This was a very good finale; even tho i still think that S5 finale, being the original one, was performed better. Anyway, the whole season was an improvement over S6 in my opinion. The ties were closed nicely and neat. I really would hope that in future MCU movies, the director of shield is referenced as Director Mackenzie or something like that (a cameo would even be better).
About the episode per se, it was ok. I was honestly expecting something a little more; but i wouldn't know exactly what. The way they managed to "beat" the chronicoms was a little off, but not bad. The quantum time-travel was a good connection with Endgame; even tho i'm still kinda off on how they "used and invented" time-travel before even the snap (assuming that their current timeline happened before thanos; even with the "one year later" ribbon). I would have guessed that a knowleadge like this should be in possesion of SHIELD, and by extension, after all of Infinity War and Endgame, they should have this info. I think is a little plothole in the whole MCU; but then again, the MCU only gave some credit to AoS until S2 more or less. After that, they might have well be in alternate timeline already.
In conclussion, good way to finish the series taking count of other finales. It's been a good ride, i hope they reference them a little more in the movies.
[7.4/10] I would classify this as a “good not great” finale. That’s a little bit of a disappointment, but considering how many other long running shows have ended with a thud in recent years, I will take “good”! The thing is that I don’t have any major problems with the episode, I just think I wanted a little bit more. I also think that some of it stems from the fact that the show essentially did its big series finale at the end of season 5, so this was all a bit of a bonus to start with.
The one problem I did have is that the solution to the big major problem is a little too convoluted and confusing. I’ll admit that my memories of the end of season 6 are a little hazy, and I typically enjoy stable time loop solutions to problems. But time travel plots can get really messy, and this was no exception. The episode basically stopped dead shortly after it started so that Fitz could deliver ten minutes of exposition.
I’m sure if you break it down, it makes enough sense, but Fitz and Simmons plan, not to mention the rest of the team’s plan for defeating the Chronicoms in the main timeline, was so cryptic and shrouded in mystery and wrapped up in timey wimey craziness that there wasn’t necessarily the clarity of intention or character that I like from my TV shows.
To the point, I really like Kora turning and using her powers to help the good guys, as the culmination of her journey and learning that family can be a positive thing, as represented by Daisy and her experiences, versus a negative thing, as represented by Nathaniel Mallick and his experiences. I like the idea of May using her empathy powers to help save the day, as the culmination of her journey this season. And I like how the team’s experience with Enoch influenced their plot to turn the rest of the Chronicoms good, replete with a nice echoing line of “As I have always been.” But the combination of the three works much better on a symbolic level than on a plot level. Frankly, the plot mechanics of the whole episode are a little wonky.
I also didn’t have much of a response to the showdown between Daisy and Mallick. It was pretty much a fait accompli, and the two leaping around the giant inflatable balls didn’t do much for me visually, even with the show’s best director on board for this one. Daisy's attempt at self-sacrifice might have made more of an impact if I had any belief the show might actually go through with it. Instead, it mostly played like an obvious fake out. That said, I appreciate that Kora again used her nebulous powers for good, this time managing to channel them to revive her sister, in a vindication of ehr journey and the season’s themes.
And that’s pretty much that, in terms of the plot. The day is saved. We jump one year later. And what’s left is all character moments and beats, some of which were great, and a lot of which were fine.
Let’s start with my favorite of them. I love that Deke decides to stay in the 1980s so that he can send our heroes back to the main timeline. (This is also where I’ll say that the decision to bring the Chronicoms to the main timeline was pretty odd.) It shows great nobility from Deke. He’s very funny about it, but it’s also a sacrifice that he undertakes without complaint, even blessing the Daisy/Sousa pairing despite his prior crush. It even feels like a happy ending for him, potentially being both a rock god and the head of what’s left of Shield. I’m not sure any character has grown or become more endearing over the last couple of seasons than him, and I’m glad to see him get what I’d consider the best ending of the bunch.
Mack is still director, getting to close out on the helicarrier. Yo-Yo is still leading missions. And my favorite touch of the still-in-Shield crew is that Piper’s one wish for helping FitzSimmons was to get an LMD of Davis! Honestly, it may have been my favorite small touch in the finale.
Speaking of May, her teaching at the “Phil Coulson Shield Academy”, replete with good ol’ Flint(!) as a student, is a nice ending for her. I don’t know if it really completes the character’s journey for me, but it’s nice. She’s one of the major characters who kind of got her ending in S5, so it works as a grace note.
