twice as many thoughts. Let’s go.
1. The Final Showdown
S.H.I.E.L.D. versus the Chronicoms. Daisy versus Kora. There’s a lot of epic conflicts going on in this episode, and it does not slow down.
There are a few things to note in these conflicts. First, I like that Daisy’s fight with Kora came down more to ideals than powers. They’re both very powerful, we know that, but Daisy focused on using her abilities for defense only; this helped her go against everything Malick said about her.
Secondly, while Mack did get to do a cool pose while launching a localized EMP wave to knock out Chronicoms was nice, that wasn’t the best part. No, the best part was seeing missiles with Chronicoms duct taped to them. It even makes sense in context, since Sousa remembered how one of them tried to turn itself into a bomb back in Area 51.
2. The Ship Sails
Speaking of Sousa: yeah, he and Daisy share a kiss. Is it a passionate kiss? Honestly, I didn’t really see the spark. But according to the script it was, and it seems to last (but we’ll get to that in the final thoughts).
It’s something they’ve been building up to pretty consistently over the past few episodes, and they do have some character elements that complement each other, but the closest thing they had to chemistry was when Sousa teased Daisy about the name “Quake.” Maybe it’s the fact that Enver Gjokaj, who plays Sousa, is 12 years older than Chloe Bennet, although both are talented actors and I like the characters.
Do keep in mind that this is all a matter of opinion; I’ve been in fandoms long enough to know that a shipping war is no hill to die on. If you think they make a good couple, more power to you.
3. Malick’s Mistake
Every villain has a fatal flaw. In Malick’s case, it’s… a lot of things.
Now, his manipulation tactics are pretty effective, there’s no denying that. He did manage to gather a team full of people who were supposed to die with very little persuasion. At the same time, the way he talks to Kora certainly sounds like he’s talking down to her. He uses short words and simplistic terms, like “Daisy is very, very bad” just comes across as like he thinks of her as a child.
When he wants to find Fitz, he kidnaps and tortures Simmons, no problem. Then Sibyl says Simmons is more likely to remember where he is when talking to Daisy, and what does he do? He sends Kora out to kill her. His desire to kill her is basically what costs the Chronicoms their victory, when he could just as easily have gone for the kill after Simmons spills it.
Of course, his motivations also change, or rather, drop the pretense. Where at first he was preaching anarchy and doesn’t like being called “sir,” it quickly becomes clear that he, like every villain before, is after world domination.
It’s a pretty vague “rise from the ashes” plan, but not one that was ever going to work. So while in one timeline he died because he refused to cheat at the ritual, in this one he lost because he was too hasty for his own good. In either timeline, Nathaniel Malick was his own downfall.
4. Whose Side is it Anyways?
Okay, so we still have John Garret.
God he annoys me. Can he not stop smiling even when he’s being electrocuted? Can he take anything seriously?
Okay, so let’s recap. Garret is teleporting around the Lighthouse, setting up Chronicom bombs. Coulson, May, and Yo-Yo manage to stop him by creating a power dampener that zaps him whenever he tries to teleport. That scene was nicely done as well; not only did Coulson predict exactly where he was going to teleport, he had a nice line about teleporting the power dampener onto him.
When Garret tries to tell Malick to delay the explosion, the answer is a resounding no. It’s a nice bit of karmic justice, as Garret realizes that he preemptively betrayed S.H.I.E.L.D. so they wouldn’t abandon him to die, only for Malick to do the same to him.
Continued belowSo he switches sides again. Just like that. And not once does he stop laughing through basically every line. The good news is, we don’t have to deal with him much longer than that, as he gets another karmic comeuppance.
5. Survivors of S.H.I.E.L.D.
We get a nice callback to the 084’s from earlier seasons when the Lighthouse receives a message. When they teleport to the destination (which is, of course, the bar they’ve been visiting all season), it turns out other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were off-base survived the attack as well. They also received the message, including none other than Victoria Hand.
For those who need a reminder, Victoria Hand was originally from the Marvel comics as part of S.H.I.E.L.D. and later Deputy Director of Norman Osborn’s H.A.M.M.E.R. She appeared in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1 as a base director, who was later betrayed and killed by Grant Ward during Hydra’s takeover. Since Ward was acting under Garret’s orders, he’s directly responsible for her death in the original timeline.
So it’s very satisfying that she’s the one to shoot John Garret in the head after he teleports into the bar. Somehow, she got her revenge, even if she didn’t know it.
Aside from that, we got a nice scene with the characters reuniting, including a surprise hug from Melinda May. The scene creates hope that even with the bases gone, there’s still a chance for S.H.I.E.L.D. to recover.
6. Time Travel
At long last, we see what Fitz has been up to. When Enoch was left back in time, he left bits and pieces of a strange device behind with various S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, telling them to protect the pieces no matter what. Simmons managed to reassemble them, and with her wedding ring as the last piece, opened a portal from which emerged Fitz.
Now, his time travel suit isn’t exactly as clean or fancy as the suits in Avengers: Endgame, but Fitz isn’t Tony Stark or Bruce Banner (even if he does get a nice helmet to go with it). Regardless, he still got time travel to work with the exact same mechanics as the Avengers, including shrinking and traveling through the quantum realm. It does take a little bit longer than in the movies, giving characters time to talk, plan, and catch up while in the quantum realm.
Now this is great, as it connects the show back to the Marvel cinematic universe. In Endgame, the Ancient One stated that removing an Infinity Stone from its point in time can create an alternate timeline, which Bruce/Hulk said could be returned to normal by bringing the stones back. So it goes to reason that the massive, history-changing events Malick and the Chronicoms caused would also create alternate timelines in that manner, as previously stated. This confirms that they can use time travel to return to their original timelines; their personal histories are unaffected, even if there’s an entire universe where things played out differently.
