I may not be able to watch it until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Looks like I might have to disconnect myself from social media for three quarters of a day. The horror! The HORROR!
Agents of SHIELD season 5
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
- Start date
I just want to say I'm so happy that tonight's episode is just a season finale and not the series finale, or even a "we don't know yet" situation.
Are you feeling okay? That sounds scary!
Tissues ready, aye!
I suspect that they won't do anything more than the ending and with no explanation, i.e. the team won't understand what the hell is going on. And fade to black...
Are you feeling okay? That sounds scary!
Finale
Glad they remembered frozen Fitz. Im not really sure how Daisy wasn't effected by the centipede syrum stuff. I thought she was sacrificing herself and would destroy him by being absorbed.
Kept waiting for people to disappear at the end. Think they coulda went to help defend the Earth in Wakanda...
Kept waiting for people to disappear at the end. Think they coulda went to help defend the Earth in Wakanda...
I was afraid the time-loop resolution would be unsatisfying, and it was. They did so much to establish that they'd already been through the loop with foreknowledge of the future before and it hadn't changed anything. So there was no adequate explanation for why it was possible to change it at all. They just arbitrarily changed the rules for plot convenience, which is what I was afraid would happen. And apparently they did go with the idiotic idea of Deke "blinking out of existence" when the timeline was changed, since his cluttered room was now empty. But it seemed like Simmons still remembered him, which was contradictory.
I did really like it that Mack's first order as leader was "Save lives." That should always be superheroes' highest priority, and the MCU does a relatively better job remembering that than a number of other movie franchises.
She was. This was the stabilized variety of serum used by Garrett to heal his injuries, boosted with Jiaying's regenerative power. So it gave Daisy a power boost without endangering her life.
It seems to me that there was a bit of a time jump before the final scenes, enough time to regroup and arrange things and make the plaque and so forth, and I'd guess that the events of Infinity War unfolded pretty quickly. So the end of the movie probably happened during the commercial break, and I guess the team just got lucky in the survival lottery.
I did really like it that Mack's first order as leader was "Save lives." That should always be superheroes' highest priority, and the MCU does a relatively better job remembering that than a number of other movie franchises.
She was. This was the stabilized variety of serum used by Garrett to heal his injuries, boosted with Jiaying's regenerative power. So it gave Daisy a power boost without endangering her life.
It seems to me that there was a bit of a time jump before the final scenes, enough time to regroup and arrange things and make the plaque and so forth, and I'd guess that the events of Infinity War unfolded pretty quickly. So the end of the movie probably happened during the commercial break, and I guess the team just got lucky in the survival lottery.
Man, Chole Bennet wasn't kidding. That was a tearjerker alright, but in all of the good ways! 
A worthy conclusion to the series if this had truly been the end, and while I'm glad we're getting another season (and hopefully debuting in the summer will help revitalize the show for even more seasons), I would've been very happy if this had been the series finale. The whole episode was a touching swan song for the whole cast that brought out the best in everyone, especially Yo-Yo, Mack, Daisy, and of course, Coulson. I particularly loved the softer side of May, something we've so little of the entire series.
Fitz's death was the right kind of devastation and payment for changing the future history that felt so right that I almost wish they hadn't realized they had a second Fitz tucked away in a freezer somewhere. Coulson will still die, but at least everyone is finally at peace with that. How perfect for him and May to spend his final days in actual Tahiti (even if it was clearly a green screen)?
I'm saddened by Talbot's death, too, but it was really the only logical end point. When Daisy was unable to reach to him through his sense of military duty and love of his family, he was truly lost and that breaks my heart more than anything else. Talbot may have been a little loopy before getting shot in the head, tortured, brainwashed, and consumed by Gravitonium, but he always had his heart in the right place and for that, I'll miss him.
As much as I didn't like him for most of the season, Deke was pretty good in this episode and I particularly liked how he in fact disappeared when the future changed and no one remembered him. Which is kind of weird when you think about it because they remember Fitz is in stasis.
I'm a little disappointed we didn't get a direct reference to the Infinity War ending, even in the stinger (as a last-minute add-on after the show was renewed), but I think the episode works better thematically without that connection. I guess they'll cover that ground when the show returns next summer after The Untitled Sequel.
A worthy conclusion to the series if this had truly been the end, and while I'm glad we're getting another season (and hopefully debuting in the summer will help revitalize the show for even more seasons), I would've been very happy if this had been the series finale. The whole episode was a touching swan song for the whole cast that brought out the best in everyone, especially Yo-Yo, Mack, Daisy, and of course, Coulson. I particularly loved the softer side of May, something we've so little of the entire series.
