4x22 World's End

[7.2/10] The greatest innovation of Agents of Shield’s fourth season has been the advent of its episode pods. Telling stories that lasted for 6-8 episodes rather than for 12 or, heaven forbid, 22, allowed AoS to focus more, create discrete plotlines that weren’t stretched out to exhaustion, and build from week-to-week without wearing out their welcome.

Then, in the show’s season finale, it smashed those three pods together and reminded the audience why dividing these narratives up like that was a good idea in the first place. “World’s End” is not a bad finale per se. In fact, it’s in competition for one of the series’s best (though that’s not necessarily saying much). But by trying to unify all of those stories, by trying to service every character and every major development that’s happened over the past season in a mere 45 minutes, Agents of Shield produced a closing installment that is jumbled, where even the good stuff is mish-mashed with a host of story beats and character moments that never get much of a chance to breathe.

And yet, when “World’s End” is good, it’s really good. It’s no surprise that the best part of the finale were those that closed off the last loose ends from the “Agents of Hydra” arc, the best of Season 4’s mini-pods. Yo-Yo and Radcliffe trying to convince Mack to leave a collapsing Framework was easily the most well-done part of the episode. It helps that in contrast to the rest of the dizzying, world-ending stuff going on, it was the most narrow and focused, telling a straightforward, human story in the midst of the sci-fi craziness.

It’s a story of being willing to do anything, sacrifice anything, for the person you love. That’s why Yo-Yo dives into The Framework in the first place, and it’s why even when the world is literally ending around Mack, he refuses to leave his daughter’s side. The steadfastness of both Yo-Yo and Mack, and the looming threat of annihilation creates both a ticking clock of a threat, that is haunting as people and places begin to disappear, and also an emotional threat of people standing in the line of fire as they try to hold on to the most important people in their lives.

Agents of Shield is pretty much the last show I would expect to be heart-rending in a genuinely piercing way, but the moment where Yo-Yo makes the same choice that Mack is, resolving to stay and face the end because she too is unwilling to leave the person she loves most behind, was truly affecting in a way I wasn’t sure this show could muster. And Henry Simmons sells his distress at the loss of his daughter well. Of course, they survive, but the show turns the experience into a turning point, one that strengthens Mack and Yo-Yo’s relationship, one of the unexpected bright spots of this series, with a show of the force of their love, and the possibility of a future and a family together. If every storyline in “World’s End” could be as focused, clear-headed, and centered on earned sentiment as this one, the finale would be transcendent.

(It doesn’t hurt that Radcliffe’s coda in The Framework, while a smidge cheesy, is one of the arty-er demises we’ve seen on the show.)

Unfortunately, the rest of the episode is a big jumble that tries to do too much too fast and brings back some weaker elements to begin with. That includes Robbie Reyes, who I was glad to be rid of and displeased to see return. That said, the rush-jumps between storylines meant that he didn’t have to act too much, just make cryptic statements about hell dimensions and hellmouths (Shield was really channeling some Buffy here), and then quickly turn into a flaming skull before the audience had time to get bored with him. It’s not superlative material or anything, but if the initial eight-episode Ghost Rider arc could have stuck to the same tack with Robbie, it would have improved considerably.

That said, as convenient of an explanation as it was, I appreciated the idea that because Aida had made herself out of the darkhold material, which was connected to The Rider, only Robbie could hurt her. The notion of Ghost Rider as a threat that Aida recognized and kept trying to escape from, requiring some cleverness and trickery from the Shield team, made for a solid plot obstacle, albeit one of many that “World’s End” rushed through.

That’s right -- on top of the Mack rescue, on top of the return of Ghost Rider, on top of the demise of The Framework there is: other spy agencies (via Talbot) believing Shield is evil again, the Russian guys helping set that up, Aida trying to establish a fascist regime, Aida trying to emotionally torture Fitz, Fitz still feeling guilty and like he caused all of this, Fitz and Simmons still trying to piece their relationship back together, Coulson and May trying to piece their relationship back together, Daisy saving the world as per usual, and the usual teases for next season.

Some of that was bad, some of that was good, but the problem is that stitching it all together made the episode unwieldy as hell. There’s just enough real estate in a 44-minute finale to service all of those characters and all of those plots. That makes underwhelming aspects of the episode, like the endless, annoying Russia bots, feel like even greater wastes of time than usual. It makes interesting if semi-implausible stories, like Aida trying to recreate the Hydra fascist world in the real one, feel over-abbreviated since they begin and end in the course of ten minutes. And it makes intended emotional moments -- like Daisy underlining the season’s trite message about the importance of real teamwork super hard -- feel thrown in and unsatisfying.

It’s a shame because there really is some nice stuff in the episode. For one thing, there is a tone of winking at genre conventions that makes sense coming from Angel veteran Jeffrey Bell who produces Agents of Shield and wrote this episode. When Daisy adds a knowing retort to the generic Russian baddie saying he’s unstoppable, or Simmons acknowledging that she can’t kill Aida, but just really enjoyed blasting her with a machine gun, there’s a sense of wry fun that livens the proceedings considerably.

