The End (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

"The End"
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 22
Directed by	Jed Whedon
Featured music	Bear McCreary
Editing by	Kelly Stuyvesan
Original air date	May 18, 2018 (2018-05-18)
Running time	43 minutes
Guest actors
Adrian Pasdar as Glenn Talbot Lola Glaudini as Polly Hinton Peter Mensah as Qovas Lexy Kolker as young Robin Hinton Jeff Ward as Deke Shaw

"The End" is the twenty-second episode, and season finale, of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The episode was written by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen and directed by Whedon. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and acknowledges the films of the franchise. The episode was written by Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jeffrey Bell, and directed by Kevin Tancharoen. The show was expected to be cancelled after the fifth season, so the episode was planned and written as the series finally. However, in May 2018, a 13-episode sixth season was confirmed, and a seventh season of the same length was announced in November.

Clark Gregg reprises his role as Coulson from the film series, starring alongside Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, and Natalia Cordova-Buckley. "The End" originally aired on ABC on May 18, 2018, and was watched by 1.88 million viewers within a week.

Plot

The team argues about the usage of the Centipede serum until May destroys the odium vial. Deke advises Daisy to help unite the team and settle their differences. Under coercion, Robin informs Talbot of a gravitonium deposit in Chicago, to which he commandeers Qovas' ship. Daisy chooses Mack to lead S.H.I.E.L.D. and he coordinates the team as they evacuate as many civilians as possible. Simmons provides Coulson with the Centipede serum, but he refuses to take it and discreetly hides it in Daisy's gauntlets while convincing her to face Talbot alone. Daisy attempts to appeal to Talbot's patriotism, but Talbot attacks and attempts to absorb her.

Discovering the serum, Daisy injects herself with it and uses her enhanced abilities to blast Talbot into space, thus changing the timeline. While rescuing Polly and Robin from Qovas' ship, Fitz is mortally wounded by falling debris, May and Mack staying by his side as he dies. Simmons resolves to find the present version of Fitz, who is in stasis aboard Enoch's ship. After bidding his fellow agents farewell, Coulson is accompanied by May as he leaves S.H.I.E.L.D. to spend his last days in Tahiti.

Production

Development

In January 2017, ahead of the mid-season premiere of the fourth season, ABC's Channing Dungey said that she was "very bullish" about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s future, feeling that "the episodes just keep getting better and stronger". The series was renewed for a fifth season of 22 episodes on May 11, with ABC looking to lower the cost of the series moving forward, by reducing its budget and licensing fee. "The End" was first aired in the United States on ABC on March 9, 2018. The episode, along with the rest of the fifth season, began streaming on Netflix in the United States on June 17, 2018.

Writing

At the end of February 2018, the writers were planning the end of the pod, and were planning for the final episode to be able to serve as both a season and series finale, with some elements that could be adjusted based on whether the series was renewed for a sixth season or not. Whedon added, "we're ready for if this is the end. We're definitely going to make it rewarding either way." The season ends with the agents having to make a choice between Coulson's life or saving the world, which was "where we were always going" when the showrunners were plotting out the season. By killing Fitz in "The End", but revealing there was another still in space journeying to the future, Bell noted it helped solve "the one time loop problem we had". Whedon explained when deciding when to bring the characters back to the present, it was discussed to have them return to the diner where they were taken, but Fitz would still be there, so the group was brought back after Fitz left to avoid that problem, which "became this great opportunity. What we realized is the thing that would weirdly have the most impact, one of the most painful things that you can experience, could be then experienced and then, not brought back, but a loophole could be revealed."

