S7 Ep 11 Spoiler thread! :D

I haven't read the other posts here in the thread yet, so some of this has probably already been mentioned. Anyway, here’s my take on the last two episode, because last week I just couldn’t be bothered to actually invest any time on commenting on the bland mess the show has once again become:



Warning: Rant incoming!



First of all: Nate is just the worst! And I don’t mean that sincerely, as in “that’s a good attribute for a villain to have”. No, I mean that Nathaniel Malick is a little punk ass bitch, and considering the amazing list of villains and other antagonists this show has had, it is an utter disgrace to close the final season with such an annoying prick. And Sybil, I suppose. Not much better, either.

Raina, Poe, Garret, Ward, Quinn, Whitehall, Jiaying, Gonzales, Gideon Malick, Lash, Hive, Aida, the Doctor, Kassius, Sinara, Talbot, hell, even Sarge, Izel or Freddy Malick were leagues better than the Nate/Chronicoms team-up we’re getting now. Too bad, really, that after Christopher James Baker (Malachi) left AoS in favour of DC’s Stargirl (wise choice, pal!), the showrunners could not even be bothered to actually give a charismatic face to the Chronicom threat again. So now they’re really just… there… while Nate is running the show. Into the ground, if you ask me.

And don’t even get me started on Kora! “Uhhh, mummy was mean to me, just because I wouldn’t stop blowing stuff up!! So now I’m perfectly okay with murdering all these people I’ve known my entire life, because this guy I met two minutes ago says we should!” Grow the f- up girl! Seriously, Kora is a horrible character, horribly written, and the writers should be ashamed of themselves to throw her into the show halfway through the final season with barely enough time to give her any proper characterisation/development all so that they can milk this arc for some more Skye family drama.

Also, Coulson brought her back to the base? COULSON BROUGHT HER BACK TO THE BASE?? Dude, you were in The Avengers! Didn’t you learn anything from getting stabbed through the heart? Just watch the first thirty seconds of this video before making such a dumbass decision again at some point!






I actually like James Paxton as John Garrett. I think Bill would have a blast watching his son playing a younger version of his character. Maybe they wrote him a bit too much on the “funny” side, but then again, he’s decades younger than the version of Garrett we met previously, he hasn’t gone full villain yet (at least not before meeting Nate), and he also isn’t the one in charge. So now he’s just letting loose, enjoying himself and especially his new powers.

Speaking of powers: Nate is a f*cking moron! Like, for real. Even in his first half-assed attempt of taking Skye’s powers, he was not only immediately successful, but he also didn’t kill her. Meaning that, after giving her time to recover, he could potentially repeat the process several times to give more of his followers her abilities. Yet after years of perfecting said process, and even building a nifty machine that does everything at the push of a button, the original powered person is now killed afterwards?!? Just… whyyyyyy? You goddamn stupid idiot!



Speaking of stupid idiots: The Agents of SHIELD writers. Yeah, the whole lot of them. Because I refuse to put the blame for the nonsensical mess that was episode 11 only on the shoulders of episode writer Christopher Freyer, since this was his FIRST EPISODE WRITING CREDIT EVER! Yeah, you read that right. For some reason, showrunners Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen thought it was a good idea to give the third to last episode of their show to a guy who has NEVER written any episode of any show before. He wasn’t even a story editor of something like that, he’s merely listed as “production stuff” on the show since 2015. Special mention here to George Kitson and Mark Leitner for being executive story editor and story editor on episode 11. Man, three people worked on this and the episode was still as bad as it was. God damnit!



I already mentioned how bad Coulson bringing Kora to the base was, but now her weird “explosion like” powers can somehow take down a firewall? Like… what? Makes as much sense as this wonderful scene from the TV Show Limitless:






Then we have Deke. A character who has been nerfed so far into comic relief territory, that both he and the writers seem to have lost all memory of the fact that he has spent his entire fricking life surviving in a literal bunker under enemy occupation. Yeah, sure, I laughed at the “Nakatomi Plaza” line – because frankly that was my first thought as well – but the fact that he got apprehended literally two seconds later felt just like another joke to me. Only not a good one this time. I’m just glad that Nathaniel figured out himself that Jemma was wearing an implant, before he could actually force her or Deke to give him any information by using them as each other’s weakness. Otherwise this plotline would have been even worse!

(Oh, and speaking of even worse: So apparently this implant is everything that stands between the enemy and Jemma giving up crucial information regarding the fate of the world, yet for some reason it has glowing LED lights?? Just… whyyyyyy?? You goddamn stupid idiots!)



Another point: As I just mentioned, Christopher Freyer has never actually written an episode of AoS, but given the fact that he has been working on the show for years, I would have assumed he might have watched it at some point. Well, apparently not. Because otherwise I cannot explain why he would have thought that any of the supposedly “unpredictable” behaviour the characters displayed in the episode was actually unpredictable.

One character got abducted, so another character goes on a half-assed and completely reckless rescue mission? Check.

Sousa drops everything so he can help out Skye with whatever crazy idea she’s set her mind on? Check.

The director of SHIELD drops everything so he can help out Skye with whatever crazy idea she’s set her mind on? Check.

