S7 Ep 11 Spoiler thread! :D

Kora and Nathaniel really needs to die.

AoS 7.11 - Brand New Day.

Start Act 3 of the play. We know the players, we know the plot, we know the perils. Time to resolve it all.

This review isn't linear. There are essentially three different stories going on this week. The Quinjet, the Zephyr and the Lighthouse, and I've followed them by location, more than by events...


Sadly, we got the 80's title card again...

But good on Daisy for realizing you've got to be unpredictable to stop Sibyl. The smile on Coulson's face says it all as Daisy, Mack and Sousa leave the atmosphere. And thinking back, yeah, I never remember Daisy flying anything, much less a Quinjet. And Mack comes along with the shotgun axe, lol. They're really pushing the family thing, too.

In the Lighthouse:
Kora: Sibyl said there is no future where Daisy Johnson lets her sister fight alone.
Daisy: She was right.

Sousa: Hey, I was just coming to... That's different. Going somewhere?
Daisy: Look, I know that you want to help, believe me, I know. but just for once, don't, okay?
Sousa: If you're chasing a lead and you need backup...
Daisy: I have to do this on my own.
Sousa: You know, I learned a long time ago not to let somebody do something stupid on their own.
Daisy: You learned that in the Army?
Sousa: Brooklyn Scout Troop 87.
Daisy: Boy Scouts.
Sousa: We were kinda the bad boys of the Boy Scouts.
Daisy: Have you ever left your post before? Like snuck off base and, I don't know, played pool and got drunk?
Sousa: You think I'm the kind of person that would do that?
Daisy: Then this'll be your first time. You coming?
(On the Quinjet)
Sousa: May said this ship can't travel far in space.
Daisy: It can't. Sibyl's whole plan is based on her projections. So the only way to get ahead is to act unpredictably. Do things against our nature, which for you...
Sousa: Is leaving my post. And you?
Daisy: Sibyl dropped Kora in my lap because they knew I'd want to save her. The thing is, I already have a sister to save. Her name is Jemma Simmons.

YEAH, DAISY!

(commercial)


Sousa: Won't we use all the fuel getting out of the atmosphere?
Daisy: Well, almost. We'll find the Z1's location, we'll aim for it, we'll burn the rest of our fuel and float. Yeah.
Sousa: So it's a 100,000 mile Hail Mary? sigh. As long as you know what you're doing. You have flown this thing before, right? A few times? A time?
Daisy: It's your last chance to stay behind. (Sousa puts on his seat belt. Daisy smiles.) Without fail. (lol)
Sousa: What? You said you've done this zero times.
Daisy: I mean, everyone in SHIELD has flown a Quinjet. Literally everyone. I hear take-off is a piece of cake.
(Mack steps into the Quinjet WITH THE SHOTGUN AXE!)
Mack: Then how are you gonna get the hanger doors open without Director authorization?
Daisy: This is the only way to bring back Deke and Simmons.
Mack: By stealing the Quinjet? Abandoning your sister?
Daisy: No. Well, yes, actually. Exactly that. If we're gonna beat Sibyl, we have to be unpredictable. We can't...
Mack: We can't play by her rules. (Turns to a console.) How's this for unpredictable? Authorization granted. (To Sousa) Now give me that seat before I change my mind.

Yeah Mack! Get on board! He always did make a better field agent than a Director...


Kora hasn't killed anyone of note yet, which means she may be redeemable, but well, probably not. She does have my theory about the timelines, that the one they're in isn't the Team's timeline. And using Ward as death bait, lol. Ward would turn out worse than he did. Hard to believe, but I think May would have gone along with Kora in this case...

But then she takes down the power to the Lighthouse and let's Sibyl in. Crap. However, May suggests Coulson should be able to read the mess on the screens, since he was a program. And he can!


Back on the Quinjet, Mack and Daisy talk about the Team's demise. Inevitable, I guess, since Enoch predicted it. I'm still favoring Team members migrating toward time lines that still fit their history. It'll be interesting to see how it's resolved next week.

