S7 Ep 10 Spoiler Thread

I can't believe that's where they left things! Looks like I'm going to need my rock kickin' shoes for the next two weeks!

Assuming she stays dead.  Pretty sure she was at least as dead when Whitehall finished with her in the original timeline.  I know, Daisy wouldn't bring human sacrifices the way Cal did, but maybe she'd make exceptions out of Malick and Garrett.

AoS 710 - Stolen.

Hmmmm... Yes, there were some big advancements to parts of the story, but for the fourth to last show of the series, I'm surprised it didn't move faster. I suspect we're just being set up for the last three eps...

I think part of the problem is they're giving every character their spotlight. Mack and Deke, One-Way, and it's been Daisy's turn for the past couple of episodes. They knew they had two seasons, I think they should have done a couple more in S6, along with Jemma and Fitz. To me it feels too... cliche'd for all these character moments to occur in such a quick succession. Maybe the writers are doing it purposely for a reason...

No new Title Card, it was the same one used in 708.

Anyway, there's a new face in town, goes by the name of John Garrett. Played by Bill Paxton's kid, James Paxton. Nice touch, but even stretching the imagination, he's gotta look like his mother's side of the family... He's the new comic relief, getting Gordon's power to teleport, and never quite getting to the exact spot he wants. Practice makes perfect, I guess.

Nate just keeps getting more irritating. Whatever death he has coming (and I still trust the writers enough to do the deed), it just won't be horrible enough. Seattle is anarchy right now, but what Nate wants goes a little beyond the lack of authority. Stealing the Zephyr is death penalty level crimes, but kidnapping Jemma to get to Fitz should get him multiple horribly agonizing, painfully slow deaths. This is Marvel, they could do it. They did it to Strange...

The Deke Squad is still around, but they've actually signed up with SHIELD. I laughed when Roxy noted Coulson wasn't on TV anymore. Later, Garrett notes The Deke Squad opened for Twisted Sister. I'm sure there was an inside joke there...

Oh, the Triskillion is in use, and shouldn't be. That's not Nate. Nate dislikes both SHIELD and Hydra, right? (Nate: SHIELD, Hydra, Inhumans... All committing horrors in the name of World Order... ) So nope, not Nate. Is Gideon still in play? Of course he is. We haven't seen him in like, 8 episodes...

Mack actually recognizes Coulson (even Robo-Coulson): "We're dead in the water here. I need you to be you." Yes, the way things should be...

In Afterlife, Kora kills Li. Not that Li didn't deserve it, but it fixes Kora to the Dark Side. I just can't quite decide where she'll be by the end of the season/series.

Jemma is coming to the realization of what Diana might be, and what it... she's preventing Jemma from remembering. She coming to the realization Fitz may be gone. Deke, bless his heart, doesn't want to believe it. He's still sure they'll find Fitz.

And One-Way (okay, I'll stop calling her that) is using her new power. (Mack: For the record, I'm digging the upgrade.)

LOL when Sousa walks into the lab in the Lighthouse and says, "Wow". One of the few time's he's reacted to his surrounds, and Daisy and Jemma were unimpressed with 80's tech. But he really likes his leg!


Aaaand, Daisy finds out she has a sister. To be fair, May was going to tell her just before Gordon and Jiaying teleported in, but... And with Kora alive, Jiaying wouldn't have left Afterlife and met Cal, which means Daisy wouldn't have been post-created

Sousa: Maybe now's your chance to experience what she was like before that. You should talk to her.
Daisy: No I shouldn't. She... She can't know who I am.
Sousa: Why not?
Daisy: Because of the timeline.
Sousa: The timeline is screwed. Pardon my French. And look who you're talking to... a guy who served under "I Like Ike" and was supposed to be dead by now.
Daisy: Ike? (Oh Daisy, how sad you make me feel...)
Sousa: Point is, you got a rare opportunity here. I got a list of people long gone by now I'd... I'd do any thing to have one last stolen moment with. Regardless of what space-time has to say about it.
Daisy: I don't know.
Sousa: I'll be your chaperone. How about that? You need me to bail you out, I'll be right there.
Daisy: You really are a square, aren't you?
Sousa (nods): Harsh, but... yes.

