Agents Of Shield (Season 5)

So, I finally got around to seeing Season 5 of Agents Of SHIELD. The ambitious season where the cast goes to space and discover time travel. Was it worth all the hype? Well, at first it wasn't. But then it absolutely was.

The first half of Season 5 has the Agents sent to a bad future where Quake had destroyed the Earth and much of humanity is kept captive in a Kree station. Despite the interstellar setting, this is very much a dystopian story, and to be perfectly honest, it didn't make much of a good impression for this season. As much as Agents Of SHIELD has changed over the years, it was always a spy show, so the shift to the "dystopian rebellion bad future genre" just didn't work for me, especially considering it's a genre I don't particularly love. The main villain Kasius was pretty generic (especially after Aida), the core location of the Lighthouse was drab and claustrophobic, most of the new characters aside from Deke and Enoch weren't all that interesting, and most of all, this arc was just plain depressing. Skye got sold to slavery, Simmons was made a servant and lost her hearing, the rest of the cast was put to work, the sheer hopelessness of much of this arc was enough to get me to quit that first time around. Not to say the arc didn't gave its good points, I loved the first episode's survival horror vibe, the sole Earth episode was by far the best of the arc, and much of Fitz's stuff was great, but for a while, I was beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't have returned to this show. But then the agents went back to their time...

The second half of Season 5 is amazing. Obviously the Framework arc is hard to top, but this was definitely the second or third best storyline in the series. With the agents back in the present, their primary goal is to stop the aforementioned Bad Future from happening (something I can absolutely get behind), while also stopping General Hale's evil Hydra team. While I'm sure some might get tired of Hydra coming back, it's hard for me to really get all that mad. Hydra is the villain of SHIELD, and their existence always makes the show better. It helps that the antagonists in this part of the season are all great, from the cold General Hale, to the scarily unpredictable Ruby, to General Talbot, who ends up becoming the unstable villain Graviton. You can tell this was meant to be the final season because the arc also brings in past villains (Creel, Ivanov, Werner) and plot points (Centipede, Cybertek) to tie the whole show together. But even more, the character work this arc is outstanding. The drama over trying to stop the bad future from happening is very compelling, especially once it becomes apparent Coulson is going to have to die. The team really starts to get fractured throughout this arc as they all make some really morally grey decisions, most notably Yo-Yo and Fitz, but the drama works better here because it feels more complex, character-driven, and better balanced out by levity (mostly spawned from Deke adjusting to the present).

This season had plenty of great episodes, especially in the second half:

Rewind: The one episode I really loved from the first arc just happened to be the one episode to take place on Earth. While nowhere near as gripping as 4,733 Hours, this was a great Fitz-centric episode as we learn about how he made it to space as well as the general state of Earth at the time. Hale makes an impactful first appearance, and it was so great to finally get to see Hunter again. The stories he told of his time with Bobbi really made me wish we got that spinoff with them.

The Real Deal: I love 100th episodes, it's the perfect time for shows to celebrate their history and deliver a slam dunk of an episode. The Real Deal is a great episode in a lot of ways. The team learns about Coulson dying, the fear dimension is a great way for the characters to face spectres from their past, Deathlok reappears (since he's their first case), and Fitz and Simmons get married. But biggest of all is the crazy twist that Deke is Fitz and Simmons's grandson, ending this grand episode on an even grander note.

The Devil Complex: I can only imagine how controversial this episode must've been when it aired, I'm pretty sure this is the Buffy's Seeing Red of Agents Of SHIELD. It's emotionally exhausting but wow, I was so gripped. The reveal that Fitz is The Doctor was so shocking, and the fact that he went ahead with Daisy's surgery without her consent is even moreso. And if all that wasn't enough, Coulson got captured, Simmons learned Deke was her grandson, and Hale works for Hydra. Just what an episode.

Rise And Shine: I wasn't expecting a straight-up Hydra school, but it made for a really entertaining and surprising backstory for the Hales. It was cool to see past antagonists like Whitehall and Sitwell, and the aforementioned backstory had a lot of great twists and turns. Even better, however, was the scenes between Coulson and General Hale. They played off each other very well and every scene with the two of them was a treat.

All Roads Lead: This episode starts off fairly solid but once Ruby infuses herself with Gravitonium, things just spiral out of control from there. Werner getting his skull crushed was shocking enough, but Yo-Yo abruptly killing Ruby was a stunning twist that left me wondering who the antagonist would be for the rest of the season (it was Talbot).

The End: This is an amazing finale for this season, and it simultaneously works as a series finale and a season finale. I love how it balances being a genuinely action-heavy final battle with Graviton as well as an emotional climax with the discussion over whether or not Coulson should live. It's packed with powerful scenes like Fitz's death, Coulson and May's final scene in Tahiti, and Mack being made director. The End brings the whole series full circle, but the hook about saving Fitz left me excited to see Season 6 nonetheless.

Overall, Season 5 of Agents Of SHIELD is an interesting one for me. The first half was the worst arc in the show since "Real SHIELD", it was claustrophic, depressing, and lacking much of the show's identity. Once the team returned to Earth, however, Season 5 turns into a gripping story about fighting fate that ties all of the show together into a phenomenal character-driven arc that lived up to the high bar set by the Framework. As a whole, I'm glad I finally got around to watching this season. It took a bit to power through that first half, but the second half was just so worth it.

4/5 Stars