After last week’s episode felt like the first of the dominos to fall (But not the mutant Domino because Fox owns those rights!), what happens in the double sized Agents of SHIELD Season 2 Finale?
Spoilers ahead.
[divider]Recap of Agents of SHIELD Season 2 Finale: SOS[/divider]First up, we get the proof that Jiaying is the Magneto of the Inhuman universe. She furthers the war with SHIELD by having Inhumans take out some agents, take over a quinjet, and then make it look like SHIELD is firing on the Inhuman’s compound.
In the midst of that, we have an encounter between May and Skye that ends in a fight where Skye has to use her powers to win.
Everyone then huddles up, with Cal being carried back to the SHIELD base. Cal proves to be a key piece, as Coulson tries to shake him down for Jiaying’s plan. Simmons has done the science of figuring out what is in the vials Cal drank, saying one should have done him in. Eventually Cal crashes and they do some medicine which triggers his foreheard to grow, turning him into the Mr. Hyde character for the first.
In the showdown, you get FitzSimmons and Coulson tricking him into getting pinned against the wall with an SUV. Coulson and he then have a long heart to heart about how Cal has been manipulated by Jiaying, even providing her human sacrifices to help her survive, because we see her as a quasi-vampire, surviving by sucking the life force out of others. In the end, Coulson, Cal and Crew head out to the final battle.
Morse has been captured by Ward and Agent 33, who are torturing her to get her to apologize to Agent 33. Morse holds steady, even managing to get out of the shackles to have a solid fight with her captors until she finally is re-detained. At this point, they decide the way to hurt her is to hurt someone she loves: Hunter. So they set a trap for May and Hunter.
Agent 33 is tricked into morphing her face to mimic May’s, prompting Ward to accidentally shoot and kill her. Hunter is saved from the trap by Morse heroically throwing herself into the path of the bullet.
SHIELD then huddles back together, with the decision being to send Fitz, Cal, Coulson and May into the boat, which is now under Inhuman attack. Unbeknownst to them, Mac decided to not leave when Gonzalez was killed, so he is on the boat, waging a Die Hard like war. (I could have said Under Siege here but let’s be honest: Under Siege is Die Hard on a boat with less talented actors.)
Mac manages to free a captive Skye, who now knows her mom is crazy, especially after she watched her kill Raina. So the two of them are running around and wreaking havoc (Not the mutant Havok, because Fox.)
Part of the Inhumans success early on centers on Gordon, who does things like teleport Cal into a locked room after Cal confronts Jiaying. But, as Fitz so delicately puts it: Science, bitch. He has figured out a way to limit Gordon’s abilities, which comes to a head in a room with Mac, Coulson and Fitz. As they are smacking Gordon around everytime he tries to teleport, Gordon’s last teleport puts him on a steel pipe, with it stuck in him and Fitz holding the other end.
But Gordon had in his hand the thing the whole Inhumans raid was all about: the blue Terrigen crystals that start the transformation of Inhumans but kill normal people. As Gordon is dying, he drops the crystal, Coulson dives and catches it. Then we see Coulsen’s hand begin to become necrotic, and to save his life, Mac cuts off Coulson’s hand!
The other part of the Inhumans’ success early was a new character, a duplicating Inhuman. (But not Madrox, the multiplying man, because, once again, Fox.) She would create and send out soldiers as needed, which can be helpful in a fight. She is only taken down eventually by Lincoln, who Skye convinced to be on their side.
And then we get the saddest family reunion ever. Jiaying, Cal and Skye wind up on the top deck. And after a Magneto (But not Magneto because, you guessed it, Fox) villain monologue, Jiaying is killed by Cal as Skye looks on.
Skye had quaked the Quinjet with the blue crystals into the water, which we later see dissolving into the ocean, being eaten by fish and then packaged into Fish Oil supplements on the shelves of grocery stores. Dum dum dum.
We then get a pretty substantial epilogue. In it, Andrew, May’s ex, has done psych evaluations of the team and says they just need some time off, with May being shown packing a bathing suit and a gun. Morse and Hunter have a moment together as she tries to recover. Mack still hates the alien stuff, so they have put him in charge of it all, especially the box.
Skye meets up with Cal later, with him clearing having been wiped á la the Tahiti project. Skye and Coulson then talk about her new project, which essentially sounds like a Secret Warriors rip-off.
Earlier in the episode, we had the return of FitzSimmons, when Jemma was attempting to confess her feelings only to be interrupted by Coulson who took Fitz away. But here, they schedule an actual date and just as we are having all the feels, the black alien rock goes liquid, grabs Jemma, and drags her inside itself, returning solid stone like nothing happened. And the Whedon architects laughed and laughed at our pain.
[divider]Thoughts on Agents of SHIELD Season 2 Finale: SOS[/divider]- Adrianne Palicki crushes it in this episode. From her action stuff to the quiet moments with Hunter, she was amazing, in very little screen time. So, so good. And it was an epic bit of storytelling by the directors as they masterfully interwove the shootings of Morse and Agent 33 together. Really well done.
- Skye recruiting and leading the “Caterpillars” as it was put on her folder is going to be an epic story arc. The Secret Warriors run in the comics was a great series [we look at it here], introduced a lot of new characters and has some potential for season 3.
- Never tell someone you love them if you are in a Whedon run franchise. I was so pumped for the return of #FitzSimmons. So that ended.
- Marvel is just straight up retconning Inhumans into mutants and then laughing at Fox as they drive by them and their X-men movies on the way to the bank to deposit millions and millions of more dollars into their Disney accounts. To rub it in, they just need to do a Danger Room and a episode where they all play softball and hang out.
10 out of 10. I realize that you can’t make every episode as jam packed as this two parter was but I sure do wish they would try.
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