Surprisingly positive thoughts on the Agents of SHIELD series finale

[sholio]

Mainly the Agent Carter related parts of it.


If you just want to watch the part of the ending including the last Daniel Sousa scene, you can watch it on Youtube here (for however long it stays up).

I am having an interesting mix of feelings. I was not expecting to get as emotional as I got over that final shot of Daniel on a spaceship, looking out with wonder. But it's also that sort of ... way you feel over a comic (or other bit of extended canon) that does something really cool which is also outside the part of the canon that's "yours."

It's a very comic-booky sort of feeling. It's that thing where you get to have some really neat scenes for your favorite character where they're part of the Avengers while also, in your head, they are very firmly NOT on the Avengers because your head is very firmly stuck on their solo book run from ten years ago when they were paired up with a character you never wanted canon to stop pairing them with. So it's like ... what a very cool thing that just happened, I really enjoyed it, now I will go back to being firmly stuck in 2008 with whatever the comics were doing then, and pretend it stayed that way forever.

(Comics are like this a LOT.)

But Daniel deserves his time travel, outer space ending. You go boy.

Also, he's now technically part of the Cosmic MCU and could conceivably meet up with the Guardians of the Galaxy or Carol Danvers out there. I'm just saying.

Also also, now that I know his canonical ending, I have an immediate fixit in mind, which is Daniel rocking up in a SPACESHIP circa 1958 or so (a couple of years after Peggy and Jack think he died) and Space Things Happen. I will totally write this if it ever develops more of a plot in my head. I mean, in general I'm probably just going to carry on with Agent Carter as a closed canon that ended in 2015 and ignore this the same way I'm ignoring Endgame (it's semi-canonically a different timeline anyway), but yeah, the feels are nice feels, and that visual of Daniel looking out at a nebula or whatever is a really cool final shot for him.

And they all got a nice ending. I was never that into this show, not in the way I've been into a lot of other, similar shows, but it's really nice to have a long-running sci-fi show that ends on an up note, with everyone who made it to the finale ending up safe and alive and happy. That feels good.

Comments

[sovay]

Mainly the Agent Carter related parts of it.

Wait, what?

the last Daniel Sousa scene

WAIT, WHAT?

But Daniel deserves his time travel, outer space ending. You go boy.

DETAILS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN IN A WAY THAT I CAN'T MENTALLY RETCON IF I HAVE TO.

[sholio]

He was a series regular this season! I went into it thinking that he just had a cameo (they're time-traveling this season) BUT NO, they ended up picking him up in the 1950s and he came with them. So we've gotten to see Daniel react to things like time loops and humanlike androids and spaceships. Downside: everyone back in the 1950s thinks he's dead.

It's obviously a completely different plot trajectory for him than anything the two seasons of the Agent Carter show hinted at, but as of the last episode of Agents of SHIELD, he's alive and well in the modern-day world. In my head it exists as a sort of parallel dimension plot-track (I think even within the Marvel universe, at this point Agents of SHIELD is out of continuity with everything else) but it was really fun to get to see him in a bunch of new scenes.

[sovay]

In my head it exists as a sort of parallel dimension plot-track (I think even within the Marvel universe, at this point Agents of SHIELD is out of continuity with everything else) but it was really fun to get to see him in a bunch of new scenes.

That is completely whacky, but I am delighted that Enver Gjokaj got the work (I know Marvel basically prints money, but I always worry about actors I like!) and I look forward to your spaceship-rocking fix-it.

[sholio]

I am delighted that Enver Gjokaj got the work (I know Marvel basically prints money, but I always worry about actors I like!)

I know!! I really, really never expected to see him again after the end of the show, so it was a very nice treat.

And I will definitely be noodling around with a post-canon fixit in my head, so hopefully that will eventually materialize.

[kore]

He is SO GOOD. I watched episodes of Dollhouse for that man! (And Dichen Lachman, who's also amazing. I was so happy to see her on AoS S2! ....and then, welp.)

[viridian5]

They were truly the only reason to watch Dollhouse.

[kore]

Yeah, I adored Eliza Dushku as Faith, and I've liked her in other things, but she was just not the chamaeleon they needed for that lead role. (I thought she had a more fitting character in Tru Calling, altho that was a much worse show on the whole.)

[genarti]

I hadn't even fully realized Agents of SHIELD was still airing until I started seeing people talking about the series finale happening, so I definitely did not know all of this, and what! WHAT!! I'm cracking up, and also delighted. What a bonkers comics-type move to have made! And I too am glad for the actor, and hope he had fun with it.

Also, you've described that comics-fan feeling PERFECTLY. So many moments I simultaneously love and compartmentalize away!

[kore]

I remember when people were contemptuously calling Battleworld (remember Battleworld?) "Pizzaworld," but I actually LOVED Battleworld because it was like a whole truckload of contemporary batshit AUs. There was also a cracky hilarious series called Secret Warps where //handwave Infinity Stones and we got actual character mashups like Soldier Supreme and Iron Man Thor. I wish Marvel did more of those mini AU type stories, I'd buy them all with variant covers.