And Daisy meets her mother. It's a touching moment, except I'm not sure Jiaying is the person Daisy expected to meet. She's a loving mother toward Kora, something Daisy never knew. Sorta sad. However, Nate shows up. Jiaying wants to know where Kora is, and Nate reveals Daisy is her daughter as well.

Nate: Oh, you didn't know. Wow. It's like the season finale of "Dallas" around here. (Lolol...)
Daisy: I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I...
Jiaying: What you said about your mother, you were talking about me. I hurt you? But I would never...
Nate: It's actually a riveting story. See, Hydra just cuts you all to bits. You're left for dead, your powers stolen. That part, you both have in common now. Daisy grows up alone. Sad. Finds you eventually, but by then, you're all militant and she's with SHIELD.
Daisy: Stop it.
Nate: You're on opposite sides. So you start to drain the life out of her. And it's working. You're about to kill her. But guess who steps in to crush your spine. Dear old...

And Daisy gives him a blast.

Nate: Nice quake. I'd give it a B. B-plus. Definitely room for improvement. (Blasts Daisy.) If you haven't done the math, I've had these powers a lot longer than you have.
Jiaying: Leave my daughter alone.

She grabs Nate by the neck and starts draining his life. Aaaand Nate kills her. And Daisy STILL EXISTS.

Well now, Daisy's pissed, and she's had the secret sauce. The entire Lighthouse starts shaking, but unexpectedly May shoots Nate. Unfortunately, not fatally. Seriously? May didn't kill him?

Simmons and Sousa are walking down a corridor, Garrett shows up and kidnaps Simmons. Oh dear.

Garrett and Nate steal the Zephyr. Jemma is bound inside. Deke is aboard the Zephyr, but no one on the Zephyr knows.

Epilogue:
Jemma: What am I here? What do you want?
Nate: My pal Sibyl ran the numbers, and every outcome where we don't come out on top has one thing in common.
Jemma: Fitz.
Nate: He's gotten in our way long enough. And now you're gonna take us to him.

End program.

I guess we'll see if Diana really works as planned, huh? Unfortunately, Deke knows the secret. And conveniently, Deke is on the Zephyr.

We're looking at two possible couldn't have been born cases. Daisy and Deke. We're faced with the questions on what happens when the timelines change so much you weren't born? If Jiaying is dead, and Daisy still exists, then... They're not in their own timeline.

There are three eps left, so it's probably too early to start predicting, but we essentially have Deke, Jemma and Fitz separated from the team. (I won't get into the preview spoilers...) There's no way for the team to get to the Zephyr. Should the Zephyr and those on board suffer a demise, it would certainly end the team as predicted by Enoch.  (I suspect they'll get Z1 back.  They still have to get back to 2020...)

Speaking of Enoch, will he return? There were a couple of times I thought he was written out of the show, but came back.

The team has essentially saved Afterlife, but Jiaying is dead. Gordon, too? They were the two in charge of Afterlife when we saw it in S2.  Maybe Kora will turn to the light side, and become the leader of Afterlife.

In the end, this episode didn't leave a whole lot of dangling questions. Is this the calm before the storm, before the final three episodes?

I'm gonna miss this show...

My initial impression on seeing Garrett was that it felt wrong to recast Bill Paxton, but they did a good job at finding an actor who looked like him. I learned that it was Paxton's son after watching the episode, which made me feel better about the casting and explains the physical resemblance. James Paxton did a good impersonation of his father, but it often felt like a parody.

LMD Coulson III went into a trap. Are we sure that he is not the same as the human version of his character?

Some version of Coulson was present both times that Gordon died.

