TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 Finale

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 Episodes 12 “The Sign” & 13 “New Life”

Directors: Nina Lopez-Corrado (Episode 12) & Kevin Tancharoen (Episode 13)

Starring: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, Natalia Cordova-Buckley

Rating: TV-14

Runtimes: 41 minutes (Episode 12), 45 minutes (Episode 13)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 had a lot of tasks to accomplish in addition to simply telling its own story.  Everyone involved with the show truly believed the fifth season finale would end be its last and it shows in many ways, but of course the most notable is that it confirmed that Phil Coulson would die, even if the death wasn’t actually shown.  While enough story threads were left open that continuing didn’t seem foolish or unnecessary, Season 6 had to rejuvenate and redesign the show to great extents, as well as also having to find a way to continue to include Clark Gregg in the series.  In addition to all that, partly into production on the sixth run the creators were informed that the show would have a seventh season which will definitely be the last.  So Season 6 also became responsible for making sure 7 could provide the creators’ ideal conclusion.  None of these are reasons not to hold S.H.I.E.L.D. to the high standards it has set for itself, but they do offer some context for why this season has felt a little scattered.  The season finale, unfortunately, has that scattered feeling to a great degree.  Still, it’s character moments work well, there are some fun action sequences (though also some poor ones), and it sets up an ambitious and exciting final season with a shocking twist.  Even better, as the year’s emotional storylines reach their conclusions the overriding theme connecting them becomes clear, even if it could be better articulated.

As this is a two-hour finale of S.H.I.E.L.D. of all shows it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s pretty jam-packed, so I’ll only be touching on the biggest and most meaningful points.  We start off with Flint coming to the temple.  Mack and Yo-Yo aren’t able to convey the danger of the situation quickly enough and Izel gets control of the young Inhuman, and then proceeds to create a set of Monoliths and begin the ritual that will open the gateway for the rest of her kind to Earth. Daisy, May, and Sarge are heading to the temple to stop her and save Mack and Yo-Yo but are delayed and nearly overwhelmed by Izel’s army of zombie-like shrike-possessed people.  Deke has produced a bunch of wristbands that cancel out the frequencies Izel uses to possess people, thanks to his tech company, which he’s been operating from a secret area in the Lighthouse.  We discover this along with Fitz and Simmons, and when the former rips into his grandson for selling stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. tech Deke finally snaps and reveals that all his weird and seemingly greedy actions over the last year have been motivated by his belief that no one at S.H.I.E.L.D. likes him, especially not his grandparents or Daisy.  Desperate to prove his worth Deke grabs a reconfigured teleporter and jumps into the temple, giving Mack and company the wristbands and getting them to the Zephyr for extraction.  Unfortunately, Deke doesn’t count on how long it takes the teleporter to recharge and ultimately winds up trapped only a few steps ahead of the ravenous shrike hosts.  May and Sarge confront Izel but the latter ultimately gives in to Pachakutiq’s dark influence, stabbing May and throwing her through the portal, before joining Izel in her plan (though the relationship between the two non-corporeals is less blissful then we’d been led to believe).  This leaves Daisy wracked with guilt over deluding herself into thinking Sarge could become Coulson and eager for revenge.  Meanwhile, the Lighthouse is attacked by Malachi and his hunter Chronicoms, who are intent on establishing a new Chronicom homeworld on Earth.  Fitz and Simmons are saved by Enoch who announces that he has a solution, but one that will require them to fundamentally alter their lives.  In the end May, who is still able to fight despite her wound while in the non-corporeals’ realm because life and death have different meanings there, manages to stop them from getting through and kills Izel (after a nicely choreographed sword fight), which in Phantom Menace-like fashion kills all the shrike as well, including one that was inside Yo-Yo, about to kill her.  Daisy and Mack team up to kill Sarge/Pachakutiq, whose true form is ultimately simply another ugly alien  (all those Ghost Rider teases feel really cheap now).  Being back on Earth May resumes dying, but Simmons arrives soon after with a high tech crew and informs everyone that she’ll easily be able to save May.  Simmons then brings everyone (with May in a cryo-freeze chamber for treatment) aboard an upgraded Zephyr-One that proceeds to jump back in time to the 1930s, while the others are informed that Enoch’s strategy consists of them traveling throughout S.H.I.E.L.D.’s history to discover the intelligence and assets Malachi and company need and presumably prevent them from getting them.  Jemma nervously brings up one last detail of the plan, unsure of how her friends will take the idea.  Fitzsimmons and company knew the team would need an expert in S.H.I.E.L.D. history so they built one by combining LMD and Chronicom tech with a familiar consciousness, but they haven’t yet activated it because they knew it should be a group decision.  While Mack and the others pause to consider the ramifications of the choice Daisy hits the button without hesitation, giving the LMD Coulson life.

