Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Rewatch: S1E22 “Beginning of the End”

That was it.  That was the first season.   It took me nearly 9 months to get here and it was quite a journey. What a good show.  What a great finale. It really covers all the bases.  They laughed. They cried. They punched, kicked, shot, and nailed a foot to the ground. They brought the funk and the noise. This finale had everything: fake bomb, near-death confession, flying kick to the face, Samuel L. Jackson shows up for several minutes. Several! Thanks, Sam.   

format disclaimer: I will be attempting to steer away from beat-by-beat chronological recaps so here I’m experimenting with grouping up plot points together.  I thought this would make the post shorter and more cohesive but uh… well I’m a work in progress and whatnot

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“direct quotes look like this”
‘my silly paraphrasing looks like this’
(tangents are notated in such a manner)
footnotes ^[1]spoiler! contain spoilers for future episodes
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We’ve got a juicy stand-alone B story happening under the sea so let’s gobble that down before getting into all the plot punches and plot kicks.   

Under the Sea

Simmons wakes up to find that their ejection from the plane knocked her out, broke Fitz’s arm, and landed them at the floor of the ocean at least 90 ft down. Fitz tells Simmons that he has done the math on every escape possibility – including sending a message out on SHIELD frequencies where “no one is listening” *wink*.  There’s nothing they can do.  They’re going to die down here.   
Having come to terms with that, they sit and have a final chat while they wait for their oxygen to run out. They’re scared and hungry but they’re not showing it.  We’ve never seen them like this. Fitz is subdued and resigned. Simmons is calm and matter-of-fact^[2]This is a glimpse into the Fitzsimmons we will come to know.  They started as background comic relief and that has ended.  We’ll continuously see hard-hitting serious scenes from them and … Continue reading. They casually talk about death until Simmons finally has a brain blast of an escape plan.  (Just before this we get a beautiful little Moment from Fitz.  We can see that he wants her to know how he feels about her before they die.  He tears up, he breathes quicker, and he goes to interrupt her with a “Jemma..” that dies out softly as he sees she’s thought of something. Oof that hit hard. It is really very good. A small, exceptional moment). ­­Okay so now something about they’re gonna burn the medical ethanol to ignite the window seal or whatever.
Eventually they get their makeshift gadgets all set up.  Fitz rigged up a little mask with ONE BREATH of oxygen.  Apparently, there was NO WAY to get any more breaths in there or to make another mask.  Sure sure… just like Fitz said there was no way out earlier before Jemma proved him wrong.  Seems like he shoulda let her take a crack at it.  But whatever, they’re running out of breathable air in the pod, so they must move fast. I get it!  Beautiful lovely heartfelt tender scene between them here.  Fitz finally tells Jemma that she is more than a friend to him, but he is ashamed that he never found the courage to say it before (genius little touch when he looks down at her mouth as if he is thinking about kissing her, but doesn’t).Then Jemma cries a lot – appropriately – and kisses him all over the face except on the lips to show us that she doesn’t feel the way he does.  Brilliant. Painful. He hits the button. She screams.  I love the cutaway shot of the outside of the pod at the bottom of the ocean.  We see the air rush out of the blown window. Jemma swims out one-handed – dragging Fitz’s limp body behind her. Oof! So good.     So here we are – barely floating at the top of the middle of the ocean – propping up a whole ass body – what now?  But what’s that sound? It’s a helicopter who’s in the helicopter it’s SAMUEL L. JACKSON and we all screamed.  My savior.       
Simmons wakes up all dry in a decompression chamber on a jet somewhere.  Sam Nick Fury tells her that Fitz is barely alive elsewhere.  Turns out Fury was watching for SHIELD signals to try to find Coulson.    And that’s a wrap on FitzSimmons season 1. 