It has been a common theme this season for Daisy to forget that she has powers. When she first saw Nathaniel, she should have done one of the following:

1. If she were really much weaker than normal, she should have immediately blasted Nathaniel as hard as she could and fled with Jiaying. Otherwise,
2. She should have immediately blasted him to unconsciousness, or
3. She should have immediately made Nathaniel learn first hand what Gideon experienced in the last moments of Gideon's life.

One thing that she should not have done was stand around and listen to Nathaniel monologue except for when Daisy seemed to forget that Nathaniel was even around while having a conversation with her mother.

I hope that the team realizes that Kora is a Trojan horse.

Soon, the team should realize that Sibyl can make reasonably accurate predictions of what they will do. They need to start doing things like roll a die. A result of 1 could mean that LMD Coulson III goes on the mission to rescue Inhuman hostages, 2 could mean that May goes, 3 could mean that Elena goes, 4 could mean that Daisy goes, 5 could mean that Mack goes, and 6 could mean that Sousa goes. They can identify six locations to teleport to and roll the die again. They could roll a die a third time and multiply the result by 15 to indicate the number of minutes until they depart.

All this trouble would have been averted if Deke had shot Freddy Malick back in "Know Your Onions."

I think that I know what is in the time stream device: old episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and MCU films.

Simmons thought that it was a revelation that the Zephyr was simply following the Chronicom ship through time rather than Fitz actively guiding the Zephyr. The Chronicoms figured this out by the beginning of the third episode of the season.

So Fitz is the one force that can stop the Chronicoms? If this is the case, why have they been wasting resources doing what they have been doing? We know that the Chronicoms have scanned Fitz's and Simmons's minds. We also know from "Spacetime" that watching The Terminator is required for all team members. Instead of wasting their time trying to kill Freddy Malick or Sousa, they should have sent Chronicom hunters back in time to target Fitz. One could have targeted his mother before he was born and another could have targeted him when he was a child (which would allow Fitz to be in an episode despite Iain De Caestecker's absence). If they fear that this will get too predictable, Mallory Jansen (or someone who looks like a young version of her) could play a Chronicom sent to befriend Fitz at the Academy on his first day.

Depending on how well Fitz and Simmons remember The Terminator, the Chronicoms might get a little confused to see that one of the characters in the film looks a lot like young Garrett.

Once we exclude commercials, credits, etc., there are only about two more hours of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. left. In those hours, the show has to finish this situation with Nathaniel and Afterlife, set up the final confrontation with the Chronicoms in the future, show their defeat, and have a final scene when the surviving characters say goodbye to each other, remember fallen comrades, and make meta statements about what an honor it has been to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Meanwhile, I still believe that we are owed a flashback episode that explains what Fitz, Simmons, and Enoch (and, perhaps, Piper, Benson, Snowflake, Flint, and Diaz) were up to in the period (from Simmons's perspective) between when we last saw Fitz and when Simmons showed up at the end of the sixth season finale. That is a lot of ground to cover in just two hours.

Right now, Nathaniel is still Sibyl's unwitting lackey. Unless he overthrows her soon, he is not the final villain, and I do not see either as compelling enough to be a good final villain. I am rooting for the final villain to be the Doctor, and not the one who travels in a TARDIS. The mystery of what is up with Fitz is moving from, "I think that Fitz might be dead," to "It is becoming a bit too obvious that Fitz is dead for that actually to be the case." Simmons would feel bad about unlocking the Doctor, especially if that part of Fitz's persona appears to have shoved old Fitz aside permanently. Also, I do not see Fitz programming Enoch to kill Simmons under any circumstance. I can see the Doctor doing so. In fact, the Doctor may see that as revenge served cold for her killing Alastair Fitz.


May is usually a better shot. If she could not have made a clear hit, firing a gun was quite reckless. A missed shot could have hit Daisy. In fact, a bullet that passed through Nathaniel could have hit Daisy.


