Okay, Agents, this is the two-hour finale of our show. No new episodes until after Summer. Longest Summer EVER! So let’s jump right into it:
S.O.S. (Finale) Recap
We pick up immediately after the last episode – Jiaying collapses, telling Skye that Gonzales wants to exterminate all Inhumans, and that it’s a war – Skye stays with her mom while everyone else falls back – SHIELD agents assessing what happened, Inhumans “taking care” of the situation.
May is concerned that they have lost all communication with Bobbi – Simmons reports the gunfire. Coulson holds off on any action until the truth of the situation can be determined. Gordon and a very strong, unnamed friend teleport aboard another SHIELD Qunijet, and proceed to fire on the meeting hall where Jiaying had been – effectively framing SHIELD for the attack. Jiaying plays Skye’s emotions, causing her to beat up a SHIELD agent, and even fight May. It’s a not-quite even match, and Skye is not holding her own very well, but uses her Quake force-push to knock May out.
Mack is onboard Gonzales’ ship when the alert goes off. May regains consciousness onboard the Quinjet. Agent Weaver recommends a strong show of force, Coulson refuses to believe the story that’s being told, and most importantly does not want to start a war. He orders Weaver back to the ship and his team back to the base to plan their next move. Meanwhile, Cal is going crazy pants in restraints aboard the main SHIELD Qunijet.
Jiaying is getting treated by Inhuman doctors, and sends Skye and Lincoln out of the room because she needs rest. Hunter is trying to contact Bobbi, and asks Fitz to look at the security footage. Skye asks Raina about what’s going to happen next – Raina knows Skye won’t believe her. Raina reveals that she is the “thorn” that protects the “Daisy”. She also mentions that Jiaying is misleading the people and Skye is destined to lead. Gordon teleports a human sacrifice to Jiaying, who apparently only heals by taking life force from someone else.
The team arrives back at base with Cal, and Coulson asks what he’s really doing there. Cal states the same party line about being a peace offering. Simmons reveals he’s taken three vials of something, and she sets off to analyze the contents in the lab. Fitz and Hunter find footage of May and Bobbi leaving, then May leaving the base again – they figure out it’s Agent 33, but don’t know why or where they went.
Bobbi is shackled to a table and Agent 33 and Ward are patiently waiting for Bobbi to admit “what she did”. Apparently, Bobbi gave Kara over to Hydra, which is the direct cause of Kara’s mind control and torture. If Bobbi confesses, it’ll give Kara some much-needed “closure”.
Skye confronts her mom because everything feels wrong. Jiaying tries to convince her to fight SHIELD – end the war before it starts, so their people can be safe. She gives Skye the peace offering Gonzales brought.
After reviewing all the evidence, Coulson and team have determined the Jiaying set everything up as elaborate theatrics – which worked. Hunter and Fitz reveal the fate of Bobbi. They know where the GPS went dark, so Hunter and May fly out to investigate – May is ready to kill Ward as soon as she sees him, because this whole thing reeks of Ward.
Meanwhile Ward is torturing Bobbi in a very unconventional way – he is inserting needles under her fingernails, but with anesthetic so she won’t feel any pain. Until, of course, it wears off and she feels all the pain all at once – similar to Kara’s experience after the brainwashing wore off. Bobbi remains steadfast that she needed to save her cover so she made a hard call.
The Council is trying to convince Coulson to take action, but Coulson will not be forced into action until he knows the whole story. Mack happens upon this debate and sides uneasily with Coulson saying the situation needs to be “settled”, but that does not necessarily mean attack. The Council agrees to give him 3 hours to gather intel. Weaver instructs Mack to make himself useful and get the ship battle ready.
Cal is in the techno cell, freezing – Coulson talks to him. Cal is visibly upset about SHIELD. Simmons’ finished her initial analysis of the contents of those vials – lots of dangerous chemicals mixing together to form a “super-strength” serum potent enough to hospitalize a normal man with one vial, and he’s taken 3.
The anesthesia is wearing off on Bobbi. She tries to talk sense into Kara, but she’s in so deep with Ward’s influence that it doesn’t stick. Bobbi calls out Ward for always needing to blame someone else, but Kara professes her love of Ward and that she will always stand by his side.
