At one point this year, at least it looked a very particular SOS might be going out for Agents of Shield: Save Our Series. Although the show had still shown improvement from its flailing debut year, and even made a good start to this one, when it came back after Christmas (and after the highly successful Agent Carter) , Shield really struggled to get all of its elements working together. It was like a Neanderthal in Home Depot: it had everything it needed at its fingertips but not a damn clue to make them work. Then as the season moved through spring, things suddenly changed. The large scale Shield civil war plans came to fruition, the Inhumans really started to mean something, and the show became consistently good and even at times great. Like last year’s Winter Soldier, it gained catalytic momentum from Age of Ultron crossover, but now at the end, in this highly impressive 2 Part finale we can say something else. A word that all too often hasn’t sat uncomfortably and even awkwardly with Agents of Shield, but now for the first time ever, it really feels like it applies. That word is Marvel. Through two hours of action, drama, and humour, complete with many fun super-powered individuals, tech, effect,s and comics references, Agents of Shield has now become a product that deserves its small screen corner of the MCU. This week, we’re finally calling it Marvel’s Agents of Shield.
S.O.S. – After murdering Gonzales and framing him for an act of war, Jaiying quickly rallies the Inhuman community and leads them in an assault against Shield, leaving Skye torn between her two allegiances. The aircraft carrier housing the Kree artifact becomes their target, reluctantly forcing Mack back into action, helping Coulson and the team defeat Jaiying before she wipes out all of Shield. Meanwhile, Ward and Agent 33 torture Bobbi for a confession over selling out 33 to Hydra, leading Hunter into a frantic rescue mission.
Making this finale a two-part offering is the best decision Agents has made all season. Even in good episodes, it can struggle to deliver all the character work it wants to while leaving time for plenty of face-kicking, gun-blazing action (or by contrary, deliver a blander action free episode for having too much story ground to cover). The double barrel blast allows plenty of time for both, with the first episode being more talk heavy and setup before the second spends more time maxing out the effects credit card. It works perfectly and even sees the showrunners playing two their strengths; each episode has different pair of writers and a different director allowing for specialisation. The full cast of characters all get meaningful screen time to develop and even re-find themselves in the refreshing manner. Skye remembers she’s a hacker this week, getting her tech back on just as much as she powers and punches (she also gets another gorgeous single shot fight sequence). Fitz gets out of the lab and back into using science practically in the field in way that’s been so long it almost surprises (and full marks for a good bee-atch)! Yet he still manages to pick up a pipe for some team clobbering time much to Mack’s and our approval. Speaking of Mack, he comes out of nowhere to be the most fun character of the episode (the Mack daddy if you will). His resignation last week felt a little out of place but it was worth it so set him up on the carrier, unexpectedly living through his own version of Die Hard on a ship. He becomes a one-man one-liner army with gems like, “Right now I’m in a crack heads ask questions later frame of mind”. At several points this season, Henry Simmons was the unsung delight, and it’s so rewarding to see him given the heroic spotlight and shining like he was born there.
Now after last week’s Scars, my biggest concern was the lack of a central villain. This is quickly answered in SOS. While Jaiying sadly doesn’t give it a good maniacal laugh, it does see her fill the vacancy with mostly good results. The way the episode explains her as the real monster behind husband Cal’s atrocities, works well while serving as redemption for his character. However, although last week’s ending helps acclimatise to her transition, it’s still a bit too much too soon feeling more of a shoe horned alignment change than it should. Ideally, she would have revealed herself, at least from an audience perspective, an episode or two sooner. It would have also allowed for better use of Skye’s conflict. Having her torn between her friends in Shield and Inhuman family was the ideal situation for her character, (the runaway with no family now having to chose between two) but due to the wrapping up requirements, it’s over far too quickly with Skye seeing through the maternal lies after barely 20 minutes. The Inhuman war however is excellent. The biggest criticism of the Inhumans storyline to date has been seeing almost no superpowers in a combat capacity. The odd tremor from Skye and a brief Deathlok fight from Lincoln have been it. Now this week, it’s on and it’s frequently awesome. The biggest helping hand comes from the new “ginga ninja” multiplex lady Inhuman (anyone catch her name?), duplicating herself into almost everybody’s opponent at some point. Her 5-on-1 brawl with Skye is particularly enjoyable, and you have to love her little self nods as her various selves cross paths. The Gordon gang up also makes for a great display as he takes on Coulson, Mack and Fitz.
Though, it’s still the human characters that deliver the best smack down of the episode. This is courtesy of the Ward & Bobbi subplot. At first these scenes feel worryingly surplus to requirements, just there to fumble Ward into a purpose this season, but they quickly become very enjoyable thanks to a season best performance from Adrianne Palicki verbally flipping Ward a mocking bird as he tries to break her. She makes us feel her pain and suffering without sacrificing her strength and conviction. While her staring spinoff show didn’t get picked up at least we can still look forward to her in Shield Season 3. As to the aforementioned fight, it’s one of the best the show has ever done as Bobbi suddenly springs on Ward for an all out bone-crunching slugfest. It has great familiarity to the recently superb Daredevil choreography as the pair crash back between room and corridor with the camera tracking them horizontally. The later scenes also deliver some great tension once the Bobbi booby trap is in place. Ward’s closing position may involve a little overacting but it leaves him in an exciting and much more meaningful position going into Season 3.
This really is a finale that delivered on all fronts and any niggling qualms still had good purpose too them (Kyle MacLachlan’s Mister Hyde hunchback running may have induced the wrong kind of laughs but it still delivered a good payoff for the story and character). The episodes achieve escalation and heightened danger without needing to go overly dark. There’s still many great laughs (Coulson’s” it’s a big boat with poor signage” was utter genius) an overriding sense of run that harks back to the central conclusion that this now finally feels like a Marvel production. There are plenty of great shock developments and cliff-hangers that will not be spoiled, but seeing the show continue a certain Phase 2-recurring Stars Wars reference is particularly wonderful touch. The showrunners have gone on about the Secret Warriors comics run for ages, and with Coulson’s “Project Caterpillar”, that looks like become a main feature of season 3. It hasn’t always been easy being an Agents of Shield fan but now it finally is.