The same goes for FitzSimmons. The show gave away the game a bit when Simmons said “two become one then three become one” in her previous incoherent ramblings. The show got more juice out of her remembering Fitz than her reuniting with their child, but it’s still a nice beat. The fact that they got their happy ending with the life they made together up in space is a pleasant thought, and the bucolic tones of the two playing with Aliyah is sweet. Again, it’s all very nice, but just doesn’t carry the same emotional catharsis and impact their wedding did.
That said, I kind of like how understated Daisy’s ending is. There’s no “Me and Sousa are getting married” or “Kora is a whole new person”! It’s just “things are going well with both.” She’s built another new family and after feeling so lost in terms of romance and family when she started the series, having her end in a good but not “happily ever after” place is pretty darn good. It didn’t move me, but that’s okay.
Coulson’s ending is the one that threw me off the most. He, more than anyone, got his real ending in S5. But him getting his switch and his car is, again, at least nice, with a bit of a throwback to the show’s early episodes to boot, so I’ll take it.
At the end of the day, I’m not sure what more specifically I wanted. None of this material is bad. All of it is solid. I guess I just expected to have more of an emotional response after seven seasons and scads of adventures with these characters. It’s kind of a “life goes on” ending, which is bold in its own way. Still, it’s sweet and nice enough to pass muster, which I’ll count as a win given some of the series finales we’ve seen of late.
So farewell to Agents of Shield! A show that built its own unique and entertaining corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and used the freedom it found there for everything it was worth!
Ah, so that's why there was that completely nonsensical plot arc of May being able to read feelings somehow this season: so she could give emotions to robots. Yep. Aha, now it all makes sense! No, not really.
Sooo Kora's power used to be burning things and shooting holes through people, but now she can boost signals and revive people from the dead? Yeah, ok, sure. I also like how she had zero actual redemption, she was just woken up and was like sure I'll help you guys.
Why exactly did Daisy need to almost die? Mack, Coulson, and May walked right past her. They all could've gone down and helped her. Nathaniel may have been able to deflect bullets, but if they all overwhelm him, he wouldn't be able to defend all sides. It just seemed needlessly risky to do what she did.
All in all, this season was pretty bad. S6 wasn't all that great, either. Show probably should've ended with (actual) Coulson's death.
I know pretty much all of my comments on this show (this one included) are filled with me bitching about things, but I still enjoyed the show overall. I can't say I'll miss it, because it needed to end. But it was a fine ride.
It sucks that aside from Samuel L. Jackson in the S1 finale, a few Cobie Smulders appearances, and that random unimportant Thor side character in a couple of episodes, we never got any more movie cameos. You'd think with all that MCU money... but nah. But it's probably a product of how the show was made. If this show started today completely in-house, it'd probably have the opportunity to have way more cameos.
I can't believe this series has finished. I remember watching the first season all those years ago. I'm not the first to say that this series is far from perfect. The seasons were not all created equally. But it was a big part of my life, nonetheless. And they really pulled all the stops for this final season.
I like how we got to see a bit of everyone's aftermath, except for Deke. And I'm also glad that most of them still work with S.H.I.E.L.D. Yoyo as a field agent, May as a lecturer in Coulson Academy, Mack still being the director of a now much larger S.H.I.E.L.D. complete with a new helicarrier. Daisy, Sousa, and Kora being agents in space. Fitz and Jemma with their well-earned retirement. I wish we really could've seen how Deke was as a director.
Some questions remain unanswered. How does the new S.H.I.E.L.D. get its funding if the US government dropped it after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Is S.H.I.E.L.D. public again now? Overall, this series feels completely detached from the rest of the MCU, despite the fact that it was such a close tie-in in the beginning that the aforementioned movie completely upended the series. Some of these threats including this last one feels like an Avengers-level threat. And if S.H.I.E.L.D. exists again, where are they in the movies? I hope we get a cameo in one of the future series at some point. Maybe Mack as the director.
It's over, huh. It's really over. I'm quite sad about that. But it had to end one day. Thank you for the great show, the memories, and the fun. This series is my favourite MCU series. Sad to see it go. But happy that it got an amazing final season, and a great, final ending.
It wasn’t like the most amazing ending ever but it was cute! The thing driving the show has always been the cast and characters so plot wise it was a little messy and underwhelming BUT reading some interviews with the show runners I think they did the best they could being part of marvel’s universe but not being able to participate in it, so it was never about the time traveling, the bad guys, inhumans or whatever it was always about the team, and they all got their happy ending, which is nice and something we don’t see much anymore in tv shows.