Keeping up with the Baddies

At Cybertek, a dude is giving a tour to a new employee.  The new employee has joined because of “The Incentives Program.” It’s ominous (yeah cuz the incentives program is real bad). Dude is interrupted; a woman says “hey Zeller, we’re in position.”   Zeller points to some security feeds and says “These guys… We don’t like these guys.”  The feed is of our cats Phil, Melinda, Trip, and Skye in the basement of the Hydra hideout barbershop – where we cliffhung them last episode.  Zeller says “okay, people! Let ‘em have it.”  Now we know these people at the cubicles are the ones giving robotic eyeball commands to the Cybertek soldiers.  
They fight they lose.
Zeller reports to Garrett that the good guys got away, but Garrett is not concerned. He’s high on Raina’s GH juice which has just saved his life.  Iain Quinn is here and whining that they just wasted all the miracle drug on this washed-up angry old man.      
Garrett is scratching symbols onto a window using a nail… odd.  Ward is like, ‘I gotta be honest, bro, you’re acting wacky. Also are we done being Hydra now that you’re all healed or…?’ and Garrett says now they’ll go beyond Hydra and pull off an uprising or some shit.  I don’t know what his plan is. He does tell Ward that he will help him get whatever he wants…  
Right now, Ward wants Raina to talk to Garrett to see if she can suss out exactly what brand of weird he’s taking.  Raina finds Garrett looking at Quinn’s gravitonium.  He says the medicine gave him clarity of mind and a vision of a world that’s waiting beneath the surface of this world.  He knows that Raina understands what he means.  She was originally a follower of his because she believed he truly had clairvoyance.  Now that he has “the truth written on the back of his eyes” she can ask him the question she’s had on her mind all this time………………………. “What will I become?” and of course the audience doesn’t get the answer. So mysterious!  ^[3]He must have said something super vague and cryptic because when she does change, she is quite shocked.  Though it is funny that her eventual power will be to see the future.  This whole … Continue reading
Back at Cybertek, Quinn is continuing his pitch to military top-brass. He promises them the superest of super soldiers.  Garrett comes in saying ‘actually we don’t need them.  There’s gonna be a new world and this general will serve me.’  To prove his point, he reaches inside the general’s abdomen AND PULLS OUT A RIB. Ward is like ‘yeah okay this is not chill.’  Quinn shuffles off with the gravitonium. Raina tells Ward the world is changing and that he should go get Skye for himself and he’s like, ‘oh okay so you’re crazy, too.’  I love Raina’s walkoff line “I believe in a world where [Skye’s] true nature will reveal itself.  And when that day comes, maybe you two could be monsters together.”   This lady is a master at walkoff lines.  
Garrett now knows that Skye is special the same way that Raina is – whatever that means ^[4] only… 11 more episodes until we find out? – so he gives Ward official orders to get the girl.

Catching up with the Goodies

Skye reviews her Trojan Horse’s handiwork.  While Melinda May was smacking down an entire building with the Norse rage staff (from episode 8), Skye plugged the very important USB into a Hydra computer. Now they know a whole lot about  Hydra’s operations.  Coulson comes to share some bad news.  FitzSimmons tagged the Bus, but they are not responding.   They are likely captured or dead.  No time to think about that. There’s a plan.
The plan: Trip and Phil will crest the ridge, use the noisemaker to grab a 3-wheel maybe something with more fireworks and open a window for Skye and Melinda
SkyLinda will crawl in, grab the dealer, force his hand, he’ll get us the ace in the hole and bob’s your uncle. 
Coulson says that Fury always said, “A man can accomplish anything when he realizes he’s a part of something bigger. A team of people who share that conviction can change the world.” Are they ready to change the world? May says, “No, I’m ready to kick some ass.” You know it’s a cheesy line, but it works here after the rousing speech about facing tough odds. I like it.   
So… Trip and Phil crest the ridge and use the noisemaker. They get themselves a vehicle (look I don’t know what kind of vehicle it is… it’s got 4 wheels and weapons.) They use a projectile (you could call it a firework )to blow a hole in the wall in front of SkyLinda as a ‘window’ for them to crawl through. Some agro-super-soldiers try to pummel through the vehicle to get our boys while the ladies pop into Cybertek to confront Zeller “the dealer.”  He is all,’if you’re trying to hijack the soldiers, you will fail. mwa ha ha’ and May smugly states that she knows he just switched the soldiers to “default directive.” Wat dat?  The pummeling outside ceases! The soldiers under default directive have been sent away to defend John Garrett! Our boys are safe for now.  Trip drives away to get some armed forces while Coulson follows the soldiers to Garrett.
Skye straps the backpack bomb to Zeller and asks if he works here because of the “incentives program”… His look says yes.  Does everyone know what that means except me? 

Baddies, meet Goodies.