The showrunners spoke to not including a bonus scene at the end of "The End" to tease what would come, Tancharoen said, "We felt like it needed to end in Tahiti. To take away from that would be wrong." Bell added, "It's also, emotionally, about the two senior members of the team, who in a sense have retired to Tahiti, and there they are watching the future of S.H.I.E.L.D. fly off into a new adventure... It felt like a nice, succinct ending." Coulson's journey was always meant to end at Tahiti, something the showrunners revealed was decided since the start of the series. Whedon explained, "We thought it was a beautiful image... It's one of the things where you don't overthink it. We latched onto that and went, 'That will be great.' It's an emotional thing for him. We even heard from Mike Peterson that this was something he always wanted. Our big mystery in episode 1 was, "Never been to Tahiti." He doesn't know, and he can never know. And here he is, finding some sort of peace on that beach. We love that image and we were solid on it all the way."

Casting

Main cast members Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, and Henry Simmons return from previous seasons as Phil Coulson, Melinda May, Daisy Johnson / Quake, Leo Fitz, Jemma Simmons, and Alphonso "Mack" MacKenzie, respectively. Before the 2017 New York Comic-Con, it was revealed that Natalia Cordova-Buckley had been promoted to series regular for the season, after recurring in the past two seasons as Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez. Also in the episode, Adrian Pasdar recurs as Glenn Talbot, who becomes the supervillain Graviton; Lola Glaudini appears as Polly Hinton, Robin Hinton's mother; Peter Mensah portrays the alien Qovas; and Jeff Ward recurs as Deke Shaw, a character from the future who eventually is promoted to the main cast in the next season.

Music

Despite the increase of synthesizers, McCreary kept his established symphonic writing and characters themes "as the foundation of the score". He felt the balance he looked to achieve between the synthesizers and classic orchestra was "epitomized" in his score for "The End".

Tie-ins

"The End" takes place during the events of Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and the episode makes a few references to the film, mostly from Talbot, who plans to join the Avengers to stop Thanos. Bell also spoke to not directly referencing the end of Infinity War in "The End", by not showing any of the characters killed as a result of Thanos' finger snap. He said "Part of what happened was, they changed the release date... we move at a different schedule than they do and so suddenly everything was a week earlier, and so we had to make some adjustments and that's how we end up with our story." Whedon continued, "the other thing is that there's certain story points that are so – there would really be no way for us to address it and keep our show intact. Given that there's another movie coming out, and there's gonna be constant repercussions of their universe, so what we felt was that the safe play for our story, and for the integrity of our universe, was to operate outside of it."

Reception

Ratings

On its airdate, "The End" was watched by 1.88 million American viewers and it was watched by 3.34 million viewers total.

Critical response

File:Chloe Bennet by Gage Skidmore.jpg

Chloe Bennet received praise for her performance as Daisy Johnson.

Matt Fowler of IGN praised the episode, saying: "Agents of SHIELD's finale delivered some really powerful moments. It'll be a shame to see a lot of them come undone when the series returns post-Avengers 4, but for now "The End" stands as a fitting, temporary end." Folwer also said, "When the show comes back, they'll most likely find a way to have Coulson be around, or come back. Fitz too. I'm not a huge fan of the retro-undoing of big dramatic beats. As it all stands now though, with only this episode to go by, "The End" was a formidable and fitting close out. The Coulson/Daisy relationship is one of the best things this series has coddled and cultivated over the years so it was grand to see that "I love you" farewell at the end, as Phil left to "retire" on the beaches of (actual) Tahiti with May. Also, making it so that Mack was the new team leader and not Daisy, as we'd been trained to think would happen, was a quirky swerve." Marc Buxton of Den of Geek gave the episode mixed reviews, claiming "It kind of seems like this week’s finale was filmed way before the order came for season six because “The End” provides just that, a full circle ending. But there is another season, there are more threats and horrors that await, there is a post Avengers 4 world that will need saving, and there is a brave man in stasis who is loved by his brave wife very much."

David Rouben of FanSided said, "Agents of SHIELD has been preparing us for Coulson’s death ever since the 100th episode, which makes Fitz’s untimely demise arguably even worse. It’s the worst outcome imaginable for Simmons, since it happened right after they got married and before they could’ve had kids. It makes the cliffhanger for season 6 even more unbearable, though you have to wonder if this episode was scripted to be the series finale."

External links

• "The End" at the Internet Movie Database