So things I never liked or understood was the villains these two last seasons, they were kinda bland and didn’t have like a smart reasoning, I wanna believe the chronicoms would be smarter and find a new home planet instead of focusing so much on Earth, also the Malicks, I didn’t even remember who Malick was so I didn’t care much about him. Also the time traveling mess, if they can time travel why no just go back in time to the moment before the chronicoms entered the lighthouse while the others were at the temple and why follow them into an alternate timeline? And then why bring them back to our timeline? Like there must be billions of timelines and I imagine not all of them are nice so you really can’t bother about each and everyone. Then what was the deal with May’s powers?? You can’t just get powers just because, at first I thought something happened to may and elena because of the shrieks or whatever but elena had something different so what about May??? I guess they just needed to give her that so she could turn the chronicoms??
The thing I disliked the most was Deke staying in that other timeline AND not having an emotional goodbye with his grandparents, it was obvious Fitz never liked him and this Fitz never met him in space or in his wedding but at least say goodbye to his nana? I mean it’s sad Deke being left behind but I know he’s gonna love it and rock with the deke squad and rule the world, but at least they could’ve say thank you???
Other thing I feel the show missed was seeing the full extent of Daisy’s powers, cause we know she could quake a planet apart but we never saw her in action, when she first got her powers I was excited to see the full extent of them but all we saw was she pushing people away, but on the other hand I’m happy that she finally got a decent love interest, no more a troubled bad boy with a dark past but a MAN.
All their individual endings were happy and cute and not really an ending for them, they are off to new adventures but what I hated was Coulson!!! I think they should’ve waited to kill him for real until this last season so it could be a definitive goodbye, real human Coulson deserved better!! When he died for real in s5 it wasn’t even emotional because we were focused on Fitz and we didn’t even saw Coulson die so it was a non event, so I wish they had waited to give him a real and emotional dead. And that last scene with lmd Coulson and Lola felt fake cause that’s not coulson, so I wish that was Daisy riding Lola, that would’ve been a nice touch instead of fake Coulson.
And I was a little mad that Iain decided to skip this season, I get he was filming something else (I think) but still like this is the last season and we missed on some good fitzsimmons moments (especially cause this is another Fitz) yet the writers made a good job in writing him back in and explaining his absence and introducing cutie Alya.
Cute show, cute ending and I’m happy everyone got a happy life.
Review by Aniela KrajewskaVIP 8BlockedParentSpoilers2020-08-13T03:04:16Z— updated 2020-08-16T09:36:38Z
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING COMMENT IS RATED S FOR "SAPPY AS HELL". PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
We all know a bad series finale can ruin the entire show, which is why I've been feeling on edge all week. I just wanted a satisfying ending for my team. And, for the most part, I got one.
I started crying as soon as they said the team would never be all in the same room again. And then Deke made a sacrifice to stay in the altered timeline! It made me so emotional, but it was also funny (the way Sousa tried to be all heroic only for Deke to just… go full Deke on him). He’s gonna be just fine. I almost dread to think what SHIELD looks like under his leadership, but I'm sure it's equal parts hilarious and insane.
Fitz guiding Jemma to get her to remember was lovely. Iain and Elizabeth brought their A game, as always. I’ve missed that good old Caestridge magic.
The way they brought the whole thing full circle to the season 6 finale… Genius. The logistics of time travel made my head hurt, though. It’s way too complex for me.
”- Nice flying there.
- That used to be all I did.”
Yeah, like a million years ago. That line got a smile out of me. The season 1 nostalgia is real. Everybody gives the pre-Winter Soldier episodes so much flack, but I really enjoyed those early case-of-the-week shenanigans.
Daisy and Bitch Boy’s showdown paired with Cavalry dropping from the ceiling made me SCREAM. When Daisy blew up those Chronicom ships... Avengers? I don't know them. I only know one superhero and her name is Daisy freaking Johnson. The movies wish they had her. For a minute I really thought she was dead and my heart stopped. I wouldn't put it past the writers to kill her off. The Whedons have never met a surprise death scene they didn't like. But she’s okay! And Kora saved her! I’m fine (* narrator voice * she was not fine).
So like I predicted FitzSimmons had a child. A very blonde, very cute child. Her little voice made me tear up even more, if that’s even possible. That adorable accent!
I'm glad we didn't see the actual goodbye because that would've been too much for me. But I also don't fully understand why they decided to break up the band in the end other than because Enoch and Fitz told them they would. Even though they're still in each other's lives at the end, after 7 seasons of watching them become a family it hurts to see that they're all separated. It's just not the same.