Seriously, how was ANY of that unpredictable? If anything, that entire plot was basically AoS “Greatest Hits”, just like most of the season has been so far.



But the award for “most horrible scene of the episode, that made me unsure whether to barf or punch something” goes without a doubt to Mack giving Sousa the “overprotective dad” talk. Just... W T F?!?

Not only does Sousa not even remember any romantic developments between him and Skye, since for him it hasn’t happened yet – so great job on taking that away from the two – but what’s with all that “she’s been hurt before” BS? Yeah, Skye’s been hurt before. By Ward. A guy she kissed once before he turned out to be a Hydra mole and unrepentant murderer. Soooo... how great are the chances again for Sousa to turn out similar? Just asking.

Oh, and “Quake” is not a funny name! Who ever thought it was funny? It’s “Quake”, not “Quak”, she’s not a duck and if Sousa can’t pronounce it properly that’s his problem. There is no joke there and that scene was pure and complete cringe.



I don’t even know what to say about the memory scenes. Sure, it was great to finally see Fitz again, but the abomination that was Jemma’s haircut in those scenes legitimately was so distracting that I could barely focus on him. If anything, the fact that Iain De Caestecker has only found time to be in a whooping three episodes this season shows that he might just feel similar about the Agents of SHIELD as I do. Because I’m done. This season has started out so promisingly, yet in the end it was probably too much to hope that they could carry that quality over the course of thirteen episodes. Because in the end it’s just more of the same uninspired mess. The same old plotholes – the same old plots even – and the same stupid behaviour by the characters time and time again. At this point I just hope that they’ll somehow manage to stick the landing in the final two episodes and then I’m honestly ready to say goodbye to the Agents of SHIELD. A show I will forever love for how great it used to be. And for how much greater it could have been.




EDIT: Just to name two things in the episode I actually did like. One, the writer does seem to have watched at least some parts of the show, because he actually had Coulson mention that Ward could have become a good guy like in the framework, if only the right person had mentored him instead of Garrett. Now that was an awesome bit of continuity I wouldn't even have expected at this point! 

Second small part I liked: Nate croonies not really being on board with him randomly killing his own people. Especially that short haired chick seemed not amused. I think I'll call her "not-Piper".  

Trying to rush a response before I have to duck out of the site for a couple of days to avoid spoilers.


I agree that the quality of villains on this show has deteriorated from what we saw over the first four to four and a half seasons. This is why an episode or two ago I proposed the idea of the Doctor (not the one with at TARDIS) being the final villain of the season. He would be a good villain, and that might have been the best way to justify Fitz's absence onscreen.

I wonder if part of the problem was that the show no longer had the budget to afford an actor with the skill of a Bill Paxton or a Kyle MacLachlan.


If you are talking about Gordon, I suspect that, had he rested, he might have recovered. It was the final teleport that finished him off. Also, I do not know if Daisy would have survived if she did not spend time in the all-purpose healing pod.  If you are talking about Li, I suspect that the opportunity to kill Li was a gift to Kora.


I noticed this as well. Not only that, but the idea is to protect her against mind readers. However, she knows about the implant. Anyone who reads her mind should be able to figure out that she has an implant. I am not convinced that the "I'm the only one who can use the device" would be more than a delay to someone competent.


I agree. Just about the only difference between this and Daisy's actions to try to save Simmons in 2091 was that Deke tried to talk Daisy out of it, whereas Sousa (and Mack) went along. In my comments for episode 10, I suggested that the team simply come up with several plans, or at least several variations of a plan, and roll a die to determine which one to implement. Even if Sibyl figured out that the team would to this and even if she figured out what the various options would be, it would still force her to divide resources preparing for several possible plans.


I cut the following out of a draft of my comments for this episode:

Well, we have another one of Mack's lectures. At least he was calmer than when he said, "the line between scientist and mad scientist is paper thin." Like most of his lectures, he was not 100% wrong—Daisy has been hurt, and the team would protect her—but he went way too far. If this were early in the fourth season and if Sousa had a reputation for being a player, the lecture might have been justified. However, it has been a few years, and there is a lot of evidence to indicate that Sousa is a good man. Daisy is also an adult who does not need this kind of protecting. Mack was so out of line that I was expecting him at any moment to burst out laughing and point out how he really had Sousa going, at least before he mentioned "Quake."

Others seemed to think that it was a comic relief scene, so I cut that paragraph. I guess that I was not the only person who saw it that way.


She was also hurt by the Miles Lydon (the boyfriend so dull nobody remembers him) in "Girl in the Flower Dress." It is also possible that Mack was referring to Lincoln's death. Daisy's baggage might be a little extreme, but who goes through life without accumulating hurt in the romantic realm? Sousa has his own pain as well (unrequited love for Peggy Carter, an engagement that gets broken when Carter shows up, a possible requited love with Carter that presumably gets broken up once Steve Rogers shows up).


I like this season better than you do. I consider it a significant improvement over the sixth season and will miss the show and the characters when it is gone. I agree that the last couple of episodes were weaker than the episodes in the middle of the season, mostly because focus had moved too much to uncompelling villains.