Daisy: Enoch said this will be the team's last mission together.
Mack: Even if we survive?
Daisy: That was my impression, yeah.
Mack: Well, maybe it's time. We've had a crazy ride.
Daisy: What? How can you say that? Just, "Talk to you later"? That...
Mack: Look, we have these things called phones. Now, I know... I know you millennials like to use them just for taking pictures of yourselves, but in the '80's, we actually used them to talk to each other.
Daisy: I'm serious. What... We're not just gonna turn into the people who used to work together and, you know, "Well, hey, I'm in town," and, "We used to be close a long time ago." That...
Mack: Sounds like we might.
Daisy: Mack. The... You guys are my family. I don't know who I am without you guys.
Mack: Daisy...
Daisy: No, I'm serious.
Mack: You know exactly who you are. With anyone.
(Daisy looks toward the cockpit where Sousa is.)
Mack: Ugh. oof. Really, Subtle.
Daisy: Stop.
Mack: Cool.
Daisy: In the... In the time loops, we... we kind of kissed. Whatever. He's a dork.
Mack: See, that's messed up, because he doesn't remember that.
Daisy: (laughs) Then why are you smiling?
Mack: 'Cause Yo-Yo owes me $20.
Daisy: It won't be the same.
Mack: No, it won't. But that's okay.

Wow Mack is accepting this way easier than I thought.  What was the $20 bet?


How lucky is Sousa? No, not that he got the "Dad speech" from Mack instead of Coulson, ("Do Daisy wrong and the entire family will come looking for you", lol), but a guy from 1955 got to space, the one thing that's completely wow'd him. World's oldest astronaut. And completely out of his element. So probably completely unpredictable.

Sousa (looking out into space): We used to hope for this, you know. Everyone in my time. It was a dream, but a dream we all thought...
Mack: Sousa...
Sousa: Reserve oxygen. Copy that.
Mack: What are your intentions?
Sousa: Sir?
Mack: With Daisy.
Sousa: I don't have any intentions.
Mack: Well, then, you better get some. And quick. 'Cause this thing is coming for you. (lol...)
Sousa: This thing?
Mack: (sighs) She's into you. And I'm not even sure she knows it yet, but pretty soon she'll figure it out. And when she does...watch out. 'Cause when she gets something in her head...
Sousa: She won't stop. Yeah, I noticed.
Mack: But listen... Daisy's been hurt. Bad. So I'm happy she's ready to dive back in, and I'm happy it's you. I like you. You seem like a good man.
Sousa: Thanks, I...
Mack: Even if you're a little, you know, straight ahead...
Sousa: Wait, is that bad?
Mack: But I'm not about to let her get hurt again. You hear what I'm sayin'?
Sousa: I think so. I think you're threatening me. Sir.
Mack: No. Not just me. Every member of this team. And we have technology at SHIELD that you've never even...
Sousa: I hear you. Loud and clear. I would never hurt her.
Mack: Hmmm... Imagine that. The man out of time and Quake. (laughs) Just like a damn comic book.
Sousa: Hold on, what did you call her?
Mack: Hmm? Uh, Quake. It's uh... It's her superhero name.
Sousa: Really?
Mack: Yeah. Yeah, really.
Sousa: Quake?
Mack: Mm-hmm...
Sousa: Do you not hear how hilarious that sounds?
Mack: What?
Sousa: Quake.
Mack: I do now.
Sousa: Quake.


In the Zephyr:
Jemma: The more you dig, the deeper Fitz will go until he's disappeared completely.
Nate: Then the race is on.

Yeah, looks like Fitz is gone. However, I'm perfectly willing to accept that her memories of Fitz are false, implanted by Diana for the Chronicoms.

You can sorta pick up on why Jemma has Diana. It was initially to hide Fitz's location, but became something else.


In the Z1, little Nate has Jemma in the mind machine. Flashback to Fitz, Simmons and Enoch working after being saved from the Lighthouse. On the screen is a simulation of DIANA.

D.I.A.N.A. - Digital Implanted Axon Neurotransmission Attenuator. Or, to paraphrase one of our favorite slime balls, "It means someone really wanted her implant to spell out "DIANA"...

Simmons looks young. Much younger than she does at the present.

Fitz: Have to admit, I might be getting a bit jealous of all the time you two are spending together.
Simmons: Fitz, I think we may be close to a working design.
Fitz: Well, I'm not. I need better materials. Not this salvaged scrap.
Enoch: It's a good thing we are building a time machine, as it does not matter how long it takes.
Fitz: Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, Enoch. Can you give us a moment?
Enoch: Yes. (Simmons looks at Enoch.) Oh, to yourselves. Of course...
Simmons: With this working, and you in the building phase, we'll be able to rush back to the temple before we know it.
Fitz: Or not. Enoch's not wrong. It doesn't matter how long we take. So... We don't have to rush. We could just take some time to... live.
Simmons: Fitz...
Fitz: We've built a nice home for ourselves here. We could spruce it up. Live, together. No mission, no end of the world. We could just... be.
Simmons: Is this about the blood work?
Fitz: No. And yeah. But because we deserve it regardless.
Simmons: We don't even know if it's...
Fitz: Listen. If May and Coulson taught us anything, it's that we should take the time that we have.
(From the side)
Nate: Ominous. But I need to see that home you built. Let's cycle through your last memories together.