Jiaying meets Raina on a bridge at night, and stabs her in the throat to keep her visions quiet. Unfortunately, Skye witnesses this and finally sees her mother for who she truly is. She drops the coins that were going to symbolize her willingness to stand with the Inhumans – immediately invalidated by this moment.
Jiaying attempts to plead her innocence, but Skye is having none of it. Skye finally realizes that Jiaying wants war – and Jiaying says that the only way to be safe is to destroy SHIELD. An Inhuman lurking in the shadows knocks Skye out cold and Jiaying orders him to restrain Skye and dispose of Raina’s body.
Cal echoes his wife’s sentiments that she just wants to keep her people safe – he also starts crazy-talk monologuing about how he tried to create his own Inhuman powers, even though it didn’t quite go as planned. But now he’s in a SHIELD base, ready to take out as many agents as he can.
May and Hunter have found the Qunijet, empty, in Spain. Bobbi is definitely feeling a lot of pain now, and Ward comes in for some bonus torture and a “we’re a lot alike, you and I” type speech. Apparently she’s managed to get her shackles taken care of and pops them right off the table and fights Ward. Kara catches up with them, and Bobbi puts up a great fight until Ward knocks her down and breaks her leg. Ward asks for a confession, and Bobbi only says she’d do it all again. Kara can’t bring herself to kill Bobbi, because Bobbi doesn’t care if she dies. No closure. Next plan.
Gordon and two other Inhumans teleport onboard Gonzales’ ship, and apparently there are others already in place.
Cal gets extremely worked up, and Coulson starts to realize that Cal has been doing Jiaying’s dirty work – whatever monster Cal is, Jiaying is the truly evil one. Cal collapses, and Fitz and Simmons try to treat him, because he’s still Skye’s father. They inject him with adrenaline, which is apparently the one thing that’s been missing from his secret formula. Enter Mr. Hyde – a beefed up, pupil-dilated, “now-you-have-unleashed-my-true-form”, boss-battle version of crazy old Cal. Suddenly, throwing large equipment across the room, breaking protective glass, and resisting ICER bullets are not really that difficult for Cal. Coulson, Fitz, and Simmons are on the run from a newly-strong madman.
Bobbi’s cell-phone’s SIM card clicks on and Hunter and May navigate to it, knowing it’s still probably a trap. Kara and Ward have bound Bobbi to a chair in front of a door with a rifle set to shoot the next person through it. Bobbi may not care about her own life, but Hunter’s life may matter a bit more.
The alien rock is still being its creepy, menacing self, and then Gordon zaps in to take out the guards and steal their weapons. Mack squares off with an Inhuman who can replicate herself and split up down multiple corridors. Lincoln zaps the ships’ systems, and Ninja Mc-Multiples goes off in several directions to take out the ship security. Mac gets ready to make a stand, and arms himself with an axe.
Weaver tries to get Coulson’s aid, but he is busy with his own problem – Cal going crazy through the base. Fitz and Simmons manage to outrun him, and Coulson pins him against the wall with a big heavy car.
Several crewmen of the ship are being held hostage in a scene that looks very similar to the day SHIELD fell. Jiaying is assured that the ship is taken and anyone unaccounted for will be found on the next sweep. She opens a case FILLED with the home-grown, obelisk-laced crystals, and says it’s time to “begin”.
End part one. Grab a snack, get a drink, whatever you need. I’ll wait.
Coulson puts the battering ram against the back of the armored car as an extra measure to keep Cal pinned. And now they have a discussion. Coulson appeals to Cal’s desire to save his daughter. Cal admits that Whitehall changed her – took away her heart (probably literally, too). All both of them want is to keep Skye safe. After throwing the car across the room, Cal begs Coulson to let him help.
Onboard the ship, more crew are captured, and Skye is in her own personal cell. Mack finds her and gets her out. Mack is definitely up for a fight, since a few powered people killed a lot of SHIELD agents – and he needs Skye’s skills – her hacking skills.
