Spoilers Agents of SHIELD- The Final Season Discussion

[Turtletrekker]

The final season is only weeks away! The final season picks up with our heroes, including a newly programmed Coulson LMD, as they travelled back to the year 1931 to save the world from The Chronicoms.

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Time travel shenanigans will catch us up with Agent Daniel Sousa from Agent Carter and give us yet more back history on HYDRA. Present day shenanigans will see the return of Agents Piper and Koenig(s?).

This is going to be bittersweet for me. Agents of SHIELD has been my favorite show pretty much since the beginning. I haven't changed my avatar since the second episode. These characters are as important to me and as "real" as any other characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and their adventures just as important.

Agent Coulson is hands-down my favorite MCU character. Melinda May is a badass that rivals or even exceeds Natasha Romanov. Fitz and Simmons make up the greatest love story in the MCU. The whole of time and space keeps conspiring to separate them and yet they always find each other. Leopold Fitz is a goddamn superhero in my mind. Pre mainframe, I would have put odds on his ability to lift mjolnir. Daisy Johnson, AKA Skye, AKA Quake, is a hero worthy of her comics counterpart.

When the show first began, Jed Whedon and Marissa Tancheron said that they had a two-year plan in place. I figured anything else beyond that would be gravy and speculated a five-season run. I was prepared for the show to end with season 4, and fully expected it to end with season 5, as did the producers. The fifth season finale, The End, was an epic and appropriate finale for our heroes. The biggest problem for season 7 will be in providing a conclusion that measures up to The End.

My biggest regret about the show is that they were not able to fit season 6 and 7 comfortably into the movie timeline. Speaking just for myself, I currently consider season 6 and 7 to be apocryphal within the MCU timeline. There are ways of including them, possibly considering the references to Thanos in late season 5 to be apocryphal and fudging the timeline, but that brings in the question of who exactly was attacking New York at that time? Hopefully, season 7 will find a way to reconcile things.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I'll be sorry to see SHIELD go. It's been a great show, despite its rocky start, but a little time travel into the show's history will be a nice way to bring closure. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

It had a very rough go during the first half of the first season, so rough that I ended up bailing out of sheer disappointment. Thankfully, I kept hearing how much it improved in the second half, partially because of the big twist and I gave it a second chance. I haven't looked back since. It's been an incredible ride and I look forward to seeing the show closes out with all of these wonderful characters (except Deke because I still can't stand him).

 

[Christopher]

My biggest regret about the show is that they were not able to fit season 6 and 7 comfortably into the movie timeline. Speaking just for myself, I currently consider season 6 and 7 to be apocryphal within the MCU timeline.

My take is that Enoch created an alternate timeline when he took the SHIELD team into the future. Per Endgame rules, that's what any time travel would do -- branch off a separate timeline that existed in parallel with the original rather than replacing it. So it follows that everything since the end of season 4 is a parallel history.

Note that this does not contradict Dr. Strange's statement that only one of the timelines he observed survived Thanos, since he was only scanning possible timelines proceeding forward from that particular moment, and the AoS timeline had diverged months earlier.

 

[DEWLine]

Seeing the characters of this series permanently funnelled off with no chance of resuming coexistence with the movie characters...that would be less than ideal for me. This, on top of the bittersweetness of seeing the series itself come to an end. But, yes, I'm going to watch this last run of episodes.

 

[Christopher]

Seeing the characters of this series permanently funnelled off with no chance of resuming coexistence with the movie characters...that would be less than ideal for me.

Except by MCU rules, alternate timelines coexist and can potentially be travelled between.

 

[Reverend]

It had a very rough go during the first half of the first season, so rough that I ended up bailing out of sheer disappointment. Thankfully, I kept hearing how much it improved in the second half, partially because of the big twist and I gave it a second chance. I haven't looked back since. It's been an incredible ride and I look forward to seeing the show closes out with all of these wonderful characters (except Deke because I still can't stand him).

The first half of season 1 is one of those odd things in that on the first go round, as you say if felt very plodding, formulaic and lacklustre...but the second time though having watch the subsequent seasons it weirdly seems to bump up in quality.
Partly because one is now much more invested in the characters and the episode to episode plot isn't as important, but also because you can see how that late season twist is being set up, one piece at a time. I don't think there's a single episode that didn't somehow link back to Garret and Hydra, one way or another.

The only thing I can really compare it to as a rewatch experience is Babylon 5's first season.

Seeing the characters of this series permanently funnelled off with no chance of resuming coexistence with the movie characters...

Well "no chance" unless they somehow get sent back in time, altering events as they go so that when they arrive back at the present, it's a little different than when they left...

 

[Turtletrekker]

Ha! It looks like a theory that I posted back in the season 6 thread is actually true.

I theorized that Patton Oswalt would not be playing a Koenig brother that we already knew, but rather one of their ancestors, perhaps a great-grandfather.

https://mobile.twitter.com/CBR/status/1260238394191380481

 

[Turtletrekker]

My take is that Enoch created an alternate timeline when he took the SHIELD team into the future. Per Endgame rules, that's what any time travel would do -- branch off a separate timeline that existed in parallel with the original rather than replacing it. So it follows that everything since the end of season 4 is a parallel history.

Note that this does not contradict Dr. Strange's statement that only one of the timelines he observed survived Thanos, since he was only scanning possible timelines proceeding forward from that particular moment, and the AoS timeline had diverged months earlier.

I've actually thought about it in a similar way. The thing that holds me back from fully embracing it is the fact that the Avengers in this timeline somehow found a way to defeat Thanos. Maybe Thor went for the head? But why would Thor have acted differently in this timeline?