Even Aida, who is subject to the most mixed-up and messed-up storylines shines here, with a creepy performance that depicts unhinged vengeance better than any of the heavy-handed dialogue on the topic the episode subjects its viewers to. Heck, in some places, the brief nature of everything helps, as it forces Coulson and May working out their romantic issues to turn into a mature, adult conversation about them instead of an overwrought back and forth about all their unspoken feelings.

It’s still a great deal of stretching and straining and packing everything into a container that wasn’t meant to fit that much story or character. “World’s End” is overstuffed, even by finale standards, unable to service all of its characters or give its many plots room to unspool. The episode gives the audience a nice image of all our heroes, having saved the world yet again, united and enjoying one another’s company for the first time in a long time (unless you count the mid-season celebration attended by May-Bot). It’s a pleasant moment, followed by enough intriguing teases to whet the appetite of the fans between seasons. But the path to get there in the episode was a rocky and uneven one. The best thing Agents of Shield did this season was learning to take the divide and conquer approach to storytelling. In the finale, it forgot that lesson, still managing to provide some impressive and even touching material, but blunting the impact of a twine ball of plots that never quite unravel or connect in as neat or satisfying a fashion as they could.

Oh well. On to space!

Like I thought in the previous episode, we don't see enough of what Aida could have done with her super powers and Robbie is just a devil ex machina superweapon to get rid of her. Aida probably has tons of powers, and we only see two of them, three counting the self heling. And the worst thing ? We lose Aida and we still didn't get rid of the useless Russian guy. Sriously ? I'm really pissed off about that.

That being said, Robbie kicks some serious ass here, and as always, his teamwork with Daisy is perfect. I wouldn't mind a spin-off. Or at least I hope we'll see him again in future seasons, if possible as something more than a once in a while solves everything cheap solution like the way Flash is used in Arrow.

May is really pissed off about that bottle, and Coulson going "Robot May was more supportive", you got the moves Phil!

Still more Framework as Yoyo tries to save Mack, like we didn't have enough already. Mack's story was heartbreaking already, and it needed to be solved, but I fell that this episode was a little too much of that, because we know he can't stay, and the obvious solution was to wait for her to disappear so he does not have a reason to stay in anymore. That really took a lot of extra time to get there.

Now the bad guys making SHIELD seem like the bad guys. It's been used and reused. We just had 5 Framework episode with that. Please move on to something new.

The final fight is ok. Nice plan. Another badass Hemma moment too. The whole teleportation thing in the middle was a bit too much though, just showing off, and this to return to where the others get right in time to see the end ? Cheesy. And so big question. What did Coulson offer to the Rider ? Will he have to become the Rider again at some point ?

Daisy's little speech was cute, but really unneeded.

That's also the final goodbye to Radcliffe, I really liked the guy :/

As for the ending, is this a prison ? Please don't make it a Framework like thing.

I'm just pretty upset with how they handled Mack tbh. in the last episode it was really dumb of Daisy/Jemma to not ever explain to Mack what was actually going on unless they planned to force him out blindly. Of course he would dhoose his daughter if he doesn't even know/remember the outside world and he finds out she's not alive there. But especially in this episode, first of all it's so tiring to watch characters think that framework minds will just magically remember them and they keep trying to no avail. Aside from that after YoYo realizes that Mack doesn't remember and he genuinely doesn't care to go back bc he has his daughter here and that's all that matters to him, she should have just outright told home that based on what was happening around them, soon both him and Hope would cease to exist in this world. And then when he comes back to the real world, it may be true that Hope is no longer alive, but he will keep his memories of this life her. I could just imagine that heartfelt conversation with him, they'd both be crying and then Mack would still be able to hug his daughter for the last time, but it would make more sense.

When I started this season I had no idea where it was going, but no complains here, I especially loved ghost rider and the agents of hydra storylines. What I never understood tho were the origins of the darkhold, where did it come from and how and what’s it its purpose? Also if it’s like an ancient book why is there so much about AI and robots and computers and we never get to know the secrets of the universe.
What I didn’t like is that it ended up being the typical story of AI/robots that the creature falls in love with its creator, wants to become human and then tries to destroy him; at first it was cool that Aida was a normal robot and it was Radcliffe whom was corrupted but I don’t see how Aida becomes corrupted, I feel like we needed a better reason than fitz being a cute boy for Aida to want to destroy the world. I hope that Fitz gets over himself cause I don’t wanna see self pity about the framework cause the only thing that happened was the director dying (no that anyone in the team cares), so I hope this doesn’t affect the team’s dynamic.
But I don’t wanna see more of shield and inhumans being hunted just for what happened to talbot.
Radcliffe’s ending was one of the most satisfying endings ever! I wanted him to come back to this life but I don’t mind when he was given that amazing ending.
Hopefully ghost rider keeps coming back as a series regular.
And did anyone on the team realized that they didn’t actually killed the russian? His head is somewhere around, even tho I don’t see how a head can’t cause much destruction if it doesn’t have a body or hands, but lets see!