Episode 5.16 discussion (spoilers!)

The stinger was, for sure, an unused scene from S1.  Mark Kolpack confirmed that fact.  The FX was done in S1 as well.  Mark said that all they did was update the lighting a bit.
Side note:  I fear the day I use the term "cutting room floor" and some youngster replies: "Huh?  Waddya talking 'bout Willis?"  Oh, wait..... they probably won't know that reference, either......

You're way ahead of me on the framework issue...... I dunno if I like the idea of Coulson becoming an LMD; but if he does die....... maybe a Kree resurrection?
I do like your idea of the framework playing a role in the scenario, though.  Like I always say: "I can't wait to see how this all plays out."

Deke is hinting that he may have gotten his survival skills from Fitz. Assuming that the show is not embracing Lamarkism, it seems like the Doctor will be a permanent part of Fitz even when he becomes Bobo (or Nana as Deke was not clear which one was "Bobo" and which one was "Nana") with the Doctor being a direct influence on at least his daughter if not her son as well. She does survive to have Deke. We can debate whether that is a good thing or not, but she also ends up with a man with a propensity to violence as Voss noted and Deke could not deny.

I like that Simmons at least thought to ask if Deke remembers her as being maimed in the future. Theoretically, she could have survived drinking the acid with a horribly deformed face. However, she neglected to ask if she spent a significant amount of time wearing a straightjacket in a padded cell. Her actions is this episode suggest that that might be a reasonable possibility. Perhaps the reason why she survives to see the Lighthouse is that she spends her time in an institution rather than in peril.

I am sure that I am far from the only person to catch the Doctor Horrible reference, or to note that the three creators of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. also created Doctor Horrible. This led me to wonder if the two might exist in the same universe. I would not mind a standalone episode in which the team has to thwart an evil plan from the Fake Thomas Jefferson, although Dead Bowie might be more likely foe.

It seems to me that there were much easier ways for someone with Elena's powers to spring Fitz from his cell. She could have, say, used her powers to snatch the keys from Mack, unlock Fitz's cell, and return the keys. Like some of you, I knew that Simmons was faking. Actually, it was either bad acting by Elizabeth Henstridge, or Simmons was faking (i.e., bad acting by Jemma Simmons). As the former is impossible, I had to conclude that it was the latter.

The plan should not have worked. If Simmons drank a real acid strong enough to be dangerous, it would have burned her mouth immediately. It is unlikely that she would have been able to drink the whole beaker, and she would not have to wait until she swallowed it all to know that it was the acid. Mack should have spotted that if he were not panicking. Also, given the time constraints, the logical thing would have been for Fitz to tell Elena where to get the antidote as she could fetch it much faster. Finally, while waiting for Fitz to use his version of turtle speed to fetch the antidote, the proper thing for Mack to do would have been to get Simmons to drink the last beaker of "water" to dilute the acid. That would not have ended well.

This was not the longest that Simmons kept up a lie. She did infiltrate Hydra for several months. On the other hand, the person she fooled was Bakshi, arguably the most incompetent character on the show.

Over the course of only a couple of episodes, Simmons has moved from having the Doctor as her greatest fear to embracing the Doctor/Fitz hybrid. Anyone remember when she preferred him in cardigans? She should remember that the Doctor loved his father very much and may still be plotting revenge on the person who murdered his father.

Simmons's test was scientific enough for me to suspect that the writer did some research on scientific methodology. However, I suspect that the writer did not understand everything. Research often starts with a hypothesis. The researcher would then form the opposite of the hypothesis (the "null hypothesis"). The researcher then tests the null hypothesis. If the data turn out to be highly improbable if the null hypothesis were true, the null hypothesis is rejected, which is taken as evidence for the original hypothesis. Nothing complicated about that.