Ward strolls in with a gun pointed at Skye (Yeah after all this, you’re gonna kill Skye… sure Ward). She’s all ,’Garrett is evil and you’re weak for doing whatever he says’ and he says … (eek are you ready?) What he says is…“you woke up a weakness inside me and for the first time in a while I’ve wanted something for myself. Maybe I’ll just take what I want and wake up something inside of you.”  Ouchie wowie yikers to the maximum yuk oof, yknow? But Skye doesn’t falter. She says, “I have a weapon much better than a bomb that will absolutely destroy you….. because you slept with her, and she’s really pissed off.” Then May flies in from stage right to kick Ward in the head! Yas!  They bust into a wing of the building that is under construction. Ward weaponizes a 2×4. May swings around a circular saw! Ward smooshes her face next to a table saw. May nails Ward’s foot to the ground with a nail gun! She punches him in the throat and spin kicks him unconscious.   Phew.   Hot.

Meanwhile, we get a glimpse into Cybertek’s incentive program.  They keep family members hostage to ensure loyalty from the workers.  Yikes.  Skye finds Zeller’s wife in holding and sets her free.  Then she finds… their ace in the hole… which is literally Mike Peterson’s (deathlok) son Ace trapped in a cell.   She goes to the backpack and… opens it up to show there was never a bomb; inside is a teddy bear for Ace. Aw.  (Okay here comes a nitpick.) She tells Ace that they are going to contact her dad so they need to say something that could only come from Ace.  What they go with is… “what are we? We’re a team.”  But in episode 1, Mike says that to his son in front of Skye… so it’s not something that could only come from Ace. For all Deathlok knows, Skye could easily be bluffing to get him to not blow up her friends or whatever she thinks he’s doing now.  Wait where is Deathlok now?

Coulson finds Deathlok and Garrett. He gives Garrett a cute human-powered punch.  Garrett punches Coulson across the room… to the feet of Nick Fury.  Fury’s like, ‘son, you better not die after I went to all that trouble to bring you back to life’ and hands him the gun from the Avengers movie that Coulson was holding when he was murdered.  Coulson takes out the redshirts.  Garrett is all “I am the key to the future of the universe” or whatever.  Nick Fury is unimpressed, but Deathlok readies his little missile arm, which isn’t good. But at that moment, Deathlok gets the message that his son is free. He shoots John Garrett and power stomps his head. Damn.     
Ward is taken in.  Cathartic quote from Phil: “your attempt to cross off Fitz and Simmons failed, but Fitz may never be the same again^[5]crying so I’m going to invent new ways to ruin your life. We’ll do whatever’s necessary to get HYDRA intel from you, but your torture will be internal^[6]Okay but what internal torture is Coulson intending? Just mind games? Keeping him locked up near his former friends? I guess they end up getting close to internal torture when they bring his family … Continue reading.”

Ace runs to his aunt.  Mike doesn’t go to him because he doesn’t want Ace to see what he’s become. He walks off saying he will spend his life making amends for his actions ^[7]I think maybe we don’t see Deathlok again until season 3?. 

Garrett’s body was being shipped away, but he crawled out of his packaging and onto the Cybertek limb-replacement table!  His limbs are replaced!  He says, “now, I’ll be unstop-“
but then he is disintegrated by the Avengers gun – shot offscreen by Coulson.  Hype. Brilliant. Perfect.

Coulson is chastising Fury for bringing him back to life.  He says project TAHITI was meant only for Avengers and Fury says, “Exactly.”   awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Coulson is an Avenger! That touched me.  I am touched.  Fury pulled a sweet dad move on the dad.  He gives Coulson a cute little black box.  This is a toolbox to help Coulson be the director of SHIELD and build it back up. Damn. Thanks Fury.  Goodbye Fury^[8]we never see him in the show again sorry.

The team – minus Fitz – is back on the Bus.  Coulson followed the first set of coordinates that he found in the toolbox.  They’re at another secret base.   Then a voice from offscreen

“I call it The Playground. Though, technically it doesn’t have a name because, technically, it doesn’t exist – it being a secret base and all”

Ah! Patton Oswalt is here!  But he’s not Eric Koenig.  Eric is dead.  This is Eric’s brother, Billy Koenig. He says, “where would you like to start?”  
end of episode. End of season.

just kidding there’s another scene.  

Raina walks into a dark room to talk to a shadowed man. She passes his bloodied hand a picture of Skye and says, “I found your daughter.” Ooh intrigue!    End of season

Oh except for the stinger, of course.
Coulson wakes up in the middle of the night.   He picks up a knife and starts scratching symbols into a wall.  These are the same symbols that Garrett scratched into glass when he first showed symptoms of madness! These are the same symbols that Ward saw on the whiteboard during that mysterious mission in episode 4! yikes! Is Coulson going mad?!?!