Traveling back doesn’t erase the existing timeline, though. So Coulson and the other agents can’t just run back to their own timelines and leave the Chronicoms there to take over Earth. Of course, it would be pretty unheroic if they did.
7. Left Behind
In order to get the S.H.I.E.L.D. team to travel back to their timeline (and take the Chronicoms with them), someone has to stay behind. Sousa is, of course, the first to volunteer; he’s already a man out of time, might as well use the life he was given to help the others. That’s all very much in character for him.
Yet in the end, it’s Deke that stays. He’s from the future and has been brought to the past already, so he’s got technology that puts him ahead of the time, rather than trying to catch up like Sousa would be. He also established more of a life for himself in this alternate timeline (even if it involves ripping off songs that haven’t been invented yet), so he’s best equipped to stay in the 80’s.
In the end, it’s a satisfying ending for Deke. He gets to be the hero, he shows how much he’s grown since his first appearance, and he gets to live a decent life. Oh, and it looks like he’s the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. by default, since all the other surviving agents turn to him.
Continued below8. Remember Me
In order to find out where Fitz is hiding, the Chronicoms injected Simmons with something near the start of the episode. It broke down D.I.A.N.A., the device that blocked her memories, and caused her own memories to go in and out until they faded away and had to return.
First off, props to Elizabeth Henstridge, she did a nice job playing the part as her memories faded away and struggled to return. When she’s finally reunited with Fitz, it’s not the emotional reunion we expected, because she still couldn’t remember him. Instead, we get him walking her through her memories to remember one thing at a time.
This is where we get the full story of what happened when they left. As expected, Fitz and Simmons did live a happy life together as they worked on time travel, far off in the Alya star system. There’s just a few things the flashbacks didn’t reveal.
For starters, the blood test mentioned in a previous episode wasn’t for any disease that Fitz had. It was for Simmons. When she said that leaving and going back to the team would leave a piece of her behind, it wasn’t Fitz she was talking about. And when she got her memories back and wept uncontrollably, it wasn’t because Fitz was dead, it was because they left their daughter behind in the original timeline.
Yes, the new addition to the S.H.I.E.L.D. family is Alya, the Fitz-Simmons child and future mother of Deke. It was nicely delivered, giving us new angles of the flashbacks, and it makes sense in retrospect.
9. Last Stands
Now, this is the part where it gets a little rushed. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team travels back to before they left, taking the role of the mysterious people in hazmat suits from the end of last season. Once their selves from the past travel through time, the loop is complete. Fitz-Simmons even reunite with their daughter, who was in the back of Fitz’s time capsule.
Then it’s off to the Chronicom fleet, where they have to put another plan into action, which requires Kora. Fortunately for them, Malick already betrayed her (and stole her powers) so she’s incredibly willing to switch sides as soon as they find her.
Coulson also tricks Sibyl into entering her authorization so they can broadcast more commands to the Chronicoms. That does give us a very cool moment from May where she drops from above and announces herself as “The Cavalry,” followed by a short but satisfying fight scene.
They then need Kora’s powers to boost the signal so they can basically switch every Chronicom from foe to friend. Considering we saw how Kora’s powers can cause an electrical surge in one of the more recent episodes, it’s been established that her powers can influence electricity. Given that Coulson is now made of Chronicom tech, it’s reasonable to see how that can all work together, even if it’s not entirely explained.
Finally, we get Daisy versus Malick, who now has both her powers and Kora’s. It’s a decent fight scene, making good use of their powers and with some enjoyable choreography. In the end, Daisy has to make a dramatic sacrifice, unleashing her full quake powers to destroy all the Chronicom ships.
So it seems like it’s at the cost of her life, as we see her corpse floating in space. But that wouldn’t be a happy ending, so Kora can provide enough energy to her when they bring her body in to revive her. Again, I’ll let this go, since Kora is Jianying’s daughter, so passing around life force is in her blood.
10. After the End
Well, that’s it. The Chronicoms are defeated and the day is saved. There’s nothing left to do but see where the team goes from here.
We catch up with the cast one year later, where they reunite at the bar. It doesn’t take long before we learn that they’re all meeting through holograms, as they each have their own missions ahead.
Daisy is in space, along with Sousa and Kora, acting as an ambassador to other planets. Yo-Yo is a decorated S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with her own team (including Piper). Fitz-Simmons are retired and raising their daughter (a well-deserved happy ending for them at this point). May is now an instructor at S.H.I.E.L.D.’s new Coulson Academy, where Flint is also a student. As for Mack, he’s still the Director, complete with a badass long coat like the kind Nick Fury used to wear, and a helicarrier to match.
Continued belowAs for Coulson? He’s taking some time to reassess himself, and seems satisfied with who he is now. But Mack has one last gift for him: Lola, his flying car from season 1.
So the show ends with Coulson flying off in his car, mirroring how the first episode of the show ended. This brings it all to a nice end, bringing the story full circle.
There we have it. That’s it for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show had its ups and downs over the years, with some seasons working better than others, but overall? It brought us some great characters and stories, provided weekly entertainment for seven seasons, and expanded the Marvel cinematic universe (up until the point their paths split).
So I’d like to thank everyone who made Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D possible. To the writers, directors, actors, crew – everyone who helped make the show what it is. And to everyone who read my reviews, week after week, through the good seasons and the bad, thank you for joining me on this journey.