Fitz's death was the right kind of devastation and payment for changing the future history that felt so right that I almost wish they hadn't realized they had a second Fitz tucked away in a freezer somewhere. Coulson will still die, but at least everyone is finally at peace with that. How perfect for him and May to spend his final days in actual Tahiti (even if it was clearly a green screen)?
I'm saddened by Talbot's death, too, but it was really the only logical end point. When Daisy was unable to reach to him through his sense of military duty and love of his family, he was truly lost and that breaks my heart more than anything else. Talbot may have been a little loopy before getting shot in the head, tortured, brainwashed, and consumed by Gravitonium, but he always had his heart in the right place and for that, I'll miss him.
As much as I didn't like him for most of the season, Deke was pretty good in this episode and I particularly liked how he in fact disappeared when the future changed and no one remembered him. Which is kind of weird when you think about it because they remember Fitz is in stasis.
I'm a little disappointed we didn't get a direct reference to the Infinity War ending, even in the stinger (as a last-minute add-on after the show was renewed), but I think the episode works better thematically without that connection. I guess they'll cover that ground when the show returns next summer after The Untitled Sequel.
As someone who was sure Fitz's spare made him marked for death, I still didn't see it coming. Though I really am genuinely shocked that they punted on the IW conclusion.
I am curious about the details of how things went wrong before. The last iteration had Fitz convinced it was a time loop (though, in actuality, it would seem they were just failing over and over again in insignificantly different ways). My guess would be that the past-loop's future-Yoyo either didn't exist or didn't give the same warning not to save Coulson. He took the centipede serum, and recovered just in time to die when Talbot absorbed Daisy and cracked the planet. As for Polly and Mack, either they survived the prior prior loop (in such a way prior Fitz didn't know, so he didn't realize his loop had, in fact, changed for the worse), or the prior team didn't get the same roll-call of who made it past the destruction of the Earth and was just assuming everything had happened the way it happened to them.
I am curious about the details of how things went wrong before. The last iteration had Fitz convinced it was a time loop (though, in actuality, it would seem they were just failing over and over again in insignificantly different ways). My guess would be that the past-loop's future-Yoyo either didn't exist or didn't give the same warning not to save Coulson. He took the centipede serum, and recovered just in time to die when Talbot absorbed Daisy and cracked the planet. As for Polly and Mack, either they survived the prior prior loop (in such a way prior Fitz didn't know, so he didn't realize his loop had, in fact, changed for the worse), or the prior team didn't get the same roll-call of who made it past the destruction of the Earth and was just assuming everything had happened the way it happened to them.
I guess having an alien battlecruiser sitting on Chicago explains why Fury was distracted enough that it took him and Hill, like, an hour to notice the flotilla of landing craft disgorging hideous monsters in Wakanda.
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Well, sure, which is why I suggested it would've been a stinger added at the last second in case they got renewed. Much like how I suspect last season's finale stinger with them at the cafe was included because they knew the show got renrwed.
Yeah, the lack of pay-off after the double set-up is what bugs me the most. Not a big deal, of course, but it still nags at me.
I cannot help feeling that Mutant Enemy should have filmed an alternate ending, in case the series was renewed for a sixth season. Which it was.
Are we really supposed to believe that Clark Gregg won't be around for the sixth season?
So . . . no one in the movies said anything about what happened in Chicago?
Are we really supposed to believe that Clark Gregg won't be around for the sixth season?
So . . . no one in the movies said anything about what happened in Chicago?
But most shows film two endings just in case. It's odd they didn't here.
Do they? I don't think I've ever heard that before.
(Emphasis mine)
The explanation is that the time loop had never been the same one, and it was only the major details that kept being the same – it was never confirmed their foreknowledge hadn't changed anything. We already know that time can be changed, as it had been changed in past MCU films.
They were gradually changing the loop with each iteration, with the changes small enough for them to not notice the loop was different. Robin was probably the only one aware of those changes, which is why she was convinced Coulson could put the pieces back together, but didn't remember how.
The small changes became evident when Mack and Polly made it out alive. I don't know how Fitz knew they weren't supposed to, but Robin knew her mother wasn't coming back, and Yo-yo knew Mack wasn't coming back. It's obvious how they were able to change this – one way or another, Fitz realised exactly what was going to happen, so Fitz and May rushed to save them.