In this case, Simmons had a hypothesis: She was invulnerable. The null hypothesis would be that she was vulnerable. She tested her vulnerability by trying to drink acid. She failed to do so. However, there was a 25% possibility that she failed to drink acid by chance, when, at least in my field, we would not reject a null hypothesis unless the data would occur less than 5% of the time by chance if the null hypothesis were true. To reach 5% probability, Simmons would have to drink 19 beakers of water before drinking the one with acid. As this would be very tedious, she also could have had 19 beakers of acid and one of water and drank just the one with water, or she could have had three beakers of water and three beakers of acid and drank the three beakers of water. I think that having only four beakers was to show that Simmons was lucky, not invulnerable. However, she should know better.

Coulson did "die" in this episode, so Robin's prophecy was fulfilled. It has been clear that Robin cannot distinguish between past, present, and future.

I can understand why Talbot might associate being able to breathe with being on earth, but Coulson knows better. At least where they were, not everything was blue.

I loved seeing Raina again, especially without her Sonic the Hedgehog look. I wonder how she knew that the gravitonium wanted to absorb Ian Quinn. Did she have a chat with the gravitornium over dinner in which the gravitonium said, "If possible, could you please bring Ian Quinn to me so that I can absorb him."

Coulson is going to face a serious dilemma when the team reassembles. He has designated Daisy as his successor. In her first stint as acting director of S.H.I.E.L.D., high-level members willfully defied a very clear order to leave Fitz incarcerated. While I believe that Daisy is a bad candidate for the position, I also believe that this particular order was justified. Fitz and LMDs that he programmed assaulted members of S.H.I.E.L.D., including the acting director herself. Before the season even started, I have even proposed that the characters might want to consider incarcerating the Doctor/Fitz as a preventive measure. In any case, having high-level officials openly defy her destroys any credibility that Daisy has. Why should anyone follow her when the high-level officials made it clear that they do not respect her leadership? Coulson has a handful of choices (ranked from my least preferred to most preferred):

1. If he is serious about Daisy being the next leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., he needs to back her up. This means that the insubordinate members must be dealt with severely. At minimum this would mean imprisonment until such time as they can be dismissed from S.H.I.E.L.D. without fear that they will reveal uncomfortable secrets (e.g., the location of the lighthouse). As to the maximum punishment, Article 90 of the United States Code of Military Justice states:
   
   Any person subject to this chapter who—
   (1)strikes his superior commissioned officer or draws or lifts up any weapon or offers any violence against him while he is in the execution of his office; or
   (2)willfully disobeys a lawful command of his superior commissioned officer;
   shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct... [emphasis added]
   I generally oppose the death penalty, so I would suggest that the maximum punishment be something less, especially since they may not be considered to be at war. Also, S.H.I.E.L.D. may have a less punitive code of conduct than the United States military.
2. Ever since Coulson was promoted to Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., he has been a terrible example as far as his attitude toward his superiors is concerned. We may dismiss his insubordination toward Grill, even though Grill saved the lives of Coulson, Mack and Elena, because Grill was a slave driver and an @$$hole. However, Coulson and the rest of the team treated Mace horribly. While I do not want to absolve the team for any blame, this was also a sign that Mace was not up to the job. Coulson could conclude that the insubordination over the last couple of episodes simply demonstrates that Daisy is not up to the job. He can instead decide that May will be his successor, and he may make a bit more of an effort to delay the time when a transfer of power is needed.
3. Some people seem to have forgotten that Coulson is no longer the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. In fact, Simmons may have outranked him. Not that this matters because they also seem to have forgotten that S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer exists. The team, and the extras, are simply squatters in a facility that was built by a now-defunct organization. Nobody has any authority over anyone else. This facility is presumably part of either the United States or Canada. The team can be held accountable for their actions, but only by legal authorities. One can make a case that imprisoning Fitz is itself a crime. Coulson could simply suggest a new leadership structure that recognizes this.

