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

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 7 Episodes 12 & 13 “The End is at Hand”, “What We’re Fighting For”

Directors: Chris Cheramie, Kevin Tancharoen

Starring: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Jeff Ward, Joel Stoffer

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 86 minutes

“Here’s to us. Who’s like us? Damn few.” That’s the toast Phil Coulson gave to his friends before leaving to live out his last days in Tahiti with May at the end of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s fifth season. I’ve avoided comparing Season 7 to 5, the latter of which was also intended to serve as an ending to the show, too often while 7 was still ongoing but now that it, and with it, the series, is over it’s worth noting what each run did better as both independent stories and conclusions. In my opinion, Season 5 is the stronger season of television but Season 7 is a more fitting end to Shield. Season 5 was the show’s darkest run and created tense fissures between many of the main characters and while they ended up back on the same page Season 7 featured more of the camaraderie and swashbuckling vibe that are also important parts of the show and therefore better represented the show’s entire history. This is emphasized by the strong but unspectacular two-part finale, which is at its best when focusing on the characters bidding a fond farewell to their time as a team, and more hit or miss when focused on the season’s supervillain conflict.

The first of the two episodes, “The End is at Hand” finds the agents and the show in full frantic, desperate save the world mode. After the Chronicom ships finish firing on global Shield bases the hijacked Zephyr docks with one of them and, hoping to rescue Simmons and Deke, Daisy, Mack, and Sousa sneak on board, though not before Sousa and Daisy share their first current-timeline kiss. The rescue is a pretty fun sequence all around and is bolstered by the quickly-formed comedic chemistry between Sousa and Mack but there are things that drag it down, namely Daisy’s surprisingly easy success at talking sense into Kora. The constant flip-flopping over whether Kora can be redeemed or not has ruined any potential her story had (not that it had much to begin with) and Daisy suddenly caring enough to try to reach her contradicts her awesome declaration that Jemma was the only sister she was concerned about. Speaking of Jemma, following her alarming question of “Who’s Fitz?” from last episode it becomes clear that Malick poking around in her mind has completely messed with her memories and she spends most of the episode spouting seemingly random phrases, only occasionally recognizing one of the other agents for brief moments. It’s definitely an odd choice to essentially sideline one of the show’s strongest characters/actors for such a large portion of the finale but Elizabeth Henstridge is still amusing in her confused state and Jemma’s memory problems do serve an important narrative purpose.

Back on Earth, Coulson, May, and Yo-Yo are still recovering from the shock of seeing all the world’s Shield bases (minus the Lighthouse) go up in flames but they don’t have long to do so as the Lighthouse itself soon comes under attack. First its computer systems are hacked by a mysterious signal but just as Coulson the Tech-Whisperer gets to work on it John Garrett teleports into the Lighthouse and begins setting bombs throughout it. Coulson and the ladies are able to trap Garrett with the anti-Gordon tech Fitz invented back in Season 2 and convince him to call Malick to stop the detonation of the bombs but Malick sets them off anyway. Fortunately, Yo-Yo is able move all the bombs to one location before they go off, limiting the damage. This is a miscalculation on Malick’s part as his betrayal leads Garrett to agree to help Shield. I’m always wary of the show suggesting Hydra agents can be reasoned with, rather than redeemed (as Jemma once said, “they’re all Nazis”) but this wrinkle is well-developed by our previous knowledge of Garrett’s character. Bill Paxton’s Garrett from the original timeline joined Hydra after Shield left him to die (and learning about this ahead of time is what led the young one to do so as well) so it makes sense that the younger version would turn on Hydra when they did the same thing.

After the explosion Coulson determines that the signal hacking the computers provides the location of an “0-8-4”, the old Shield name for an object of unknown origin. Garrett teleports him, May, and Yo-Yo to its location, which turns out to be the Shield bar The Krazy Kanoe, that Koenig and Enoch had run. Just after they arrive, they are confronted by surviving Shield agents that had gathered there. One of them, a young Victoria Hand (Rachele Schank), shoots Garrett in the head, unknowingly getting revenge for her own death in the original timeline at Garrett and Ward’s hands. The other agents were sent instructions to meet at the bar by the same signal, which also instructed several of them to bring seemingly random objects from agency storage. When the rest of the team arrives, Simmons begins fiddling with the objects, apparently unconsciously aware of precisely what they’re meant to do. One man hands over a piece personally given to him by Enoch and the Koenig family, and the device Simmons builds reveals a hidden room in the wall, in which there is another mysterious device. Eventually, Simmons remembers to connect her wedding ring to it, which then creates a quantum tunnel just like the ones from Avengers: Endgame, from which a masked man appears. He removes the mask, revealing that it is Fitz! When he moves to embrace Jemma, however, she pulls away, still unable to remember him.