Jiaying is preparing to circulate the mist through the ship’s air circulation, but is interrupted by Lincoln warning her than an SOS signal has been sent out hard-wired, and can’t be cancelled without the right code. Jiaying interrogates Weaver and Oliver for the code – not to cancel the beacon, but to expand it. There are small pockets of SHIELD everywhere so they can deal with the whole organization in one go. They are being less-than-cooperative, so she has Oliver and two other agents sealed up in a room with a smashed crystal – turning all three to stone. Weaver is slightly more willing to cooperate, but Lincoln is not happy.
Skye and Mack have been watching, and get ready for their next move.
Cal has reverted back to almost normal. Coulson wants May and Hunter on the mission, but they’ve already gone dark. They’ve stormed the building and are walking right into Ward’s trap. Ward and Kara are watching the monitors, and head out to pick off their team so Hunter is definitely the one to find Bobbi – no one else. Ward goes after May specifically. Bobbi hears what’s going on, but is chained to the floor and gagged so she has very few ways of stopping what’s about to happen… Hunter and multiple SHIELD Agents open doors one by one, and Ward and Kara sneak around and pick them off one by one. Kara finds a walkie-talkie right before May sees her and fires a few rounds. She escapes, but May sends a message to “all agents” which currently only includes Hunter and the guy standing next to her. She ends it with “do not lower your guard until you see my face” and Kara gets an idea. Chances are, she gets the exact idea May wants her to have.
Hunter finds the right door and starts to go through, setting off the trap. Bobbi throws herself in front of the gun at the last moment. Ward jumps around the corner and fires several bullets point blank into Agent May, but it turns out to actually be Kara. Bobbi’s holding on, but barely. Kara is dead. May finds Hunter and Bobbi, and they take her back to the plane to get her medical attention.
Lincoln and Gordon look at the rock that is beautiful, but possibly lethal to the Inhumans. Lincoln is developing doubts about Jiaying committing murder – for any reason. Apparently, Jiaying went to great lengths to save Lincoln before his life among the Inhumans. Gordon is certain that if they didn’t strike first, SHIELD would, so all of this is necessary.
Fitz has figured out how to make a quantum field disruptor – it will keep Gordon confined to a single location. The lab is destroyed, but they’ll do the best they can to save Bobbi. Couslon, Fitz, and surprisingly Cal all go to the ship.
Lincoln finds Skye in the control room trying to stop the now-widened signal to all of SHIELD. He shocks her to the ground, until she can explain that Jiaying is deliberately trying to start a war. Lincoln tells her where Jiaying is taking the crystals and Mack almost instantly knocks him out with the handle of a saw. He’s in a “crack heads first, ask questions later frame of mind”. He goes off to make sure those crystals don’e break, she stays behind to work on the signal.
May calls Andrew like she hasn’t called him since Bahrain. She’s worried that things won’t end well, and she has regrets about how it ended. Andrew just tells her to do good and get home safe. Simmons talks with Fitz before he leaves for the mission because she’s realized things since seeing Hunter with Bobbi. Fitz is boggled that she wants to talk about this now and leaves for the mission.
May has doubts about bringing Cal along, but Coulson is confident that they may need him as a distraction. Fitz finds a pattern in an interference signal – Skye is warning them it’s a trap. Coulson orders all other planes to fall back, and they go forward to continue the mission.
Jiaying sees this, and decides since all of SHIELD isn’t coming, there’s no reason to wait to release the crystals.
Coulson’s team has landed. Cal’s going after Jiaying, everyone else is headed the ventilation room to stop the crystals (after Skye warned them where to look, and that they’re lethal). Gordon teleports into that room to find Mack sitting on the case of crystals, ready to kill anyone who tries to get near them.
The other crystals are being taken to a plane. Skye tries to stop Jiaying, but is blocked by 5 copies of the “ginger ninja”. Mack and Gordon keep fighting, but the teleporter teleports out.
Jiaying finds Cal in the hall. He tries to reason with her – maybe they both lost their heads. Gordon teleports in, grabs Cal, drops him in a sealed room, and zaps out again.
