The end grows closer, which could mean the end of the season, the series, or the world. So while we ponder the impending doom, let’s take a look at how the episode went down.
1. With Great Power
Last episode, Talbot stepped into the infusion machine and wound up with power over gravity. So that couldn’t possibly go wrong, right? After all, he’s only still a broken mess after not fully recovering from a bullet to the head plus Hydra’s brainwashing, adding in powers that drove two other characters mad from extra voices bickering in their brains can’t hurt.
By all means, Talbot should have suffered a full psychotic break, and Simmons notes as such. Instead, he seems perfectly calm and in total control over his powers.
Then, of course, it starts going bad. Taking over the alien ship, okay. Forcing them all to kneel? I guess, although Zod would be proud. And then he gets decked out in the full Graviton costume, down to the evil goatee. That’s when you know things have gone wrong, and it only gets worse, leading to a full paranoid breakdown.
The funny thing is, when Franklin Hall fell into the gravitonium way back when, everyone figured he’d be coming back as Graviton eventually. Technically he still has, just as a voice inside Talbot’s head, which I say still counts.
2. Alien Confederacy
So now we meet the Confederacy, the shadowy group of aliens that Hydra made a deal with. While there’s a bit more in the way of their designs than last episode – with more prosthetics and a wide range of skin colors – they are still entirely humanoid in appearance.
They’re also pretty well set in their ways, with a council of six members (which makes me wonder how they break tie votes) and no leader. Except among them is a Kree called Kasius, the father of the Kasius that caused the cast so much trouble earlier this season. He’s quite good at using Talbot’s situation to his advantage, ingratiating himself with Talbot and eliminating another member (undoubtedly a rival) through praise.
Too bad for him that, as we learned from the future, the Earth will already be a wreck by the time he gets around to conquering it. In fact, he might even be leading it towards that destruction by trying to manipulate Talbot.
3. For… science?
So Daisy dug up her mother. That’s pretty messed up, as practically everyone notes. And apparently there’s enough power left in her Inhuman bones to stabilize the Centipede serum and heal Coulson without making him particularly explosive.
Perhaps someone could talk some sense into her, but Yo-Yo would rather throw punches, and Simmons gets a false dichotomy choice. That said, the fact that Simmons (and later Fitz) basically just go “I guess we’re doing this now” and start scraping away at the bones is another step in the less ethical side for the team.
It’s clear that Daisy is starting to lose it in her desperation to save Coulson, in spite of his several insistences that they don’t, but hopefully she’ll come to her senses before the end of the season.
Or before the end of the world, whichever comes first.
4. Another One Bites the Dust
Well, so much for General Hale. She’s around in this episode just long enough to almost apologize for her actions, then screw Coulson over to save her own skin, then die anyways.
As far as female antagonists go in this show, she lasted longer than some, and she had a decent amount of character work, so her life wasn’t the worst. Her end, however, was a tad on the anticlimactic side, and in fact she was disposed of rather casually.
Just like Ruby, Sinara, and even Stephanie Malick before her. (Yeah, I didn’t forget about Stephanie being fridged so quickly.) Don’t get me wrong, villains need to face the consequences for their actions, but a good villain deserves a good death.
5. Thanos
Back when the Confederacy first talked about protecting the world from an oncoming invasion, I guessed it probably meant Thanos. Now that Infinity War is in theaters, they could finally come out and say it, and I was right.
Continued belowOf course, we know from the movie that the Confederacy won’t even get in Thanos’s way, nor did they even intend to (so great job getting conned by aliens, Hydra). We also know that Talbot will not be joining the Avengers to fight him (he’s not even close to Earth’s mightiest hero, despite his claims). As always, the shows have no impact on the movies, although the movies will affect the shows.
So as far as we know, the Confederacy will be casually wiped out by Thanos and the Black Order on their way to Earth, like a bug on the windshield. Or maybe they’ll be driven away by SHIELD before Thanos even arrives. Perhaps they’ll even be too busy bickering with each other to even notice when Thanos and his space donuts arrive on Earth.
One thing we do know is that not everyone is getting out alive. Maybe we’ll even see the effects of the movie’s ending as it impacts the television show. Now that would be one hell of a way to end the series.
