Amph Agents of SHIELD Discussion Thread (and Slingshot)

It was a pretty good grand finale. Damn shame that Iain could only appear in the final three episodes, but at least they used him to the fullest extent they could.

Very fitting final shot though.

Spoiler

This show came about basically in order to give Agent Coulson his own show, so it's nice that he gets the final word in. (even though it's technically "a" Coulson and not "the" Coulson lol)

 

Jeff Ward made Eric and Aaron (of Blind Wave) SHIELD agents:



They also do a fun little recap skit of some of the show's events (WARNING: language) in the first 8-9 min as well.

If you're going to work the other movies into your rewatch for a full MCU (or, at least, AOS+films) run, I have the full list in the video linked to in the opening post of the main MCU thread here. You'd just have to add Seasons 6 & 7 into that between Infinity War and Endgame.

EDIT-


Also, I got to thinking more about the time travel...

Spoiler

I had thought that maybe Stark had built his tech theories upon the work that Fitzsimmons did... but it actually might end up being a time loop. If you consider how old their kid is, it is quite possible that they were out in space until after Endgame and could acquire/build upon Stark's tech before traveling back to use it in their way, which then allows Stark to build upon what remains, etc (since he has no monolith, etc).

And it would have to be a loop, because otherwise the prime timeline played out with them abandoning Piper forever, everyone else on the team dies from orbital bombardment, Fitzsimmons chill in space for a few years, then travel back to Piper and thereby create a branching timeline...

I still prefer that they figured out some basics with what they had and Stark figured out the GPS nav side of things to create the finished time travel tech in Endgame, but it's possible no one really ever invented it...

 

Speaking of which, the final S7 timeline setting breakdown is:

Spoiler

Agents of SHIELD Season 7:
701-702: 1931a
703-704: 1955a
705: 1973a-1976a
706: 1976a
707: 1982a
708-712: 1983a
713: 1983a-2019-2020

(I'm operating under the notion that the post-S5-timeloop 2018+ is to be considered the prime timeline 2018+, with the 2091 we see in S5 being an alternate timeline created by the timeloop/monolith/Robin's abilities, even if, technically, 2091a should be the original timeline that allowed knowledge from it to be developed via the timeloop and avert things into an alternate timeline where Earth survives. However, I don't think it is practical to consider Endgame+ movies moving forward as taking place in an alternate timeline, thus my designations.)

 

Spoiler

Fury would have still been snapped at this point in time, unless we got a 30 year old Fury in the past (who would have had to have been played by an actor other than Sam, since they probably don't have the budget on AOS for de-aging effects). Clint wouldn't have even been a pre-teen yet, though seeing Ronin in the epilogue would have been a possibility, technically.

 

Spoiler

-Keep in mind that most of the Chronicoms had been repurposed into hunters from other roles, so, while May have a a strong influence here, there's also a degree of resetting them back to their original programming.

-Fury is still snapped for 3 more years as of the end of the show, so he's not part of that crew (at least not yet).

-More than just "not Deke"- the team will never be together in the same room. They can send messages and meet up in their private Framework virtual speakeasy, but they're spread out doing their own things.

-I'm glad they didn't forget that detail. That was a big question at the start of this season of what happened to that support crew we saw at the end of S6.

Spoiler

Fitz actually had Deke's helmet, not a Time Heist-style helmet. The Quantum Tunnel ceiling panel array was definitely a nod to that tech, however.

The end of S4 is already deep into post-Civil War movies, however. And, when they come back from the future (which is the earliest point in time that the timeline potentially branches out to destroyed/not destroyed Earth), they're already concurrent to Thor Ragnarok's events.

The interesting twist about Hulk's statements on time travel is that they're only about changing your past- they technically do not say anything about changing your future (which, if there is some kind of tether, can be given a non-relative POV). Not to mention potential rules for causality loops. The former may be splitting hairs, but it is a direction that allows wiggle room for further variations from the Endgame rules. And the latter is still a possibility supported by Endgame (if we take the "Basement Steve" suggestion made by some powers that be in regards to Cap always being Peggy's husband).

Of course, as I alluded to earlier, if you want to be absolutely strict, Hulk's rules can be applied to AOS if you end up with the result of Season 6, Season 7, Endgame & FFH taking place in the resulting alternate timeline branch of SHIELD's S5 actions (or a second alternate timeline branch due to Fitzsimmons jumping back to S6 after developing the time drive) and that the destroyed Earth future was really the prime timeline.

(And since Prof Hulk was created years after the timeline split, from his perspective that S6/7/EG/FFH timeline branch is "his" prime timeline anyways)

But, I think the easiest solution is simply you have a separate set of rules for time loops caused by the monolith (where the use of the monolith creates a loop that results in an alternate branch, so that when you break the loop you revert back to prime). This is somewhat supported by the team's initial "splashes, not waves" operating theory being disproven by the end of this season. They were trying to apply monolith time loop rules to more "standard" quantum time travel rules.

And while Stark could certainly work out stuff on his own, the fact remains that he would have very likely had access to the now-4-years-old SHIELD data from S7 to factor into his research. At the very least, it would help him determine what tech (the GPS) was missing that he needed to invent in order to make the idea feasible.

EDIT- Jeff Ward mentioned an unfilmed scene they had planned to shoot but ran out of time for:

Spoiler

The after credits scene would have been a SHIELD office chair turning around, revealing Deke wearing an eyepatch.

 

Spoiler

Oh, I'm sure the similarities in attire are intentional. Not sure I'd take it as a uniform, though. Could be that Mack wanted to emulate or honor Fury as a way of honoring Coulson. Or it's just cold on a flying helicarrier and so wearing a long, heavy leather jacket simply makes sense.

If there is a separate group operating around this point, I imagine it would have been folded into SHIELD eventually- even if it took a year or two for them to hook up and integrate.

 

FInally got to the last 3 episodes. That was indeed an emotionally satisfying ending to the series and I'm always grateful for that.

 

I was thinking about trying to rank the villains too. Still gotta think it over. Ruby and Izel would probably be at the bottom of the list for me (well, as far as recurring villains go and not the various S1/S2 one-shots-of-the-week). Kora sucks as a villain but was ok as a side-character, so it's harder to balance her. Nathaniel was not the worst but not really worthy of the scope his role had (and his oversized Breakfast Club jacket attire didn't help).

Spoiler

Sibyl was taken down by May's badass entrance, yes (she was not reprogrammed to be a hunter, so she wasn't a fighter, even if she hadn't been knocked down).

Piper and Davis (who has been around since Season 1! Though the majority of his appearances were from Season 4 onwards). Davis was killed when Izel possessed his body and made him fall and land on his head. Simmons offered Piper anything she wanted in order to do the task she was being asked. The coda reveals that Piper's request was for an LMD of Davis to be made (which is what they're arguing over in the car).

One assumes they must have made a copy of Davis's mind back in Season 4 when the LMD/Framework project was still being tested (or that Radcliffe had one made as part of the infiltration takeover of the Playground).