 

[Christopher]

The thing that holds me back from fully embracing it is the fact that the Avengers in this timeline somehow found a way to defeat Thanos. Maybe Thor went for the head? But why would Thor have acted differently in this timeline?

Maybe the point to look at is on Titan when they'd almost managed to pull off the Gauntlet until Star-Lord ruined it. Even the slightest change in timing there could've made the difference, so that's where the probabilities were most evenly balanced. Maybe it just came up heads in one timeline and tails in the other.

 

[Reverend]

The problem with that idea is that Strange looked ahead at millions upon millions of possible futures and the only one where they came out on top was the one where Peter freaked out and seemingly screwed up the whole "get the gauntlet off him" plan.

So clearly even if Thor had randomly gone for the head, or if Peter had behaved like an adult person with even a modicum of self control, Thanos would still somehow have won...or not but it still led to something even worse.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The problem with that idea is that Strange looked ahead at millions upon millions of possible futures and the only one where they came out on top was the one where Peter freaked out and seemingly screwed up the whole "get the gauntlet off him" plan.

So clearly even if Thor had randomly gone for the head, or if Peter had behaved like an adult person with even a modicum of self control, Thanos would still somehow have won...or not but it still led to something even worse.

As Christopher pointed out, the Agents of SHIELD timeline had already branched out on its own before Strange started looking at alternate timelines that branched out from where he was, so he wouldn't have seen the AOS timeline.

 

[Turtletrekker]

It is easy enough to condense the timeline if one chooses to make the references to Thanos in season 5 apocryphal. Season 4 took place over the course of a few weeks and season 5 only moved forward 6 months in real world time, the six months that Fitz was in prison. Then, one can assume that the agents jumped back in time in season 6 just before the snap.

 

[JD]

I love AoS and I'm really looking forward to the final season. I'm holding out hope that we might get some more returning cast members like Hunter, and Bobbi, or even Ward. I know a lot of us were getting tired of Ward by the time they killed him off, but he was still a huge part of the show, and it could be fun to get one last appearance from him for the final season.

 

[Reverend]

As Christopher pointed out, the Agents of SHIELD timeline had already branched out on its own before Strange started looking at alternate timelines that branched out from where he was, so he wouldn't have seen the AOS timeline.

I know, I was just pointing out that Thor and Peter's actions happened AFTER Strange looked ahead, meaning they couldn't be factors in creating a significantly different (i.e. no snap) timeline.

I'm sticking with my idea that they way they're going to handle it is 1) the events of the time-loop in season 5 didn't prevent the snap, but it's something that was on course to occur later (i.e. after the events of season 6.)
2) Whatever the event of season 7 are will either directly or indirectly cause what we saw in IW & Endgame to occur earlier (i.e. at the end of season 5 when the movies actually took place) Sort of looping the show back into the main MCU timeline after a little jaunt through the alternate futures and past.

Not to toot my own horn, but I have a pretty good track record of predicting where this show is going (two for two on "Skye is Daisy Johnson" and "Evil Coulson was created by the monolith explosion"), so I'm confident they're going to attempt something along these lines. Probably not directly linking into Endgame, but ending on some note that makes it look like AoS are more responsible for certain events that got most of the MCU rolling in the first place.

 

[Avalon]

I've actually thought about it in a similar way. The thing that holds me back from fully embracing it is the fact that the Avengers in this timeline somehow found a way to defeat Thanos. Maybe Thor went for the head? But why would Thor have acted differently in this timeline?

In this timeline, Dum Dum Dugan successfully recruited Doreen Green for S.H.I.E.L.D...
Thanos never had a chance.

 

[Christopher]

In this timeline, Dum Dum Dugan successfully recruited Doreen Green for S.H.I.E.L.D...
Thanos never had a chance.

Of course -- it's so obvious!

 

[David cgc]

It is easy enough to condense the timeline if one chooses to make the references to Thanos in season 5 apocryphal. Season 4 took place over the course of a few weeks and season 5 only moved forward 6 months in real world time, the six months that Fitz was in prison. Then, one can assume that the agents jumped back in time in season 6 just before the snap.

That's what I've been thinking; in a way, Thanos has been attacking Earth since the first Avengers movie, so you can just assume the Kree guy was choosing his words to make Earth's situation seem as dire as possible. And, of course, "weird stuff on the news happening in New York" could be pegged to any number of the movies before Infinity War.

I do think if the show itself is going to address it, though, it's more likely to be Reverend's idea that this season's time-adventures somehow causes the snap we saw in the films. Retconning the attempted IW tie-in the way I've been thinking of it is more of a Marvel One-Shot, or promotional website kind of canon-spackling.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

The first half of season 1 is one of those odd things in that on the first go round, as you say if felt very plodding, formulaic and lacklustre...but the second time though having watch the subsequent seasons it weirdly seems to bump up in quality.
Partly because one is now much more invested in the characters and the episode to episode plot isn't as important, but also because you can see how that late season twist is being set up, one piece at a time. I don't think there's a single episode that didn't somehow link back to Garret and Hydra, one way or another.

The only thing I can really compare it to as a rewatch experience is Babylon 5's first season.

Good to know. I've been meaning to rewatch the series and wondered how it would it change in hindsight.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Good to know. I've been meaning to rewatch the series and wondered how it would it change in hindsight.

well, for one thing, in the pilot you go from thinking "who the hell are Skye, Mike Peterson and Centipede project?" to, "Wow! It's Quake, Deathlok and HYDRA!"