Coulson and Fitz find Mack in the ventilation room, and Fitz starts setting up his quantum disruptors. They all arm themselves with melee weapons because ricocheting bullets are bad, and they will miss.
Skye keeps fighting with ninja copies, until May and Lincoln show up to help. Lincoln zaps the inhibitors off Skye’s arms so she can use her powers. They send Skye to deal with Jiaying, while Lincoln and May stay back to deal with the attack of the clones.
Gordon zaps back into the ventilation room and tries to zap out but Fitz’ device stops him. “Science, bi-otch.” Fitz, Coulson, and Mack all take turns swinging at Gordon as he zaps around the room.
Skye confronts her mom and tries to stop her. Jiaying pulls a “join me and we can rule together”, but Skye has none of it. Jiaying grabs her face and starts to drain her life force. Skye manages just enough energy to blow the plane holding the crystals off the boat and into the water.
Lincoln stops May from shooting the “original” ninja, and instead shocks her through the ships railings.
Gordon keeps zapping around the room until he zaps right around the pipe Fitz is holding. He is skewered and drops to the floor. Coulson sees that Gordon was holding a crystal, which falls from his hand. Coulson dives to catch it and keep it from exploding into the deadly mist, but his hand starts turning to stone. Mack immediately cuts it off with his axe – saving his life, but in a really really painful abrupt way.
Jiaying tries to finish the job killing Skye, and Skye tries to use her powers to kill her mother. Cal interrupts them both, and decides that neither of them should be allowed to go through with it and live with that pain – that we will. He snaps Jiaying’s neck, and breaks her spine with a bear hug, finally protecting his daughter like he always said he would.
Back at the base, Coulson is looking into option for hand replacements. Bobbi is waking up and talking to Hunter. Bobbi isn’t sure if she can keep being a SHIELD agent. Mack has agreed to stay on as a SHIELD agent, and is now in charge of the alien artifacts, specifically because he doesn’t trust them. May is taking some time off to rediscover herself and the world outside of SHIELD – but she still takes her gun, just in case.
Skye and Cal share a tearful goodbye where Cal understands that he’s going away for good, but maybe she could visit. She agrees.
Ward is at a bar, very very upset at the loss of Kara. A few leftover Hydra members show up and give him a list of all the names of leadership – all of whom are dead. But there’s no one left. No head has grown back yet. Ward makes it very clear that he is now the leader of Hydra – he’s done flying solo and wants a team. He’s going after SHIELD directly, and he wants “closure”.
Cal is setting up a veterinary under a new name, and Skye drops by to visit. He tells her it’ll be a “magical place” and he doesn’t know who she is. She goes back to the car where Coulson is waiting, and thanks him for letting Cal go through the Tahiti program. They talk about an upcoming program – a team of powered people. Skye is onboard, as long as they are kept a secret, not in the open like the Avengers. But Coulson and Skye both know that the consequences of their actions are very real, like a ripple in the water.
Speaking of water, the crystals onboard that plane that went into the ocean are leaking into the water supply, into the fish, and into a batch of fish oil supplements being stocked in stores across the world.
Fitz and Simmons are finishing up with the alien rock that is now in their custody, and Fitz awkwardly asks Simmons if she’d like to go out for a date. He accidentally slips and knocks the door loose, and goes off to look up places to get a romantic dinner. Simmons hangs back for a second – just long enough for the rock to liquify, reach out and grab her, and suck her into the chamber where it reforms into a rock – with her inside.
The end!
Review
Oh my goodness.
Just so many things.
First of all, a lot got tied up really nicely. We no longer have to worry about Raina, Jiaying, Cal, or Gordon. The remaining Inhumans seem to be neutral – not for or against SHIELD, and without Jiaying’s influence, will probably be mostly in hiding or keeping to themselves pretty well. We also don’t have to worry about Agent 33, or the fact that if you see May it could actually be May Not (how have I never thought of the pun until now that she’s dead? Dang it!)
Moving forward. Ward is back in play in a big way. With the whole Summer to get things going, we’re looking at a brand new Hydra that is very single-handeled concerned with the destruction of SHIELD and everyone who is a part of it. Ward is now very very very angry, and he knows how to channel that into “productive” action, so this will definitely be a big factor in Season 3.