Finally, this may be as good a time as any to propose my theory as to why Simmons appears to have impaired judgment and impulse control. Going backward chronologically:

• She got the idea that she is invulnerable and created a very risky test with a 75% chance of getting herself killed if she were wrong.
• She asked Fitz to marry her when she does not know the post-Framework Fitz well enough to marry him. In fact, she now seems fine with someone who she knows has sadistic and evil tendencies.
• She attacked Kasius with a butter knife.
• She twice screamed "What is wrong with you?" to Kasius.
• She referred to "advanced procedures" to Kasius when knowledge of advanced procedures would raise very uncomfortable questions
• Despite many warnings to avoid calling attention to herself, she performed first aid on a wounded servitor with techniques more advanced than what a local human would know.
• She failed to realize that recognizing constellations meant that she was not merely in the Milky Way but that she was in the Solar System.
• She examined dead bodies without protective gear even though she almost died due to an alien virus contracted from a dead body.

However, this streak goes back to the third season as well:

• Even though she believed that Ophelia was dangerous, Simmons locked Fitz in a containment module with Ophelia to see if her boyfriend loved someone else.
• She recklessly went after Alastair Fitz, endangering the escape from the Framework and nearly getting herself killed for real.
• She screamed "NO!" and revealed her hiding place when Fitz shot Agnes.
• She kept insisting to Framework Coulson that he knew her even after it was clear that either he did not know her or that he could not admit to doing so. (If she concluded that Coulson did recognize her but he could not admit to doing so because Hydra may be listening in, it would be reasonable based on what she knew even though it would have been incorrect.)
• She thought she could get through a Hydra checkpoint using a S.H.I.E.L.D. ID even though she already knew that Hydra defeated S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Framework.
• Despite being the highest ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. official not trapped in the Framework, she voluntarily incapacitated herself by going into the Framework, and did so without even alerting Talbot as to what was going on. This action turned the Zephyr crew into fugitives, which prevented refueling and left the Zephyr vulnerable to attack.

I am still hoping that she is not pregnant, as has been speculated, or I will have to add another point to the lists above.

What happened before then? Actually, a lot happened, but, to me, the key moment was when LMD Fitz smacked her in the head with a paint can. Normally on television and in the movies, a blow to the head from a blunt object results in brief unconsciousness and, at most, a bit of grogginess and a headache afterward. In the real world, a blow to the head can result in death or serious brain damage. What if, for what is almost the first time in television history, a person actually endured lasting damage from such an injury? I propose that this blow did leave lasting brain damage in Simmons that impairs her judgment and impulse control.

This is not a rock-solid theory. For example, Simmons came up with the plan that allowed May to pilot the Zephyr to the Lighthouse in "Best Laid Plans." This could simply be a case of a stopped clock being correct twice a day, or the extreme riskiness of the plan may be an example of impaired judgment even though it worked. Also, Simmons has shown poor judgment before the blow to her head. In "The Man behind the Shield," Simmons went wandering off in search of AIDA with only Davis for protection, leaving nobody to protect Fitz, likely the last time she will ever see him untainted by the Doctor. In "Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire," Simmons emulated Coulson and fell for two different obvious traps in the same episode. However, the show has been consistently inconsistent on whether or not Simmons (or Fitz) has any business going out into the field. Her cognitive problems since "Self Control" appear to be much worse than normal.

Coulson has made it clear that he does NOT want to go through "all that" (TAHITI) again, and does not want to end up like John Garret. I CANNOT see him agreeing to a life in the FW.

Are you talkin' to me?

My synopsis is the one posted a few hours after the show. You've quoted them, so you must have seen them...

They're not the full dialog summary that you post. Mine usually just cover the high points. Well, what I consider high points...

Look, my brain is a swirling mess of a list of the homework I need to do, what shift I work next, what Coulson did to piss me off recently, what bills I need to pay, what FanFiction is stuck in my head and needs to be written to get out, what calls I need to make, the question of "Have I eaten recently and what was it?", and are dragons real?

I probably have quoted your summary but didn't realize that was what I was doing because ADD sometimes gets the better of me.

And oh, yeah, Doritos are the only thing I've had all day. That's right...

Who is that?

I think I watched the first few episodes of Galavant and that was it.