[CaptainCrunch]

Ok, before I slap on the obligatory spoiler tags, I have to say, I'm kind of saddened that I'm writing a review of Agents of Shield for the last time for about a year. I've enjoyed writing them, and I know that sometimes I'm kinda random in my writing (Thank you 9 concussions over my lifetime), but I really love putting my thoughts down on paper . . or electrons and I really appreciate the fact that people read it, debate it, and hopefully enjoy it (Look at me tonight getting all kinds of mushy.


But here we go

Spoiler!

First of all, you could tell that this episode was being treated as a potential season ended, that's why the title "The End" was so apt.

But in the end, The End doesn't have to be the end, sometimes it can be a new beginning.

This episode was a complete emotional roller coaster from beginning to the end, and realistically didn't go the way that any of us thought that it would go.

What was incredibly well done is right through the episode there was a sense of incoming doom right to the end, and with some characters it really was the end.

The Episode started with the team basically arguing over the fate of the dying heart of Shield Phil Coulson. If they save him they lose a potential weapon against Talbot, if they don't they might save Coulson but the world dies. This was a heart wrenching and emotional argument with YoYo taking center stage with he desperate plea that Coulson had to die for the loop to break. During the exchange she broke down and exclaimed that "it was like being in a nightmare and I'm screaming and nobody can hear me. Natalia Cordova-Buckley really pulled out all of the stops here, and you felt so crushed by her desperation in arguing that Coulson needed to die. But they decided to leave it to a vote, however May made the decision for them by destroying the Kree chemical that they needed to mix with the Extremis formula.

What followed that was even worse as Coulson woke up and basically angrily said that the team had made the wrong choice, but then shared a tender moment with May before being encouraged to take the cure.

Throughout this we saw how crazed Talbot had become. As much as he said that he couldn't hear the voices, I'm convinced that Doctor Hall and Ian Quin were a part of his personality.

However Daisy finally hit a point that people forget so often when they watch TV shows. Talbot was really a victim in this as well. He's been shot, tortured, backstabbed, damaged and then given overwhelming power, and all he wants to do is fix it. Its sad to see how far Talbot had fallen from the heroic but sometimes overwhelmed character from early in the season.

Talbot does manage to get the location of the Gravitonium from poor Robyn by threatening to kill her mother and he heads to Chicago. Meanwhile the team heads to Chicago while Deke helps to prepare the lighthouse for the inevitable future. It was there that we finally saw a serious conversation between Daisy and Deke where he talks about leaving the Lighthouse to see the world before it ends, plus he also stated that if they broke the loop that he would vanish anyways.

So the team heads out to stop Talbot and Daisy realizes that she's not the leader that the team needs, and Mack who is the moral center of the team is the one they want. This is where I believe the loop starts to break as Mack decides that the mission is to save people. Meanwhile Daisy and a supposedly healthy Coulson go off to deal with Talbot, but now their main plan is to reason with him.

Of course Shield isn't Shield without turmoil and we see that Coulson didn't take the serum and he's going to die and he convinces Daisy to go and face him alone and she angrily tells him to go and take the serum.

Now here's what worked and didn't work in a way, even thought his episodes really stuck a lot of landings. The confrontation between Daisy and Talbot was short and long on talk as she appealed to his heroic nature, however Talbot in his damaged state immediately distrusted her and decided to absorb Daisy so he could use her powers to quake the world open to get the gravitation.

Again this is where that sense of dread comes in, as our hero's are out trying to save the people, Talbot begins to absorb Daisy, but she finds the caterpillar formula and injects herself which makes her Super Daisy.

You know how lately Calgarypuck favorite saving is I'd like to throw so and so into the sun? Well Daisy pretty much sent Talbot into orbit.

Meanwhile on the Zephyr Coulson collapses and poor YoYo decides to revive him and Robyn whispers "something is different" and with that the loop is broken.

So crisis averted right, and holy crap everyone is alive, except for Talbot who's now a orbiting satellite.

Not so fast, with everyone safe Fitz is hit by a collapsing ceiling and we get one of the most heart breaking and emotional death scenes as Mack and May stay with him as he dies.

Funny at that point I looked at my watch and only a half an hour had passed.


The second half of the episode was an emotional farewell, they portrayed it as a farewell to poor Fitz until they revealed that it was also a retirement party for Coulson, well until they showed an in memory plaque in the cockpit for Phil. apparently he was going to die anyways, and we had the team reminisce and say goodbye, and it was well done and sad especially when you consider that this could have been the series finally.

After telling Daisy how proud he was of her she breaks down and tells her she loves him, and then Phil decides the spend the last few days at Tahiti which he comments really is magical, he's then joined by May and Phil mentions that he has one more thing on his list and looks at May and tells her he wants to try to Parasail.

The last scene shows May and Coulson on the beach as the Zephyr streaks over head with what's left on the team.

Now I mentioned at the start that there was a sense of dread from start to finish, and up until the last credits there were. To be honest during the retirement/memorial/farewell scene which was well done and really emotional, I expected someone or multiple people to turn to dust. But I guess Jed Whedon really decided that we maybe had enough emotional punches to the feels.

So now we're left with a team of Mack as director, Daisy, YoYo and Simmons We lost Deke who probably vanished, Coulson, May and Fitz.

This season was the best of Shield and this episode was the best of that. If this was a gymnastics routine they really stuck the landing.

Random thoughts

There's a possibility that Gemma is holding hope to that she can find the other Fitz from the other time line floating in space. I think its unlikely to happen, but they left that there as a hint that Fitz could come back, though this one was pretty much broken in half.

There was no way that they could renege on Coulson dying after YoYo's scene during the argument, in terms of emotional beats that one was way too big to waste.

Now we know why they filmed most of the season in the lighthouse, because the effects and the scenery in this episode were soaring and epic. The effects were large and really well done, and the fight scene with Daisy felt like two super powers were fighting, until Daisy launched poor Talbot into orbit.

Its funny that I've commented throughout this series about the amazing fight choreography and scene blocking, but tonight there wasn't much in terms of a fight scene as the team focused on saving lives, and a long drawn out fight between Daisy and Talbot probably would have felt really wrong, instead the fight was fast, had huge impact and looked really amazing.

Oh well, that's it that's all, this episode did feel more like a series end then a season end so it had an epic emotional feel to it that might not be as powerful if they find a way to bring the lost members back.

Thanks for reading.