Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: All Good Things Must Come to an End

@10 You raise good points, but I have found it doesn’t pay to think too much when reading comic books, or watching the shows derived from them. The writers wrapped things up quite neatly when they thought the show was ending with Season 5. But I  am not going to begrudge the chance for a little something more. It is kind of like Babylon 5, which ended with Season 4, but then gave us Season 5, and a number of TV movies. Lagniappe!

@18 Yo-yo is definitely off her game. If my memory serves me, she was the only person in the last season who was infested by those shrike creatures and lived. I hope there is not some toxic after effect–that poor dear has been through enough.

@20 That was my thought. That’s what he did while Fitz hibernated in season 5.

@31 That “moist” thing was hilarious, and Clark Gregg’s delivery was perfect. And I also hope Souza can be rescued somehow. I feel sorry for him, having lost his girlfriend when her old boyfriend Steve showed up again (I wonder if the show will address that elephant in the room?).

@32 With May suffering from what appears to be PTSD, Yo-Yo’s powers misfiring, and Daisy adopting a “shoot first, worry about the timeline later” policy, our SHIELD team is not firing on all cylinders. If Coulson comes back compromised in some way, things are going to be even more difficult. And I too want to see Fitz, and soon.

While Season 6 completely ignored the MCU continuity, I have read recently that the showrunners are hinting the show WILL cross over into MCU territory at some point, which could be interesting.

@36 Good observation on May. If she is emotionless, she shouldn’t be irritated by the DoD man’s remark.

And I also enjoyed Souza’s suspicion of Jemma’s accent. Although, I will attempt an answer of the type people formulated to win a Marvel No-Prize, which Stan Lee used to award comic readers who helped rationalize apparent discrepancies. There has been some drift in accents over the decades, so maybe the English accents he heard back in WWII were a bit different than her modern accent. 

@41 The chronicom with Malik doesn’t change history. He was there all along,  we just didn’t know it. 

Episode 705, 24 June 2020, “A Trout in the Milk”

IT’S A REAL 1–2 JUMP ON AN ALL-NEW EPISODE OF ‘MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D,’ Patrick Warburton Returns as Guest Star.

The ABC episode synopsis: “After a bumpy landing in the disco decade, the team – Daniel Sousa in tow – reunites with more than one familiar face at the S.H.I.E.L.D. hangout and discovers exactly how to dismantle the Chronicoms’ latest plan. But when they get too close for comfort, the Zephyr unexpectedly leaps forward again, this time to a date pivotal to not only the future of S.H.I.E.L.D. but to the future of Director Mack as well on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..”

We get a funky animated opening sequence, perfect for New York in the 70s. Coulson is flashing back to his childhood, while May is learning to deal with experiencing other people’s emotions. Souza can’t find new clothing to suit his tastes, and isn’t adapting well to the new era. The team heads down to Enoch’s club, which is nothing like it used to be. Meanwhile, Jemma is monitoring instruments. Deke asks if she has heard from Fitz, and Jemma can’t reveal anything about him because the Chronicoms might read their minds. He calls her Nana. And we see she has a glowing device implanted on her neck. Yo-Yo and Mack are investigating the Lighthouse, which was abandoned by SHIELD a few years ago (hey, that’s Portland Head Light, why did I never notice that before!). They are bonding again. But the base is not quite abandoned. May is absorbing drunkenness from the people around her in Enoch’s place, where Enoch has not been seen for over a year. And there in the crowd is General Rick Stoner (aka Patrick Warburton), who introduces his boss, Wilfred Malik (He’s still alive! History is different!). Project Insight (the death helicarrier system from Captain America: The Winter Soldier) is being announced, about 40 years ahead of schedule.

Coulson thinks the Chronicoms are behind the shift in history. May asks Stoner to buy her a drink, introduces herself as Chastity McBride, and flirts with him. Project Insight is still three years away from implementation. May meets young Gideon Malik, and calls him the next big thing. Souza pretends he is her fiancé to rescue her from the creep. Coulson briefs Jemma, who is probing him for information. Kind of suspiciously. At the Lighthouse, everything is different. They are wearing jumpsuits, and building some sort of giant James Bond-type device. Daisy finds the secret back room, filled with the latest in computing technology, and starts hacking. Souza steals a gun. Bruce Banner is on Hydra’s list, even though he is a kid. The Chronicoms must be feeding them info. And they show up to capture Coulson and May.