Even the final episode, “What We’re Fighting For” waits awhile before explaining everything about the season’s Fitzsimmons mysteries, with the team instead devoting their immediate focus to stopping the Chronicoms and Malick. Fitz confirms that they are, in fact, in an alternate timeline, but also assures his teammates that they can get back to the original one, though only if Kora helps them do so. Coulson refuses to abandon the new timeline and its people to the Chronicoms, but Deke figures there is a way to use the quantum tunnel to send them all back to the original timeline along with the agents.  However, someone has to stay behind to make sure the device works right. As Sousa is in the middle of volunteering to stay Deke interrupts and says he’ll do it both because he has the technical knowledge to pull it off while, in his words, “Danny-boy here is still impressed by a lightbulb,” (which Sousa argues is “not accurate or nice,”) and because Deke recognizes that Daisy and Sousa have the makings of a real relationship and he wants her to be happy. Plus, as he also points out, he’s “kind of a rock god,” in this version of the 80’s.  Deke’s farewell is definitely emotional, well-performed by Jeff Ward, and completes his multi-season story arc about becoming a more selfless person well, but it also feels a bit like the show taking the easy way out after promising that the team wouldn’t ever be completely together again.  That said, the idea of Deke becoming director of that world’s Shield is a delightful note to leave the character on.

After Deke’s farewell everyone heads back into action. The Zephyr is successfully teleported back to the original timeline and is able to drag the Chronicoms with it. The Zephyr goes dark and half the team remain on it, while the others head back to where they left. It turns out that the latter half of the team were the people in hazmat suits who helped Simmons clear Izel’s temple and extract themselves in the Season 6 finale.  The Zephyr crew waits until the other Zephyr first jumps into the past, at which point the Chronicoms fired on that one and believed they destroyed it.  That gives the current team the element of surprise, and they infiltrate the leading Chronicom ship.  Coulson and May dispatch with Sybil while Daisy confronts Malick and Mack extracts Kora.  With Kora’s help the team is able to send a signal to all remaining Chronicoms, through which May, using her new powers, imbues them with empathy, rendering them harmless just as they were invading the Lighthouse.  Daisy is about to be overcome by Malick when she releases a massive quake blast that destroys the remaining Chronicom ships.  Doing so also sets her adrift in space and for a moment it looks like she is going to asphyxiate but the team is able to get her aboard the Zephyr and Kora then uses her powers to revive her sister.  I admit the show got me to consider that they might actually kill off Daisy for a second, and her readiness to sacrifice herself did get me emotional, but it’s for the best that this wound up being a fake-out.  The idea that Quake would go down fighting Malick and the Chronicoms of all people would have just been too absurd.  The weak villains continued to hold this season back to the bitter end and it’s especially unfortunate that Kora played such a big part in the conclusion.  But, with its final threat neutralized, the show is able to move onto the ultimate farewells and the conclusions of the characters’ journeys, which are strong enough to mostly make up for the episodes’ plot-related shortcomings.

At the Lighthouse, Simmons’ memories fully return and she and Fitz rush out to a nearby patch of woods where Piper (Briana Venskus) and Flint (Coy Stewart) are guarding a containment module with the time machine Fitz used inside.  Piper and Flint are confused, as they thought they were guarding Fitz, but Jemma goes to the back of the module and opens a second compartment, in which a little girl is sleeping.  Jemma calls “Alya!?” to her and the girl wakes up and exclaims “Momma!” and rushes to hug Jemma.  As it turns out Fitz and Simmons had Alya (Harlow Happy Hexum) during the years they were working on building the time machine and a silent montage shows their happy time together.  When Daisy woke up, Coulson had declared “This is what we’re fighting for,” and she finished for him by saying “family,” and the subsequent reveal of the newest member of the Fitzsimmons family drives the simple but effective sentiment home beautifully. Rather early on in the season it became pretty obvious that the Fitzsimmons mystery was either going to reveal that the two of them had already lived a life, and probably had a child, together or that Fitz was dead and I’m very glad the creators chose to go with the happy ending.  That’s not to say the storyline was handled perfectly, however.  Iain De Caestecker was absent from a big portion of the start of Season 5 to film a movie so there may have been a similar scheduling conflict here but it would have been nice if the show could have found some way to work more Fitz into the rest of the season (the team could have easily bumped into a younger version at some point, for example).  It’s also too bad the Alya plot required sidelining Piper throughout the final run.  But overall, this was an effective end for the show’s great love story and De Caestecker and Henstridge are, as always, incredible, and make the Alya reveal very touching.