There may be actions more futile than trying to make sense of time travel in science fiction. At the moment, I cannot think of any. I will not let that stop me. Time travel backward in time is impossible in four-dimensional space. A fifth dimension (at least) is necessary. The existence of a fifth dimension allows for parallel timelines. The best explanation is that each trip backward in time creates a fork in time so that the time travelers are on a parallel timeline from the one that they left. It is likely that several members of the team will not be born in the seventh season timeline. That does not erase members who were born in the other timelines.


It is not as if his body would be decomposing. All they need to do is replace the Electrochron Displacement Mechanism and he should revive.


I can see Daisy taking this role. She will likely play a major role in saving Afterlife from Nathaniel. That, and being Jiaying's daughter, would make Daisy a natural successor. As you noted, the team will split up at the end of the season. Furthermore, Raina prophesized that Daisy would be the one who will lead them all. I doubt that Raina was referring to Daisy leading three Inhumans for a few months as part of the Secret Warriors project.


We all will.

The Playground was at least partially underground, but that did not stop Daisy from taking out Gideon or from using her powers in a squabble with Elena. Daisy can perform widespread quaking, such as when she was under Hive's sway, but she can also focus her powers on Nathaniel. The ground around the two structures might play a role. I suppose that the Playground could have been built in bedrock with the Lighthouse built in silt.


Are there any casual viewers anymore? There may be a few who started in, say, season four, but any needed exposition could have been presented better in the Daisy/Sousa scene immediately before they went to see Jiaying.


The thing that she was crying about would be the past for Simmons and Enoch but the future for the rest of the characters (and for Simmons as well given the illogic of time travel). We know that the Zephyr came from the future when Simmons, Enoch, and at least three other people who have never been seen again picked up the team in 2019. Early in this season, how far in the future was treated as a mystery with the suggestion that it was a considerable amount of time (although not so much that Simmons would age visibly).

From whatever time in the future, Simmons (and perhaps Fitz and Enoch) knew when and where to go and knew that they needed to save May and evacuate the team before the Chronicoms destroyed the temple. They may know other events that occur after that rescue. Of course, given complications regarding timelines, that future may not be the future of the team.


To be clear, I was expressing a hope, not making a prediction. I do not think that either Nathaniel or Sibyl are compelling enough to be good final villains, and it is a bit late to introduce a brand new villain. The Doctor has been introduced already and would be a compelling villain assuming good writing. There is nothing that contradicts the idea that he is waiting for the team at the end. On the other hand, it would not surprise me if the writers go the obvious route and make Sibyl and/or Nathaniel the final villains.

This season has been filled with mysteries that have stretched far too long with unsatisfying conclusions (e.g., Elena's powers and Simmons's implant). Maybe the horrible thing concerning Fitz is that Simmons accidentally cut off the tip of his finger while she was slicing vegetables for a salad.


I assume that removing the device from the time drive would return the Zephyr to infinite time jumps. Once the team encounters Chronicoms again, they should be able to salvage a replacement device from one of their bodies.


Neither Kora nor Elena would fulfill Raina's prophecy, which is one of the main reasons why I see Daisy taking over. I may be giving the writers too much credit to suggest that they remember the prophecy. I also agree that Daisy seems more like the doer type than the leader type, but that has not stopped the writers previously.

I honestly wonder when this even became a point of discussion? OF COURSE they're in a different timeline now than they originally were in and I'm not just saying this from episode 11 hindsight. Ridiculous even that it took the show eleven episodes to finally spell this out! Deke's continued existence was the first significant indicator that that would be the general time travel rule for the show anyway, plus the fact that none of the characters (Mack especially) remembered the huge changes to history the Chronicoms caused. 

Plus, I know that the show has not exactly been following the movies' lead for a while now, but as far as I'm concerned, Endgame has provided the ultimate time travel rulebook for the MCU. Blatantly ignoring that now would not just contradict AoS's earlier time travel ventures (inlcuding Fitz's rants about one not being able to change the future), but also take a huge dump on any shared connections that might still be there between movies and TV shows.