That was a pretty nifty finale, in my opinion. The main things to me are that Mack survived and nothing bad happened to Fitz and/or Simmons. In fact, Fitz and Simmons are going on a romantic tropical holiday. There will be a thousand species of fish!
I loved the gimmick of the cross being passed around to just about everybody; it was both ominous and hilarious at the same time. The outcome kind of makes me wonder how Daisy was able to see it, since she wasn't present-- it seems like all those other premonitions of death involved the person being present. But Lincoln got to be a hero and save the world by saving Daisy-- and it was interesting that he compared Daisy's hive addiction to both his history of alcoholism and his feelings for her. Perhaps he was motivated not only by love, but by the realization that it was not a healthy love.
Daisy herself certainly went through a lot. I had wondered, given the nature of Hive-Ward's mind control whether his minions could be cured at all, since it didn't involve control so much as investing them with ideology. Ideology is a form of addiction, so it makes sense that her recovery phase would be as concentrated and intense as the addiction itself. And, judging by the flash forward, she doesn't come out of it intact, despite Lincoln's sacrifice.
After wishing Ward gone for the past two or three years, I feel bad now that Brett Dalton will be gone. He did the best he could with what they gave him, but there's only so much you can do with a boring sociopathic lap dog. The Hive character was the best he had since his original character and he did fine. Maybe they can do an AU story where they bring back Mirror Ward, who is really the guy Evil Ward pretended to be-- he deserves to play a real hero for a while.
There were a lot of great little moments throughout the two hours, from holographic Coulson to Talbot's mustache. And YoYo is pretty funny, despite being in a constant state of crankiness ("He's lucky he's so handsome"). And the Mad Scientist character cracks me up. It's good to see that he will be back next year.
The transition to the flash forward was a bit abrupt, but I thought it was intriguing. A lot happens over the Summer. Who is the new director? Obviously not Mack, so the obvious choices are either May or Talbot-- unless it's a new character. And did Coulson step down or was he replaced? Since he was Fury's hand-picked successor, he must have stepped down. And then we have rogue Daisy. She's obviously trying to help people, so why is she also committing acts of seismic terrorism? Maybe it's not really her and she's just getting blamed for it. And what's up with Mad Scientist and his LMD? Stay tuned.