During the last 10 minutes of the episode all the remaining self-control I had went out the window. The waterworks were flowing. Especially when Daisy was the last one left in the room, it really felt like we were watching the character as much as we were watching Chloe herself get hit with the realization that it's over. That broke me. Also, I don't buy for a second that they only do the futuristic Zoom thing once a year. Sure, maybe not all together, but Daisy and Jemma definitely talk like three times a week and they all 100% have a group chat going on that consists mostly of cute videos of Alya and Daisy sending memes (May never says anything but she reads every single message and Coulson uses the wrong emojis all the time). This is what I choose to believe. And none of it contradicts what's been said in canon, so I'm sticking by it. But aside from that minor gripe about the frequency of their communication, I really liked the ending. FitzSimmons are happy with their daughter, May is teaching (which oddly suits her) at a new SHIELD academy named after Coulson and Flint is one of her students, Daisy is in space with Sousa and Kora, Mack and YoYo are still in the field, Coulson and Lola are reunited (the real OTP of this show), even Davis is back! All my babies are okay! That’s all I wanted!
Well, not true. All I wanted was for this show to never end. But it did, as all good things must. And it did so on its own terms, despite everything working against it.
Now comes the truly sappy part.
7 seasons. 136 episodes. And it all ends here.
In October 2014, I was a 16-year-old casual Marvel fan who stumbled upon this show by chance one Saturday afternoon and pressed play on the pilot episode without thinking too much of it. It’s been nearly 6 years since that fateful day and out of all my shows I’ve been watching this one the longest and the most consistently by far. It’s been such a steady presence in my life that I still can’t fully comprehend that there’s not going to be any more episodes to look forward to. Agents of SHIELD has taken root in my heart and ingrained itself in me more deeply than any other piece of media has ever done, which makes this goodbye all the more difficult for me.
Now, I am not going to claim that this show was perfect. But at its best, Agents of SHIELD was an absolute non-stop thrill ride filled with awe-inspiring CGI (especially for a network show!) and exciting fight scenes, jaw-dropping plot twists and well-crafted intrigues, laugh-out-loud humor and heart-wrenching angst, brilliant acting and skillful writing. And most importantly, it had a group of amazing characters at its center, characters who got under my skin and never left, whose adventures I followed with bated breath, whose joy and laughter and pain and tears I felt and shared time and time again. For those characters, for everything I got to experience with them and through them, for all the ways they have enriched my life, I am truly, deeply grateful. I can only say, from the bottom of my heart: thank you.
Thank you for Phil Coulson, the dad to outdad all dads, who gave his life to the cause more than once; whose unwavering belief in his team and everything they stood for was a foundation that the entire show rested on; and whose cheesy one-liners never failed to get a smile from me.
Thank you for Melinda May, our Cavalry, whose many demons never managed to consume her heart; who fashioned her jagged edges into a weapon to protect the people she cared about; who went through hell and unspeakable trauma and came out the other side fighting, always fighting the good fight.
Thank you for Leo Fitz, the man who loved a woman so much that he jumped through a hole in the universe to find her; whose brilliant mind saved the day too many times to count; who suffered so much but always stood for what he believed in, no matter the cost.
Thank you for Jemma Simmons, the girl with two PhDs and a million questions who looked to the stars and yearned for an adventure; who survived being stranded on an alien planet and traveled farther than she ever could’ve imagined; who never backed down, never gave up, never surrendered, even in the face of the most insurmountable odds.
Thank you for my darling Daisy Johnson, a lonely girl without a home or a name who dreamt of a family and built herself one; who went from a hacktivist living in a van to an earth-quaking superhero; who carried the weight of the world on her shoulders but refused to let it break her; who had a blazing fire burning within that nothing, no matter how painful or horrible, could ever snuff out.
Thank you for Mack, YoYo and Deke, who joined the team a little further down the line and became invaluable members of SHIELD. Thank you for Bobbi, Hunter and Lincoln, who I was sad to say goodbye to. Thank you for Ward, who all of us loved to hate. Thank you for every single character, whether main, recurring or guest, for every hero and villain, ally and enemy, everyone who contributed to making Agents of SHIELD what it was.
To my favorite cast, especially my OGs Clark, Ming, Chloe, Lil and Iain, who brought these characters to life and blessed us with their talent every week, and to everyone who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make the best show possible: you guys absolutely rock. I wish all of you the best of luck and many, many more successful projects in the future.
Goodbye, my favorite team. I’ll miss you like hell.
If you’re still reading this, thank you for sticking by me while I went through 5 stages of grief in roughly 1,200 words. I feel like I need to stare at the ceiling for a while until the void that this show left inside of me feels a little less cold and overwhelming.