Back in the mind machine...
Simmons: No, this isn't what the implant was built to do.
Fitz: We have no choice.
Nate: Wait a minute...
Simmons: It was supposed to forget your location, that's all.
Fitz: I know, but that was before we knew.
Simmons: Not this. Never this.
Fitz: You have to be strong. And if you remember, you won't be able to be strong to do what you have to do.
Nate: No, no, no! Where are we?
Simmons: You can't ask me to do this! Saying goodbye is hard enough!
Fitz: Yeah, but you won't remember what you've forgotten. You won't know.
Nate: Where are you?
Simmons: But I'll feel the guilt inside. The guilt for having left, a part of me being torn away... Listen to me.
Fitz: Hey, hey, it's gonna be... It's gonna be okay.
Simmons: I don't want to forget! I don't want to forget! I don't want to forget!
Fitz: It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay, I promise.

Nate exits the mind machine.  Simmons follows.

Nate: We'll see if it even matters. The two of you have just scored front-row seats to the greatest show on Earth.
Simmons (goes to Deke): Are you okay?
Deke: Am I okay? Are you okay? What happened in there? I'm guessing from his attitude that he didn't find Fitz.
Simmons: Fitz? Who's Fitz?


In the Lighthouse:

May shows Kora Jaying's body, and Kora finds out little Nate did this.

May: You know who did this, Kora.
Kora: No, he must have had a reason. She attacked Nathaniel, or he was protecting me...
May: Your mother died protecting Daisy from him.

May and Kora fight a little and before it gets to killing serious, Garrett pops in and grabs Kora. Geez, how far can Gordon/Garrett teleport?

Anyway, Coulson can now understand the Chronicom's code...
Yo-Yo: What are you like a computer genius now?
Coulson: Yes.
Yo-Yo: What do we have here?
Coulson: The last thing Sibyl accessed.
(SHIELD bases appear on the monitor)
Yo-Yo: SHIELD bases.
Coulson: Yep. Everything from the Hub to the Sandbox to the... Oh no.
Yo-Yo: Coulson, what is it?
Coulson: They didn't go to space to hide.

On the Quinjet:
Mack: I have a visual on the Z1. A few minutes out. Be prepped for docking.
Daisy: Hey. Thank you.
Sousa: For what?
Daisy: Just, being here.
Sousa: It was nothing, but you're welcome... Quake.
Daisy: I'm sorry, what, now?
Sousa: Nothing, just happy to help, Quake. Whatever you need.
Daisy: Are you being funny?
Sousa: Uh, is it funny? Not if that's what you like to be called... Quake.
(Mack is silently laughing in the cockpit)
Daisy: I... The press called me that. I never...
Sousa: You should probably have a "Q" on your utility belt so people know it's you.
Daisy: That is really smart, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, make fun of the person who can literally turn you to dust.
Sousa: Yeah, you can Quake me. No, I get it. That's why they call you that.
(The Quinjet shakes)
Daisy: Mack, what's happening.
Mack: You tell me.
(A portal opens. Four Chronocom ships appear.)
Daisy: That's why he came up here.
Mack: To call reinforcements.

In the Zephyr.

Crewguy: Sir, the Chronicom ships are...

Nate quakes the guys heart.

Nate: What did I say about calling me sir? Was I not very specific about how the new world order would be structured?
Anothercrew: These are the Chronicom ships?
Nate: Sibyl contacted her home planet years ago. Had her hunters make some modifications to their fleet. The signal we sent called them here.

Nate: To all Chronicom vessels, this is Nathaniel Malick. Your predictor Sibyl has given you your marks. You may fire whenever you want.

And the ships fire, and one by one, the SHIELD bases start to go offline.

In the Lighthouse.
Coulson: They're doing it. They're destroying SHIELD.

A beam hits the Triskelion, and destroys it.

Little occurs in the epilogue, except to remind us that everything that's happened today, happened because of Kora.


Thoughts and comments.

Hello and good-bye Fitz! Ian finally makes an appearance, and he's apparently dying. Or was dying, which means, he's probably dead, something many of us had predicted a while ago.