Freddie Malik remembers Coulson. And Daisy captures his youngest son. It’s a standoff. The team heads down the hall and escapes. The head Chronicom orders his agents to take out the SHIELD team, but Daisy quakes them. They need wheels, and Enoch shows up, “Come with me if you want to continue to exist.” They roar down the street accompanied by an electric guitar solo. Something is wrong with the Zephyr displays. The Chronicoms are jumping early, and the Zephyr is jumping, too. To 1976, when Project Insight is ready to launch. No helicarriers this time, just a booster that looks like a Delta IV Heavy, years ahead of its time.

Jemma is getting confused, and afraid. Enoch offers to help her. Souza is pissed, and so is Deke. Both of them were taken out of their times. Mack wants to infiltrate the Lighthouse, and disable the launch. Deke and Yo-Yo are sent out to capture Malik. The head Chronicom lectures him about priorities. He wants him to capture someone to give Hydra leverage. Daisy (with Souza standing guard) hacks into the system, finding that Hydra is already using firewalls, but transfers surveillance feeds to the Zephyr. Coulson and May are in retro bright blue SHIELD coveralls with white accessories, just like in the old comics. The youngest Malik shoots Daisy and Souza with an icer gun.

Coulson and May need a door opened, but Daisy isn’t there to do it. Deke and Yo-Yo burst in on Malik. Mack needs those security systems bypassed. Agent May and Coulson try to tell General Stoner about Hydra and the Chronicoms, but May decides it is easier to deck him, and steal his access card. The overhead hatch opens, and the launch is ready. Malik explains how the Chronicoms have been ten steps ahead all along. But Deke disrupts things by gunning him down (or thinks he does). May and Coulson have the charges in place, but Mack freezes. He sees his parents, prisoners in the base. The Chronicoms knew he would be in command. Mack orders an abort, and Coulson and May are taken prisoner. The rocket launches. But the Zephyr is going after it, and they successfully destroy the missile.

In the stinger, the youngest Malik is in a phone booth and wants orders. And next week, the Zephyr fights to survive, while it appears the Chronicoms are replacing agents with Chronicom duplicates.

Another good episode, with lots of nice comedy touches, especially the riffs on 70s adventure movies and James Bond tropes. But we have a lot of mysteries brewing, and with the Chronicoms getting more ruthless, the agents will have their hands full.

Episode 706, 1 July 2020, “Adapt or Die”

TIME TO MEET THE PARENTS ON AN ALL-NEW EPISODE OF ‘MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

The ABC episode synopsis: “The stakes are higher than ever when, after blowing their cover and damaging the Zephyr in the process, the team must scramble to rescue Mack’s parents, save S.H.I.E.L.D. from a chronicom infestation, and fix the ship … all before the next time-jump. Meanwhile, Daisy and Sousa find themselves at a disadvantage against a power hungry Nathaniel Malick and his goons, and Coulson will have to do the thing he does best in order to save the future…”

The Chronicom Seer watches the strands of time, and intones, “As one branch dies, a new one bears fruit.” Project Insight was destroyed and Malick is dead, but they now have the location of the Zephyr, and Nathaniel Malick has Daisy and Souza. The head Chronicom goes to awaken some Chronicom Hunters. In the Lighthouse, General Stoner confronts the captured Coulson and May. Unfortunately, the Chronicoms gave SHIELD the means to see through the Zephyr’s cloaking. Returning to the Zephyr with Yo-Yo, Deke tells the team he shot Malick, and Mack is pissed. Mack wants to rescue his parents, and bring the pain to the Chronicoms for once. He and Yo-yo head out in a quinjet. In the Lighthouse, General Stoner wants to know who ordered a lockdown, and the system fires missiles at the Zephyr. Enoch launches countermeasures, but at least one missile gets through.

Daisy and Souza wake up in handcuffs on arms and legs, and Daisy can’t quake. Nathaniel Malick goes into a villain speech; he doesn’t like Hydra the way Dad did. He wants powers like Daisy. He will borrow Doctor Rhinehart aka Daniel Whitehall’s means of stealing powers. Stoner interrogates Coulson and May, and Coulson tells him about the Chronicoms. A woman comes and gets Stoner, and May thinks she is a Chronicom. The Zephyr is still in the air, but heavily damaged, including the shielding that allows the ship to stay together during time jumps. They need to fix it quick. In the Lighthouse, Mack and Yo-Yo cut their way into his parents’ cell. Mack gives mom an awkward hug. Stoner is led downstairs to the computer room by the mystery woman. Coulson and May have a conversation about the frustrations posed by him being a robot now, and then he breaks free. He realizes that the Chronicoms may be replacing agents with duplicates. And when Stoner reaches the computer room, the waiting agent was just replaced by a Chronicom. Uh oh!

Mack, Yo-Yo and mom and dad are trying to escape. He and dad make a great team; it’s as if the man taught him everything he knows. Downstairs, Coulson and May kick Chronicom butt with big ray guns, and rescue Stoner, who finally believes them. Coulson finds a ladder, and goes to find more Chronicoms. Nathaniel has been torturing Daisy, taking her blood and all sorts of samples. Souza tells her about his war wounds to try to keep her awake, telling her they are going home. On the Zephyr, Deke catches Enoch doing something to Simmons, and takes him out with a defibrillator, thinking Enoch is a traitor. Under the Lighthouse, Coulson finds the room full of Chronicom Hunter pods, touches some glowing spheres, and links to the Chronicom Seer.

Mack gives dad a gun, and goes to see if any Chronicoms are coming. They are, and he is getting his butt kicked. Coulson meets the Seer, whose name is Sybil. Simmons is mad at Deke, and explains that Enoch was fixing her memories that kept her from remembering where Fitz is hiding, a place from where he can help foil the Chronicom plans. Deke may have screwed up badly. Souza takes a guard out, and frees himself and Daisy. But in comes Nathaniel, who has Quake powers. Sybil tells Coulson Daisy should survive. She explains the Chronicoms want to save their planet. They are different from humans because they never die. Coulson says she is wrong, the difference is sacrifice, time is limited which means sacrifice has a real cost, it’s not just data, but heart and pain and good human stuff. And humans will never give up. Coulson says he hasn’t feared death in a long time, and tells Sybil dying is kind of his superpower. He snaps back into the real world, drops a satchel charge beside the Chronicom pods, and blows it up.

Mack is in trouble, but Stoner and May come to the rescue. May tells Stoner to clear out the base and create a cover story. On the quinjet, May tells the team Coulson is gone, but he will come back, he always does. On the Zephyr, Deke apologizes to Enoch, who is operational again, and fixing Simmons. She swears Deke to secrecy. On the quinjet, Mack goes all mechanical fanboy with dad, while Yo-Yo talks about kids with mom. Dad pats May on the shoulder, but she senses something and puts the quinjet on autopilot. She tells Mack dad might be a Chronicom, and he is, and so is mom, and there is a big fight. Fake dad and mom go out the stern ramp, and Mack is naturally traumatized. Everybody has made it back to the Zephyr, and Daisy is in a medical stasis tube. The Zephyr is jumping again. When it lands, Mack heads out on a motorcycle.

In the stinger, Mack sits and mourns. Deke goes to console him, but gets a call from Daisy; the Zephyr is jumping without them. In the preview of the next episode, we see Deke and Mack in 1982. Where the Lighthouse has been turned into some kind of hippy spa?

Another good episode, with a lot of twists and turns, and some good jokes. Patrick Warburton was a fun guest star. There was a lot of pain as well, and the twist of Mack finding his parents had been murdered by Chronicoms was a sad one. I have no idea where the story is going from here, but it is an exciting ride!

@58 Thanks for those corrections, my episode summaries are done in real time, quick and dirty, and subject to errors.

I am starting to think that the bottom line with the Chronicoms is that they have never died, because they always had a backup on their planet and could be downloaded into new bodies. But with their planet gone, they can now die for real. And that scares the crap out of them. So they are desperate enough to do risky things like mess with the time stream. That makes Coulson, who in his own words has made dying his superpower, their worse nightmare.

@64 I’m afraid you’ll have to live with the current format. Even the most popular shows don’t rate a new article for each episode. There will be a separate new article covering the grand finale, however.

Episode 707, 8 July 2020, “The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D”

The ABC episode synopsis: “DON’T YOU FORGET ABOUT DEKE… After being unexpectedly stranded in 1982, Mack retreats to his childhood home to process the death of his parents, while Deke gets to work scouting a chart-topping group of new agents. With no idea if or when the team is coming back for them, time seems to finally be on their side … at least until the killer robots show up…”

The show starts with a despondent Deke being debriefed by Agent May. We flash back to a preppy who needs his PC repaired. When the geeky repairman plugs it in, it asks him for help. And prints out a picture of the Chronicom seer, Sibyl. The Agents of SHIELD logo appears in glowing green letters on a black screen. We cut to Deke freaking out because he and Mack have been left behind in 1982. The despondent Mack, who just lost his parents, leaves Deke standing in the field, takes his bike and heads to the cemetery to lay flowers on his parents’ grave. He goes to his house, and sees his young self and brother getting out of a car with their Uncle Marcus. At the computer store, the geek is totally focused on building a voice box for Sibyl. She sends him blueprints so he can build her a body. Mack has rented a cheap apartment, and builds a Corvette model. There is a knock; it is Deke dropping by. Mack locks him out again and again, grows a big beard, and keeps building car models. Deke leaves food for Mack, but he never brings it in. Mack is drinking too much. Deke slips an invitation to a bar under the door. The geek brings Sibyl some flowers, and she now has an ‘80s robot body, complete with a glowing red eye. Mack goes to the bar, and it turns out Deke calls himself the “D,” wears a headband, sings in the “Deke Squad,” and has quite a following.

Deke’s “new” songs are all oldies he has introduced before their time, which does not impress Mack. But Deke has not just assembled a band; they are a band of amateur secret agents, who Deke says Mack can mold into SHIELD agents. Deke has turned the Lighthouse into the band’s clubhouse. He turns on a TV that contains Coulson’s downloaded personality, which survived the explosion in the last episode (and looks a lot like Max Headroom). Coulson is happy to see Mack, because he thinks Sibyl is still out there, building new Hunters. Which is true; the geek finds her building friends, gets upset, and she executes him.

TV Coulson is chattier than ever. Deke shows Mack his new training gauntlet, which is kind of slipshod. Deke has built Mack a new, chrome-plated shotgun axe. Mack calls them a bunch of losers, Deke defends them, and Mack walks out. Sibyl and her Hunter robot friends arrive at the Lighthouse, and kill Deke’s drummer, who is with a groupie. The brunette band member follows Mack to defend Deke. She tells Mack Deke has been visiting young Mack, and helping him out. Then a Hunter robot arrives, says, “Exterminate,” and starts shooting.

Deke is doubting himself when the groupie runs in, just in time to be murdered by a Hunter robot. Olga faces the robot down, while another robot roams the corridors. Mack and the brunette girl hide, and he says someone is going to pay (she wants to know if that would be the robots). Olga is losing when Mack arrives, takes the robot out, and tells Deke he never should have left. Mack has a plan, if the team will help him. We get a montage of Mack trimming his beard, dressing, and arming himself. Coulson thinks Sibyl is attacking the base because she has lost her other resources, and needs something in the base to restore the time stream (or something like that). Mack leads the team in attacking one of the robots, and as the robot blows up, Deke uses the catch phrase, “Say hello to the Deke Squad.” An even more advanced robot arrives; it is Sibyl, and she is armed with laser beams!

The team, after some running away, defeats the Sibyl robot. Deke bonds with Mack, who draws the line at being called “Mack Daddy.” But there is still one robot left out there, and it has found a glowing mcguffin. Deke takes Mack to meet his young self; he wants to give his young self a car model. The Zephyr re-appears, May and Yo-Yo head out to find Mack at the Lighthouse, and he gets a big Yo-Yo kiss. May says hi to Deke and TV Coulson, who hopes they have built him a new body. Mack says he was lucky to have friends; the new SHIELD agents.

In the stinger, the last robot, which doesn’t do steps well, brings the glowing mcguffin to a laboratory, and gives it to Nathaniel Malick, who has Sibyl on his TV set. In the preview, the SHIELD team meets Daisy’s mom Jiaying and the Inhumans, and it looks like their adventures will overlap with some of their earliest missions.

This was a fun mission, played for laughs, with the zealous but inept Deke pitted against the stoic Mack. There were lots of cute lines and spy movie references The self-appointed agents were fun, as was the concept of the rock band that spies together. TV Coulson was a clever touch, very ‘80s.

@74 Wikipedia says it was Nathaniel. He was having trouble with those quake powers, but we never saw him die. His return is thus well rooted in comic book traditions.

Episode 708, 15 July 2020, “After, Before”

The ABC episode synopsis: “IT’S TIME TO BOUNCE BACK… Dichen Lachman Returns as Guest Star. With the Zephyr’s time drive malfunctioning, the team is quite literally hurling toward disaster and Yo-Yo may be their only hope. The only problem? To get her powers back, she’ll need to enlist the help of an old adversary and revisit part of her past long hidden away…”

The show starts with Deke and Mack heading out for their excellent adventure, repeating the opening scene from last week, and making me think this might be a repeat. But the action shifts back into the Zephyr, where the time machine is malfunctioning. They jump twice before Yo-Yo and May can head out in a quinjet, and bring back Mack and Deke. We get a SHIELD logo from the early video game era. Jemma tells everyone they are skipping through time like a stone, and will eventually collapse into a singularity. Daisy says her mom Jaying, at the Afterlife Inhuman haven, might be able to help. Mack orders Jemma to reboot LMD Coulson, who immediately guesses what’s going on. May and Yo-Yo head out to Afterlife in a quinjet, and the Zephyr jumps out just after they leave. May’s telempath powers are getting stronger. This is fortunately before Jaying was tortured by Hydra and turned evil. The agents arrive at Afterlife and immediately run into some Inhumans chasing a young woman prisoner, Cora, and surrender themselves.

Jaying walks in on the agents, and Yo-Yo tells her she’s an Inhuman who lost her powers. The Inhumans test Yo-Yo, and she passes. Jaying wants to help, and find out how Yo-Yo’s powers were taken, while her associate, Lee, is suspicious. They conduct tests, while May gets nasty vibes from Lee, who pulls a knife on her. Yo-Yo and May hear Cora screaming, and don’t like the situation. Meanwhile on the Zephyr, Deke, Souza and Enoch work to fix the time device, but electrical thingamabobs are sparking in ways that don’t look good. The Zephyr jumps out again. We find out Yo-Yo snores. In the morning, Jaying comes and says the problem is not physical, it is in her mind.

Yo-Yo is not happy at the news. Jaying knows that May is an empath, and her new gift might be the key to helping Yo-Yo. The agents initially resist the idea, and are uncomfortable with this touchy-feely stuff. May decides sparring might help, and they start to have fun and relax. They make a breakthrough as Yo-Yo flashes back to traumatic memories; ingesting the shrikes, losing her arms, and a childhood incident. Souza is making preparations to abandon ship, while Daisy and Coulson share a moment. Jemma has made Souza a robotic prosthetic. The Zephyr jumps again. Yo-Yo remembers when she was about 11, and saw her uncle murdered, and blamed herself. May listens in on Lee and Jaying, and decides to intervene. It turns out Cora cannot control her new Inhuman gifts, and might destroy Afterlife. May knows what the young girl fears. We cut to Cora running away with an automatic, and attempting suicide, only to have the pistol shake apart in her hands. It is Nathaniel Malick, who has not only survived, but mastered his quake powers.

Nathaniel tells Cora their fates are written in the stars, and invites her to come along. Sybil has guided him here. Helicopter gunships are coming; friends of Nathaniel. Soldiers are in Afterlife, and May and Yo-Yo fight back. On the Zephyr, Jemma records a heartfelt message for Fitz, which Deke overhears. They time jump again. Afterlife is shaking apart, and Nathaniel and Cora confront Jaying. Cora is siding with Nathaniel, does a glowing eye thing, and blasts Lee when he tries to attack her. Jaying and her teleporting Inhuman help the agents escape, and they plan to get together again later. The quinjet has only seconds to get back to the Zephyr before they jump again. Mack orders the Zephyr crew to abandon ship.

The Zephyr reappears, and May docks with some fancy flying, just before they blip out again. The Zephyr jumps again, and Yo-Yo finally figures out how to restart her powers. She goes to the time machine in super-speed mode, reaches in at the correct moment, and turns it off. Daisy goes back into her healing tube. Coulson takes a robo-nap. Enoch is guardedly optimistic about fixing the time machine. But then it blips them out again.

In the stinger, Nathaniel and Cora burst in on Inhuman prisoners. Nathaniel wants to take their powers, give them to others, and create some anarchy. In the previews for next week, the Zephyr is trapped in a time storm. Anybody up for a remake of the movie Groundhog Day?

@84 You are right, it was Daisy talking to Souza. And while my brain wondered how Enoch got so powerful, the “murderbot mode” is a perfect explanation. That was such a clever episode, the more I think about it,  the more I like it.

Episode 710, 29 July 2020, “Stolen”

The ABC episode synopsis: “FAMILY IS A TRICKY THING… After Enoch’s sacrifice propelled them out of the time storm, the team arrives back in 1983 where Nathanial and Kora are hard at work building an army of hand-selected anarchist Inhumans at Afterlife. When the agents split up to cover more ground, Daisy is tasked with protecting Jiaying and is compelled to confront her mother for the first time since her death; while the others quickly learn they’ll need to face yet another supercharged former enemy in order to stop Malick…”

In a bar, a young man playing darts is approached by Nathaniel Malik. Nate tells him his career with SHIELD will not go well, and offers him superpowers. The man’s name: John Garrett (aka The Clairvoyant, played by James Paxton, Bill Paxton’s son). The current team is in the Lighthouse with one of the Deke Squad. She mentions the Triskelion, years ahead of when it should have been created; the timeline is all hosed up. In the lab, Jemma notices some romantic vibes between Daniel and Daisy. Jemma’s memory block is back in place, but Daisy wonders why she was inconsolable when the block was removed. In the command center, the team decides they must stop Nathaniel at any costs. Jiaying and her teleporter, Gordon, blip into the Lighthouse. Nathaniel has taken over Afterlife, and shows Garrett the timestream machine, which then shows him his future. Jiaying needs help, but doesn’t trust the SHIELD team. Coulson volunteers to infiltrate Afterlife because he is “recyclable,” and Gordon offers to teleport him. Jiaying also wants to go, because Kora is her daughter, and Daisy realizes she has a sister.

Daisy wonders why no one mentioned this sister. May warns her Kora is volatile, and tells her about the suicide attempt. They talk about how the timeline has changed, but still want to preserve what they can, like keeping Jiaying alive so Daisy can be born. Nathaniel does an evil monologue in a lab as his minions take Lee’s Inhuman powers. Kora kills Lee at Nate’s direction. A quinjet is inbound with Yo-Yo, Mack, Gordon and Coulson aboard. Meanwhile, Deke grooves under his headphones, until Jemma interrupts him. They talk about Enoch’s sacrifice. They have lost contact with Fitz, who they thought was controlling the time jumps, but the jumps have become erratic. Jemma worries that Fitz might be dead, but Deke has faith. The quinjet lands, and Gordon and Coulson blip into Afterlife. Nathaniel ices Gordon, and they take him to the lab. Nathaniel knows everything that will happen because he has access to the time stream. Uh oh!

Coulson warns Nate about Sybil’s motivation, and brings up his dead dad. Which triggers an angry response from Nate. Coulson likes that, you can see him planning to use it. Coulson is introduced to Garrett, and they have a conversation where all the tenses of the verbs are mixed up because of time travel. The minions start taking Gordon’s powers and giving them to Garrett. Meanwhile, Daniel is liking his new leg, because he can catch up to Daisy in the corridor. Daniel knows who Jiaying is, and tells Daisy to talk to her. She has a chance to talk to her mother, the timeline is screwed up anyhow, and she should take that chance. Daisy thinks he is square, which he thinks is harsh. Yo-Yo and Mack argue, and he decides to go in to find out what’s happened. Kora tells Coulson that “justice isn’t pretty.” The power transfer process has worked, and Garrett teleports, which he thinks is awesome.

Jiaying is nervous, and Daisy and Daniel talk to her. Daniel says Daisy has been to Afterlife. Daisy shows her the quake powers. She says Jiaying taught her to use those powers, that they are from the future. Jiaying has a feeling that Daisy is familiar. She knows Nathaniel took Daisy’s power. Daisy asks if Jiaying and Kora were close. They were, but terragenisis changed her, and they grew apart. Everyone was afraid of Kora, but Jiaying still thinks she has a good heart, and is worth saving. She says Kora was her greatest gift. Daisy admits she never knew her mom, and when she found her, she wasn’t who she thought she would be. Jiaying says if she was her mother, sometimes trying to do the right thing comes out all wrong, and Daisy cries. Meanwhile, Garrett transports Nate into the Lighthouse. Back at Afterlife, they put Gordon and Coulson into a reinforced cell. Gordon still has some powers, and gets them out. But dies in the process. In the Lighthouse, May meets young Garrett. She attacks him, but he teleports. She realizes he stole Gordon’s powers. And she attacks him again, landing some blows until he remembers his powers, and blips out. May warns Daisy Garrett is in the facility. And then Daisy and Jiaying meet Nate.

Mack finds Coulson, and Yo-Yo runs in with superspeed. Coulson warns them Nathaniel can see the future. Yo-Yo uses her powers to neutralize the guy with Lee’s powers, and they work to free the Inhumans. In the Lighthouse, Nate does another evil monologue, revealing Daisy is Jiaying’s daughter. He taunts Jiaying by telling her the story of her being cut apart, and fighting Daisy, until Daisy quakes Nate across the room. He quakes her back. But Jiaying has energy sucking powers, and almost takes him out. Until he takes her out with quake powers. Daisy goes berserker, accompanied by dramatic music. And May tries to get Nate, but he escapes. Daisy goes to Jiaying, who is lying on the floor. Jemma gets captured by Garrett and he blips out before Daniel can stop him. In Afterlife, Coulson finds Kora. He tells her she is abandoned. She says she wanted to meet her sister, and he ices her. Jiaying is dead, and the other Inhumans are on the Quinjet, with Nate’s goons, who were captured. Daisy is angry. Nate is battered, but is happy to see they captured Jemma. Deke is also aboard the Zephyr, wearing his headphones, and doesn’t realize what is happening until they take off. Nate and Garrett are at the controls, gloating as they emerge from the Lighthouse and head off to parts unknown. So only one person can save the day; Deke!

In the stinger, Nate and Garrett continue to gloat on the Zephyr, and Nate tells Jemma that Sybil needs to find Fitz. And Nate thinks Jemma knows where to find him. In the previews, Kora wants to become an Agent of SHIELD, but thinks it is all about killing bad guys. We see spaceships arriving; it appears the Chronicoms will be invading.

This was a fast-paced episode, with lots of twists and turns. It flowed very well, and meeting young Garrett was a good touch. Jiaying was doomed to suffer no matter what happened to the timeline, and the moments she had with Daisy were gut-wrenching. Nathaniel is growing into the villain role, but it is a rather cliched version of villainy; if he had a moustache, he would be twirling the ends of it as he cackled.

@102 I hope Fitz doesn’t end up being a leaf on the wind…  :-(

@104 Firefly reference. Jed Whedon is writing the finale, and his brother is notable for killing off characters.

The review of the final episode has been posted, and you can find our discussion continuing there: https://www.tor.com/2020/08/13/marvels-agents-of-shield-finale-review/