Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:27 — 29.9MB) | Embed
[sc:sbtop]
Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 22 Review: The End
Thankfully, “The End” wasn’t actually the end for Agents of SHIELD, but it still knocked us for an emotional loop in giving us some ending for certain characters. Although there is some discussion of whether or not the deaths in this finale were enough to sell the stakes that were set earlier in the season, the impact on the audience was definitely strongly felt, and the tissues were plentiful.
Join us for show news, commentary and analysis for “The End,” a special edition of Faith’s CoulSass Report, and our listener feedback segment! This week we talk about Talbot’s absorbing powers, Deke’s disappearing act, Yoyo’s reconciliations, Mack’s new leadership position, May’s surprising rebellion, Daisy’s changing of the timeline, Coulson’s amazing retirement party, and the completely cruel and wonderful way the writers tricked us regarding Fitz.
Remember to join the Agents of SHIELD (and other Marvel properties) discussion on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for the latest news and live tweets during the episode. And don’t forget to vote for your favorite CoulSass moment in the Facebook group as well!
Tell us what you think about Agents of SHIELD!
We’d love to hear your thoughts about Agents of SHIELD on a future episode of The Sandbox! Use our Feedback page or call 304-837-2278 to tell us your opinions, theories, and general feelings. And while you’re at it, why not take a few minutes to leave a rating and review in iTunes?
Agents of SHIELD “The End” Show Notes
A very revealing EW interview with the Agents of SHIELD executive producers
[sc:sb]
Time travel talk moment, I bet you guys thought you were done with that ha, I’ve seen people say there’s still a Fitz to find out there so the line at the end makes sense but I’m left asking – if this is a straight path timeline then the Fitz who came back with the team is that Fitz who was frozen in time thus there’s no body to find correct? If you say this timeline is a branch then that’s stealing a Fitz from another Jemma and are fans ok with that? That suggests Fitz is interchangeable and that’s a problem by itself. Back on time though, if you believe a Fitz exist in a moment in time because even though he’s in the future it’s a part of his past wouldn’t breaking the loop effect him and arguably wipe him out…it would depend on when the team came back – pre his jump point or post; this is one of the reasons I don’t like straight path timelines – way too many variables! Bottom line Fitz coming back taints the “death” that was on screen and that to me will always be a disappointment; I really wish they hadn’t included the line or if they wanted to do vague have Fitz make it back to base, be in surgery and we cut away at a stressful point and we come back we see Jemma crying but you don’t know if they’re sad or happy tears and he’s in a coma next season or even frozen while they look for a way to save him because otherwise he’ll become septic and die so he’s not there but he could return. Again though it just cheapens what happened because I’m left feeling like that screentime could have been used for a longer fight scene between Daisy and Talbot or goodbye scene with Coulson because they’re essentially saying Fitz is interchangeable so why should I care he “died”. I just wish they had of committed to weight of deaths, same for Coulson.
When/if they find a Fitz, don’t ever find him just leave him out there for a little bit of decency left to the events, is it too much to hope he ignores Jemma because he only likes her as a sister if he even knows her? #TeamBranchingTimelines! I’ll miss Iain but not the plots they write for him – except for Framework Fitz which was awesome!
On to the podcast discussion though…
Regarding the article posted in the show notes, I have to say it sounds like they’re just going to bring Clark and Iain back at some point so again it hollows the emotional depth they built up all season, spits kind of on those emotional moments, and makes death seem cheap in the universe now; they say in the article they didn’t want to undercut the emotional tones but by giving everyone these loopholes to return they did just that for me big time and really I can’t say that article did anything to get me excited for the next season.
Fair warning this blog post isn’t going to have a lot of positivity to it as you might have been able to guess; sorry but they brought this on themselves by building up this huge ending only to take away all emotional attachment for me with this last second reveals.
The long hiatus and shorten season might do good with me as I feel I’m going to need time to process do I want to even invest in S6 given they hurt me in this episode; it’s not a total bomb but this episode alone paired with flashback feelings of S3…I just don’t know how much attention I want to give the show especially feeling the invalid plots that are coming, at least in my mind because I know there are diehard Fitz and Coulson fans but again that article didn’t thrill me so I’m all for the long wait at this point.
There were a lot of bad final(e)s this week but I honestly have to say for me AOS was the worst and “Arrow” ticked me off pretty badly too!
The Coulson-YoYo hospital bed scene was the best scene of the episode to me!
Again a time debate if we go straight line, is Enoch at Jupiter anymore if the future has changed there’s no reason for him to be where the Lighthouse isn’t. Sadly again going by the article included in this blog post it seems they’ll find him which I hate but if we didn’t know that I would pose the question. I know everyone has their own time travel rules but for me it shouldn’t be an easy fix even if I was excited for a character return.
I agree Mike I do think it was cool Fitz and May helped and I think that helped break the loop, I’m not sold on it being one thing that broke it, but I also agree with Dave in the end reveal just crapped on the death for me because they’re basically saying he’s interchangeable and it makes death feel hallow moving forward on the series.
Ugh you just unintentionally made it worse Mike by reminding me of the fact the space Fitz could get off basically from having to deal with Daisy being mad at him because technically he didn’t do it so if she’s mad at him it makes her look bad and I just hate this so much…again it’s like Fitz is the golden child who everyone has to forgive even though he did crap things; it’s plots like that that make me not like the character. I’m having S2 Fitz vibes and while I liked S2 that’s not part of what I liked from it as he got away with WAY too much in it and S3 because of his heartache. This is not going well; at least I gave you a head up right? Ha.
Deke was a good part of the episode as well.
On the one hand it would be cool to see field agent Coulson in a season but on the other again I’m not crazy about him surviving as it cheapens death although I could buy his return a bit more than Fitz’s; still I’m fine with neither returning as that would have been a big deal – what it sounds like we’re going to get though is cliche.
I vote for “Strength to beat him” in the CoulSass poll for this week and overall I’d pick “Evil League Of Evil” for the win.
Another reason I’m angry about the Fitz “death” is because it was such a twist to the future we saw where Fitz said Jemma was dead so for him to die instead it was a well done twist which then got wiped out with that line of him still being around; I’ll be honest and say in the moment I hadn’t considered another Fitz in space mainly because I’m not a fan of straight path timelines so I don’t focus on their rules but even knowing that now and thinking about it it doesn’t help because that death scene is still essentially wasted screen time and emotionally hollow even if they were doing it to play out them saving Robin’s mom. It’s all just very half done and empty in my opinion; I know I’m a minority in this but I can’t see any good involving this “death”. I can maybe get doing Coulson off screen but at the same time that feels incomplete because we want to be there with him as much as May to say goodbye. I’m just disappointed for a multitude of reasons with certain plots.
A fun way to look at Daisy’s title John!
This podcast was better than the episode itself; thanks guys!