As you can see, it was an eventful finale, but that’s about the only definitive characteristic that can be attributed to it as a whole.  In terms of quality, both episodes are very mixed and the whole finale often feels scattered.  S.H.I.E.L.D. has sometimes lost the story in all the noise and fireworks in big episodes in the past and “The Sign” and “New Life” are perhaps the biggest examples of this in the show’s history.  There’s a lot of fun stuff throughout but there’s also an absurd amount of time spent on mechanics, like Izel’s weird chanting to open the gateway and Deke learning how to fly the Quinjet as the zombies chase him.  When a two-hour episode feels like it’s rushing through the important, emotional beats, you know something’s gone wrong.

Somehow, most of those emotional beats still work, probably because the actors all embody their characters in such full, well-rounded ways.  Deke’s outburst and May’s “death” and goodbye to Daisy, in which she finally accepts that Coulson is really gone, hit the hardest.  Ming-Na Wen really carried a lot of this season and she deserves recognition.  Chloe Bennet also briefly shines a couple of times throughout, both in depicting Daisy’s guilt and rage at the Sarge twist and in her heartbreak when Yo-Yo asks Daisy to kill her before the shrike takes over her body.  This season has been very inconsistent but the cast has remained uniformly excellent throughout.

Since the finale was more than anything intent on setting up Season 7, it’s worth critiquing said set-up.  The time travel mission is certainly an exciting premise but it brings with it several issues and concerns.  Firstly, there’s the Chronicom problem.  Their storyline may have gifted us with the wonderful Fitzsimmons episode but, with the exception of Enoch, the Chronicoms themselves are boring.  Hopefully, a different antagonist will replace them at some point in Season 7.  Additionally, the LMD Coulson reveal could understandably draw some mixed reactions.  The ongoing storylines meant solely to keep Clark Gregg around do cheapen the real Coulson’s death to an extent.  That said, they at least don’t walk it back entirely (Daisy’s impulsive decision is clearly based on her grief over the real Coulson) and ultimately it feels like bringing in the LMD was the right call.  Gregg should be in the final season, and as a closer match to his usual persona than Sarge was.  The whole show was mostly born out of the desire to see more of Coulson after The Avengers, after all.  Lastly, the prospect of the agents time traveling (especially in the middle of the 20th century) has led to a great deal of fan speculation that Season 7 could feature a crossover with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s canceled sister program Agent Carter.  A one or two episode appearance from Hayley Atwell and or James D’arcy would, of course, be delightful but I don’t want any resolution to the Carter story (which ended on a massive cliffhanger) to take too much time away from resolving the stories of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s own wonderful characters.  S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s final season should be about celebrating S.H.I.E.L.D., not providing closure to an, admittedly enjoyable, but ultimately inferior show.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 was just as mixed as a whole as many of its episodes were on an individual level.  At times it shined brightly by pushing its characters toward new beginnings and or their ultimate endings, but at others it faltered under the weight of its own complexity, an example that while many serialized adventure shows would benefit from shorter episode orders, others are capable, and indeed probably better off, telling a longer, more gradually paced narrative.  Hopefully, without as many narrative hoops to jump through in terms of rejuvenating the show, the final season can be more focused and concise, and most importantly end the story of our favorite agents in a satisfying way.

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