(yes I also have WAY too many "What If?" one-shots)

[xparrot]

Awww, yay, I'm glad to hear it ended upbeat -- I haven't watched AoS in a couple years and it was never a real fandom of mine, but I was fond of the team and glad to know they got a happy end. It feels like hearing friends of friends had a kid or something ^^

And comics canon and fanning on comics canon is such a special thing -- I'm not even that into many comics, more the adjacent media, but I still have that thing of enjoying multiple mutually exclusive versions of characters while having kind of an internal "but this is the REAL canon" happy place...

[sholio]

It feels like hearing friends of friends had a kid or something ^^

Heeeee. :D Yeah, that is kind of how I feel too - a sort of second-hand happiness about something I was never really that into, but it was still nice to see them get their happy ending. Especially with so many shows these days feeling like they have to have depressing endings because realism or whatever. This show has been so dark at times that I really was expecting the ending to be a downer in at least some ways, so the happy-ending aspect was quite a (pleasant!) surprise.

And comics canon and fanning on comics canon is such a special thing -- I'm not even that into many comics, more the adjacent media, but I still have that thing of enjoying multiple mutually exclusive versions of characters while having kind of an internal "but this is the REAL canon" happy place...

Hahaha RIGHT?? I think I used to have more trouble compartmentalizing it, especially within the same canonical continuity, but getting back into Torchwood lately has certainly been honing my ability to pretend that certain things never happened. XD And I've always been able to separate out multiple versions of comics continuity and adaptations without too much trouble (the movie characters are obviously not the same as the comics ones, etc), so this is really just another level of that ...

[xparrot]

At one time I was very wedded to canon -- I would do denial for specific things, but for the most part was very invested in whether a fic or something was "true" to canon. The longer I've been in fandom, the more I'm in favor of just taking from canon whatever makes you happy, and do what you want with the rest. It won't be the same as what other people like, and for some people you're going to be losing the thing that makes the canon most fun for them, but eh -- life is short, enjoy what of fandom you can!

And yeah, part of that was comics fandom (I most blame Smallville, actually, in that not only did I dislike a large chunk of the show, but also I started fanning on multiple different and incompatible versions of Lex Luthor for different reasons...)

[kore]

I've always totally cherry-picked from canon (it's why I'm in fandom! If I want canon I can....watch canon) and I kind of admire the fic writers who try to write fix-its that also incorporate every canon detail, but in a baffled way. It's also not something I could ever do myself. I think it's partly the viewpoint that "if it happened in canon, it's canon and you can't ignore it," but one of my very first fandoms was the X-Files and another was Xena, so I actually started out with the "given that your 'canon' is stupid-ass canon, I've elected to ignore it" feeling.

[xparrot]

the "given that your 'canon' is stupid-ass canon, I've elected to ignore it" feeling.

Ahahah yeah that! Just because I love a canon doesn't mean I have to love all parts of it...

Hah, X-files was one of my formative fandoms as well! But I got out of that one while the getting was good so didn't really have to deal with it then.

I enjoy the challenge of writing a fixit that hits all canon details, but it's sometimes more than I want to engage or acknowledge it. (my current fandom I am in complete and satisfied denial for, and I've written one proper fixit, and my other fic are all in handwavy everybody-lives post-canons that make no proper sense but are remarkably satisfying to write!)

[kore]

But I got out of that one while the getting was good so didn't really have to deal with it then.

That was smart! Some of us hung on to the BITTER END. (There were so much less to watch then, and some of us were so overinvested, and great TV heroines were a bit thin on the ground too.) And boy, WERE WE BITTER. We STILL ARE bitter. You can create an instant bond between older X-Files fans by just talking about the last two seasons. Altho I was smarter than my bitter friends who watched the sequel series, but that was mainly because I just didn't have streaming access. (Do I have both movies on DVD? Yes, yes I do.)

I enjoy the challenge of writing a fixit that hits all canon details, but it's sometimes more than I want to engage or acknowledge it. (my current fandom I am in complete and satisfied denial for, and I've written one proper fixit, and my other fic are all in handwavy everybody-lives post-canons that make no proper sense but are remarkably satisfying to write!)

That's me and MCU right now. Some of my friends who cut out after TWS....or CW....or just skipped the team movies altogether after Avengers....are looking pretty smart! Me, I always see the movie through to the end. Probably an atavistic reflex born from decades of my parents going "Well, we drove forty-five minutes to the mall, waited in line, got tickets, waited in line, got snacks, found seats, sat down in the AC/heated room, let's see if it gets any better in half an hour or so...."

[xparrot]

That was smart! Some of us hung on to the BITTER END. (There were so much less to watch then, and some of us were so overinvested, and great TV heroines were a bit thin on the ground too.) And boy, WERE WE BITTER. We STILL ARE bitter.

Oh yeah I feel that -- I have the advantage in that I'm a bit of a fandom butterfly; two years is a long time for me to be mono-fannish about something, so once that's passed I generally can drop things. But when I'm in the throes of fanning I can't just walk away, no matter how annoyed I get.

I never watched the TXF reboot but I totally did the movies! (literally all I can remember is...they're in a rowboat at the end? or something??)

And I'm probably going to watch the end of Supernatural when it comes, even knowing it's going to make me scream and not in a good way :P

The advantage of being a picker-and-chooser of canon is that you can still get enjoyment out of a lot of it! Like, the MCU movies, I've seen most of them, and they mostly have fun scenes and moments, even if on the whole you don't want to take them as canon.

[yalumesse]

I was distinctly unmoved by the whole thing. To me, Daniel in AoS... just wasn't Daniel. