7x12 The End Is at Hand

[8.0/10] This is a little weird, but I may have liked this better than the finale. It may just be that the anticipation is sometimes better than the thing itself, but threw as such a great sense of build to this one, and each part of the story worked for me.

Oddly enough, I think my favorite was just Mack and Sousa back on the quinjet. The two have a surprisingly strong dynamic together, and the pair just going back and forth while they prep for a potential Chronicom attack with limited supplies is a lot of fun. Their Chronicom-ducttaped missile was a fun visual gag and solution to the problem.

But I also really liked the conversation between Daisy and Cora. Honestly, Cora may be my favorite part of the last two episodes of the series, if only because she has the most complete journey over the course of these events. Her learning that family can be a good thing and being persuaded by sisterly love, even in bizarre circumstances, is a good beat for both characters.

There’s also a lot of fun and coolness down in the Lighthouse. Coulson, May, and Yo-Yo not only trapping Garrett the way they once trapped Gordon, but eventually turning him into a white hat by exposing Nathaniel Mallick’s lack of care for him is pretty darn awesome. The scene between Coulson and May where they reflect on how far they’ve come was a little on the nose, but still had its heart in the right place.

Last but not least, the material with Deke and Simmons was really good too. Simmons being in a state of “remembering and forgetting” at the same time gave Elizabeth Hemstridge a lot of great material to work with as an actor, and she knocked it out of the park. The “And Deke” jokes got a chuckle out of me. It’s the closing scene, bringing everything together, that was the real doozy though.

There’s something wonderfully clockwork about the pieces necessary to retrieve Fitz from the quantum realm being scattered throughout Shield agents across the timestream. The shout out to Ant-Man was super neat for broader MCU fans, and we got a few more mini-cameos. (They didn’t name her, but I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be Victoria Hand, and I wonder if the last guy was supposed to be Peggy Carter’s love interest from s2 of Agent Carter?)

The sequence where Simmons puts the 0-8-4(!!!) together was really stirring, especially the extra “keys” needed to make it work, which connected her head and heart in a symbolic and effective way. Fitz’s return was utterly triumphant. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to see a character who was already on 100 episodes of the show pop up.

Overall, this was a really strong lead-in to the finale, with greater character work and good beats for almost everyone, and a boffo closing scene.