Skye. Raina foresaw her as a leader of the Inhumans. Jiaying wanted her to lead, as well. I’m seeing STRONG chances that will happen – though I can’t tell if that’s just referring to her and Coulson’s secret team of powered people. And, what exactly is that team going to become? Will they be the subject of the Inhumans movie in 3 years? Will they be frequently used in the next few seasons of Agents of SHIELD, or will they just be reasons why Skye isn’t necessarily in as many episodes?
That fish oil, though. Obviously, we’re going to start seeing more powered people, who unknowingly take these supplements. But what about the humans who take them – are they going to get sick? Are they going to turn to stone? I am really really hoping we don’t have has mass epidemics of people dropping dead because of a bad batch of fish oil. I am hoping that being watered down and processed lessens that effect – but then what does that mean for the people who don’t know they’re Inhumans who take them? Do they get half-powers? I’ll be really interested in the science of how that all ends up working.
As for Coulson’s blueprints – did they look like those Chitauri alien whales from the Avengers movie? The corpse of one was on Earth, being studied, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that its anatomy could be at least inspiration for a new design of bus – since theirs got kinda blown up.
What happened to Weaver? Oliver and Gonzales got turned to stone, but she didn’t seem to get killed. She may be imprisoned somewhere, but she’s not dead I don’t think. She and Coulson are the surviving heads of SHIELD, and I’d think she’s more willing to cooperate than she would have been before. It’ll be interesting to see if that gets answered.
I am very happy with everything that happened with Cal these episodes. I loved the Hyde sequence – he wasn’t a computer-generated giant hulking mass, he was just a guy with a very dirty super strength serum bulking him up a bit. The attitude shift in the performance, and the effects, I think it worked well for the moment that needed to happen.
But, I think, more than anything, we have to talk Simmons. I’ve done a fair amount of research and nobody knows anything about what that rock actually is or actually does. We know that it’s lethal to Inhumans, but we have no word on its affect on “regular” people. Also, we really don’t have any conclusive evidence that she is “regular” people. We thought Skye was, and then learned she wasn’t. There are just so so so so so many ways this could pan out. We know she’s on the cast list for next season, but she could easily play a corpse or a pod person or we already know she can play imaginary. Fitz is finally letting down a big wall that he has fortified over most of this season, so if he gets hurt again, will he fall back into that pattern? I feel like we will absolutely get answers to these questions, it just stinks we have to wait so long.
Up until that moment, I didn’t know how I felt about Simmons – she’s turned really dark over the course of this season, and while I can absolutely see her reevaluating her life choices after seeing Hunter’s reaction to almost losing Bobbi, it still feels very much out of left field. Especially when Fitz comes home safe and asks her to a nice dinner and her only reaction is “oh.” I feel like they should try romance, but I also feel like it’s not going to go very far. Also note: love and SHIELD have never mixed well for long.
I know Fitz. Fitz is going to be very upset with himself that he knocked the door loose, and he will work around the clock to a dangerous amount to do everything to get Simmons back. I think I’m more interested to see Mack’s reaction to this situation: he is in charge of alien artifacts, including this one. He expressly stated they will never open the box ever. Now one of his team gets sucked into it. There will be anger, but I feel like it will add another brick in his wall around alien artifacts, and may make him obsessive over people having any amount of access.
One of the reasons I love and hate the writers is that they consistently trick me into the “be careful what you wish for scenario”, where they give me exactly what I want, but not the way I want it. With Coulson’s hand being slowly overtaken, and me thinking “stop it, stop it, just cut off his hand” and then it HAPPENS and then HOLY COW WHY? I wanted Gonzales out of the way BUT NOT LIKE THAT. I wanted to like Simmons again. I wanted Bobbi and Hunter to both get out alive, but man, the costs are huge.
So what else can I say? I love this show. I’m looking forward to Season 3, and you bet I’ll be looking out for every teaser trailer I can find as they happen.
Until the fall, Agents.
Geek Out.