As for Coulson successfully stashing the centipede serum in Daisy's gauntlet, it's clear that both Yo-yo's slightly different story to her younger self, and Robin's slightly different story on her deathbed made enough of a change to hint the team into doing this. I get a strong feeling older Elena was slightly more convincing, without even noticing it, making younger Elena go berserk about it. That got the message across to Coulson, so even with the incredible sunk cost of the whole world ending to save his life, he refused to take the serum and improvised instead.
Another element of unpredictability that would have affected the loop would be if Robin didn't mention Coulson putting the pieces back together in the prior iteration, and used different words to describe the possibility of changing the time-line.
For all we know, the previous iteration could have even been very different: Trying to save Coulson led them to discover the odium solution, Elena didn't go crazy, so they discussed it in civil fashion. Daisy didn't know of Coulson putting the pieces back together, so she had less rationale to support her emotional drive to save him, so they waited for him to wake up. He ordered them to mix the centipede serum with the odium. Daisy carried the odium centipede needle in her gauntlets, and still mad at Coulson upon leaving the Zephyr, she injected Talbot with it, and that made things way worse. Elena concluded that if they hadn't tried to save Coulson, they wouldn't have tried the odium, and wouldn't have made it all worse.
Hm, I can't seem to recall, was Coulson alive in the flashbacks from lighthouse after the world had ended? Cause I have a feeling in at least some of the iterations, he took the serum and it didn't work.
They were gradually changing the loop with each iteration, with the changes small enough for them to not notice the loop was different. Robin was probably the only one aware of those changes, which is why she was convinced Coulson could put the pieces back together, but didn't remember how.
The small changes became evident when Mack and Polly made it out alive. I don't know how Fitz knew they weren't supposed to, but Robin knew her mother wasn't coming back, and Yo-yo knew Mack wasn't coming back. It's obvious how they were able to change this – one way or another, Fitz realised exactly what was going to happen, so Fitz and May rushed to save them.
As for Coulson successfully stashing the centipede serum in Daisy's gauntlet, it's clear that both Yo-yo's slightly different story to her younger self, and Robin's slightly different story on her deathbed made enough of a change to hint the team into doing this. I get a strong feeling older Elena was slightly more convincing, without even noticing it, making younger Elena go berserk about it. That got the message across to Coulson, so even with the incredible sunk cost of the whole world ending to save his life, he refused to take the serum and improvised instead.
Another element of unpredictability that would have affected the loop would be if Robin didn't mention Coulson putting the pieces back together in the prior iteration, and used different words to describe the possibility of changing the time-line.
For all we know, the previous iteration could have even been very different: Trying to save Coulson led them to discover the odium solution, Elena didn't go crazy, so they discussed it in civil fashion. Daisy didn't know of Coulson putting the pieces back together, so she had less rationale to support her emotional drive to save him, so they waited for him to wake up. He ordered them to mix the centipede serum with the odium. Daisy carried the odium centipede needle in her gauntlets, and still mad at Coulson upon leaving the Zephyr, she injected Talbot with it, and that made things way worse. Elena concluded that if they hadn't tried to save Coulson, they wouldn't have tried the odium, and wouldn't have made it all worse.
Hm, I can't seem to recall, was Coulson alive in the flashbacks from lighthouse after the world had ended? Cause I have a feeling in at least some of the iterations, he took the serum and it didn't work.
Ah, that's a good point! I would agree that would be a good reason for Fury and Hill were slow on the response to the Wakanda situation. That bit bothered me a bit more the second time around. I'm seeing the film again tomorrow so I'll see how that jives with what we saw in this episode.
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I think Simmons remembered him -- otherwise, why would she have even been in his now-empty room, and stared so meaningfully at his inherited multitool? Of course, that makes no damn sense at all, since they still remember everything else about the loop, and if their memories survived, if the consequences of their actions survived, then Deke should've survived.
It makes sense to me that they did. For one thing, they may not have known the conclusion at the time this was filmed. The movie and TV divisions are pretty separate these days, and the filmmakers maintained a lot of secrecy about the ending. So they may have only known a few broad strokes. I think I heard that what was mentioned about Thanos, and the Confederacy knowing of his imminent attack on Earth, was inconsistent with the details of the movie.
More importantly, this was quite possibly the series finale of Agents of SHIELD, so it was absolutely right to make its ending be about Agents of SHIELD rather than about some contrived commercial for a movie. Fans today have gotten a warped sense of priorities about crossovers and interconnections. Those are supposed to be a fun little bonus when they happen. They shouldn't be the end-all and be-all of the whole thing. The priority of each story should be its own needs.
I kind of feel that way too, though of course I'll watch season 6 anyway.
Oh, by the way, the producers are saying it's deliberately ambiguous whether Deke "disappeared" or just left. The latter makes more sense.