'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' S03E21 & E22 Season Finale Review
Whooooooo boy, that finale was crazy! As there were technically 2 episodes that aired back-to-back to serve as the 2-part season finale, I'm breaking this review down into two parts.
Part 1
The first part of the finale starts off with Daisy, being held in a containment pod, as she is still under quarantine since her return to S.H.I.E.L.D. She has an ominous dream involving Coulson and the fate of Earth. Her conversations with Coulson and other crew members show her to be feeling extreme guilt for what she had done when under Hive's control, wanting to be kept locked away forever.
In order to gain access to the missile kill codes needed to disarm Hive's warhead, Fitz and Talbot team up to fake clearance to the codes. S.H.I.E.L.D. is then able to successfully disarm the warhead with the codes as the launch was counting down.
May and Lincoln infiltrate the missile silo to try and secure the warhead, as Hive and his minions have taken it over and taken hostages. Meanwhile, Mack and Y-Yo had also infiltrated, setting up a trap for Hive. Hive senses Lincoln and after a confrontation, chases Lincoln right into Mack's trap in the form of the memory machine that wiped Coulson's memory after he was brought back to life. Hive begins losing control of his memories and his sanity, re-living memories of all the hosts he's taken over. He then tells his accomplices to disarm the warhead and it is later taken by them before May could get to it. Yo-Yo frees the hostages and S.H.I.E.L.D. is able to capture Hive in a gel matrix unit, taking him into custody.
As the team takes some moments to breathe, thinking the battle was halfway over, Coulson extends the invitation to officially become and agent to Lincoln, who declines. Fitz also catches Simmons booking a vacation for the two.
As Fitz is checking on Hive, a shipment containing hangar bay door components turns out to be a bomb, containing Hive's pathogen and turning various security members into the primitive Inhumans. Fitz is saved from the room, but the Inhumans are wreaking havoc in the base and are able to free Hive.
Hive, with Daisy's knowledge, plans to take the aircraft Zephyr out of the base and to use it to disperse his pathogen above Earth. Daisy finds a way to transport her pod into the Zephyr and confronts Hive. In a turn of events, she asks Hive to take her back, as her pain and suffering os too great to bear.
Part 2
A Hive and Daisy are talking, Hive is unable to re-infect her, as she is now immune. Daisy attacks Hive.
Radcliffe reveals the primitive Inhumans do retain some of their memories, which they are using to perform various tasks around the S.H.I.E.L.D. base. There are reportedly 28 Inhumans in the base.
Daisy battles Hive and fails in killing him, as an Inhuman knocks her out and she is again imprisoned in the pod.
Back in the base, Mack is shot at but Yo-Yo steps in front of the bullet and is hit in the abdomen. The team works to save her while being hunted, as Mack cauterizes her wound with a blow torch.
Hive flies off in the Zephyr, as he has Ward's memories on how to fly it, as May and Fitz are shown aboard as well.
May and Fitz find Daisy, but she refuses to leave, again punishing herself.
Simmons figures out that extreme heat will cause a disruption to the Inhumans, causing them blindness and making it easier for the team to escape the base.
May is knocked out by Mr. Giyera, but Fitz stalls him long enough to shoot him with a gun that had cloaking technology, causing it to appear invisible. Fitz then frees Daisy.
Coulson, using tech in his false hand, cals a QuinJet to get the team to safety.
Daisy's vision of the spacecraft and the chain appear again, foreshadowing events to come.
Coulson confronts Hive aboard the Zephyr, where reveals himself as a hologram after Hive reveals his true form. Coulson tells Hive his plan, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team is also seen aboard the Zephyr, battling the Inhumans and taking control of the ship. (Coulson makes a hilarious Obi-Wan Kenobi reference!).
Lincoln is badly injured by James, and Daisy and Lincoln have a heartfelt conversation where Daisy plans to sacrifice herself by taking the QuinJet to space with the warhead and destroying it.
Daisy confronts Hive aboard the QuinJet, but Lincoln appears and blasts her off right before taking the ship into space with Hive and the warhead aboard. Lincoln fries the override controls so that the ship stays on target.
Daisy and Lincoln have a touching final conversation and he tells her he loves her before losing communication, and the ships explodes, killing Lincoln and Hive and eliminating the pathogenic-threat.
The episode quickly flashes to a tagline displaying '6 months later', where Coulson and Mack are in the middle of a stakeout. Newspaper clippings hang on the wall, talking about 'Quake' (Daisy's comic book alias) as being either a threat or menace, as many 'quakes' and events have been happening all over.
In the final scene, Dr. Radcliffe, being cleared of his crimes, talks to an AI about a project he and Fitz are working on, as a computer screen reveals the existence of a Life Model Decoy (a common thing in the Marvel comics) and the impending integration between it and the AI.
*One interesting thing I picked up on, and this could come to have no effect, is that as Daisy is imploring Coulson to bring back Lincoln and the Quinjet, a line of dialogue reveals the Quinjets are "not designed to maneuver in space". Speculation about how the Hulk will meet up with Thor in 'Thor: Ragnarok' has people thinking Hulk took off into space at the end of 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' but this quick line could cause a discrepancy in that theory.
This season was very captivating. I loved how it maintained a central focus throughout the duration of the season with the Inhuman threat and the "big bad" in Hive. Our characters developed greatly as we saw new relationships forming, new personalities being brought out, and the (possible) reemergence of S.H.I.E.L.D. as an agency (Coulson mentions 'the director', implying he is no longer running things). By all accounts, HYDRA is finished and the threat of Hive is neutralized. So where does season 4 take us? Daisy's new storyline for next season, with her evasion of S.H.I.E.L.D., will certainly be a major point of interest.
My Season Finale rating(s): 9 out of 10
My Season 3 rating: 8 out of 10