And if you carefully examine the sets, it could have been the back room of a community college, all shot in an afternoon.

But as stated above, I'm completely willing to believe Jemma's memories are a product of Diana, and not real. However, given Diana has made Jemma completely forget Fitz after being in the mind machine... Well, that just can't be good.

She does remember Deke. Won't she wonder who GrandDad was?


The show-runners are pushing the Daisy/Sousa relationship abnormally hard considering where we are in the show's life. What's the point? Daisy will be losing the family she's had for the past 7 years, and gaining another? Does Quake and Sousa have a future in the Marvel Universe?

I think the Dad speech Mack gave Sousa was waaaay better than what Coulson could have done.

Lol, Sousa should probably be scared. I still want to see his expression when Quake is released...


Kora, now that she's caused the destruction of SHIELD, probably won't end favorably. I can see her helping Daisy defeat little Nate, but she just facilitated too much damage to be redeemed...

Talking about unredeemable, there were big-bads in the history of this show I just didn't like, but little Nate may have graduated to the top of the heap. (Even if his dialog is exceptional.)  I do hope they have some creative way to kill him off, or at least better than what they did to Talbot.

Coulson will also need to be resolved. I wonder if we'll finally lose Phil, or if May will get him back. I'm on May's side.

I will laugh if some of the team make it back to their timeline and are immediately dusted, because that's where they re-entered the timeline...


It's gonna be a long week to the finale. This show is like Coulson. How many times did we think it was really going to die? At least they got a second chance to end the show, 'cause they did a rotten job of it at the end of S5.

Be good to us, show-runners. Make me happy at the end, lol...

Diana was initially supposed to be to hide Fitz's location. "But that was before we knew."

Good points. Though there is also a strong suggestion that Jemma was pregnant and that Jemma had to forget about her child and Fitz. And to be strong: but for what? Still, it can also be read in the light of Fitz having died. I definitely agree with the last argument: Fitz can help them even if he has died. He can help them from the point of time where he still lived.
Anyway, I also think he is dead. And my argument is based on the time loop episode and what Enoch said.

Enoch in the last episode.
Enoch: "It's different, watching your friends go before you, isn't it? I have been through that, as well." He also mentioned that he never had any friends before meeting this team and the only one we are uncertain of if he is still alive is Fitz. Unless he meant Koenig. Still, a clue that Fitz might be dead.

Then we get the next dialogue:
Enoch: Not even me.
Coulson: Which means you're not alone. You're a part of that cycle. Like every other living thing.
Enoch: Fitz.
He mentions Fitz right after the fact that he is a part of the cycle of life and dead. Not as substantial as a clue as above but to me this very much gives more depth if he was there when Fitz died.

You know, I was thinking along the same idea as far as where the characters will end up. I also suspect they will end up staying in separate times. That would certainly give some finality to things and explain why this will be their last mission together. I just hope we get at least a little bit of a happy ending for the characters. However, this being a Whedon production, I am worried that might not happen. I'm also really holding out hope that these characters will eventually be absorbed into the greater Marvel universe and that we will see them periodically in the Disney+ shows. I would love to see them in the movies too, but given the treatment of the show by the movie PTB, I am not going to bet on it.

It could also be done by Strange (or even Wong), though my money is still on Robbie. It'd be a nice throwback to S4...

I'm basing my gut feeling on Jemma's reaction when Diana was removed. It was toooo visceral for a simple separation, with possible re-unification. That'd bring hope, not utter devastation. Another worry I have is she's sad because something Simmons does closes off Deke's timeline...

Well, I guess we'll find out in like 44 hours, lol...

Not SHIELD, SWORD. And in the MCU timeline, where they really need a SWORD type organization. And let Daisy become Quake. Isn't that the reason they brought it up last episode?

I could see that. However, I'm not sure I could see the writers actually doing that, lol.  Seems too neat and tidy for AoS...

I think they either save Coulson at the end of S5 (or he Pinocchio's), or they end his character.

Coulson has a problem with being a machine with an off switch. He needs to become human again so May can read him, and they ride off together into the sunset, yes?  Speaking of May being able to read emotions, I'm wondering what the payoff will be for that...

Yeah, I could definitely see Deke staying in the 80's, especially since it looks like Daisy will be bumping lemons with Sousa. (They should at least give him Snowflake, though Roxy could be a substitute since she isn't a psychopath.  At least as far as we know...)

Or if they were in enough episodes, live off of fan cons (Comic Con, Dragon*Con, D23 expo, etc, etc, etc.) until their shelf-life expires...