After Alya is retrieved, the episode cuts to a year later.  The main agents have gathered at a bar via holographic projection for a reunion.  They catch up about their new jobs and stations in life but start to get called away all too soon.  Yo-Yo is Shield’s top field agent, leading a team consisting of Piper and a Davis LMD Piper had Fitz and Simmons make as her reward for keeping Alya safe.  May is an instructor at Shield’s new Coulson Academy, with Flint as one of her students.  Mack, who looks very Nick Fury-esque in a black trench coat, is still the director.  Fitz and Simmons have retired to raise Alya, with a characteristically grumpy Fitz pleading with his friends to send less presents and declaring Christmas overrated.  Jemma still does research for Shield in her spare time, although she tells Daisy she’s going to wait to send her some findings until after Fitz goes to bed.  Daisy herself is on a Star Trek-style mission to explore space on the new Zephyr Three with Sousa (who she’s dating and just bought a typewriter) and Kora.  Coulson is unsure of his next steps.  Having already taken a year off to reassess, he’s planning to travel the world but Mack, May, and Daisy are all quick to offer him positions.  After everyone else signs off Daisy pushes a little more, reminding him that there are people in need and with potential out in the world who could use him to guide them as he did her and citing Kora’s redemption as an example of what people are capable of when someone believes in them.  Before signing off to return to business on a Helicarrier Mack tells Coulson where to find a present he left him and in the final scene Coulson gets in the new version of Lola, the red Corvette, which turns black and displays a Shield logo when he turns on its flight mode and soars off, which he notes is “Cool.”  This sequence elevates the whole finale and I was impressed with how succinctly it gave satisfying conclusions to pretty much everyone’s series-long story arcs.  Mack, who was always quick to question Shield’s morality and his place in it has accepted that it is a force for good and that he has a key role in keeping it that way.  Yo-Yo continues to fight for justice, as she already was when we first met her.  Fitz and Simmons get to live happily ever after, though her passion for science means she’s not going to totally give up the Shield life.  May has accepted that she’s actually quite the nurturer despite her violent past.  And Daisy has found a purpose and, while she’ll always have her larger Shield family, she’s also carved out her own smaller niche group. The only person whose ending I had some reservations about was Coulson’s.  I like that the show didn’t shy away from showing the lingering effects all his struggles over the last few years have had on him (him and May not actually being an official couple anymore, even though they clearly still have strong feelings for one another, was the right call), but the lines Phil is given and Gregg’s performance feel a little too melancholy, and conflict somewhat with the otherwise optimistic conclusion.  The latter aspect might just be Gregg’s real-world reluctance to say goodbye to his castmates leaking into his work, which is understandable, and indeed one of the great things about the sequence overall is how obviously real the mixed emotions everyone is feeling are.  But even aside from his actor’s state the character of Coulson seems to still be struggling with some of the existential dilemmas he’s been facing lately, even though recent episodes showed him embracing the new version of himself.  It’s a relatively minor issue, and the final scene, which suggests that Phil probably will return to Shield, is the right note to end on, but it is worth noting that his arc wasn’t handled as flawlessly as the others’ were.

Something else worth noting about the finale is how it open it is to the idea of further stories with most of the characters.  Even if its connections to the franchise became less frequent and not quite as clear as time went on, Shield is still officially part of the MCU.  Fans continue to call for the agents to make appearances in other shows or the movies and rumors suggest some of them may actually do so.  S.W.O.R.D., which in the comics is an off-shoot of Shield is set to play a big role in the MCU going forward which could ideally lead to returns by many members of the show’s cast.  Daisy’s last scene in particular felt like it could be setting her up for some kind of return, and I was half expecting to see a Sword logo on the side of the new Zephyr as it flew through space.  As for who, if anyone, might make the jump to another property, that’s unclear.  Daisy feels like the safest bet and her last scene really felt like it could be setting her up for some kind of return, to the point where I was half expecting to see a Sword logo on the side of the new Zephyr as it flew through space.  Mack’s position as Director also makes him easy to work into a variety of plots.  And, of course, Coulson’s part in Captain Marvel showed that Gregg is still on good terms with Kevin Feige and company and he’s the most well-known to those who aren’t avid Shield viewers.  Yo-Yo might not be popular enough to be picked up for anything and Fitz and Simmons’ story should be left as is, given how it was inspired by the real-world romance of Shield creators Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, though having one or both pop up for cameos as tech support somewhere might not be a bad idea.  Regardless, the writers deserve kudos for how well they allow for the possibility of future stories with this beloved cast, even while bringing this one to an appropriate end.  Shield has had its ups and downs and this season, and even this finale, were far from perfect conclusions, but everyone involved did succeed in telling a tale that was unique and poignant overall.

Notes:

• Alya is named for a constellation Jemma loved to look at with her father when she was young.
• Outside of the main crew, some past Shield characters and actors that fans hope to see again are Gabriel Luna’s Ghost Rider and Adrianne Palicki’s Mockingbird, among others.
• I hope either the Davis LMD gets to spend time with Davis’ wife and son sometimes or that Jemma and Fitz made them one also.  Although the show didn’t really consider the ethics of “resurrecting” someone in this way.
• Shield was self-aware to the very end, with Mack remarking that one of the best parts of directing the latest incarnation of the agency is that he now has an office with a view after “all those years in hallways.”
• There’s supposedly a longer version of the finale with around 20 minutes of deleted footage, including possibly more direct MCU tie-ins.  I’d be interested in seeing it released to see if it improved the overall story, although I’m pretty satisfied with what we got.
• Here’s to you, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. What shows are like you? Damn few.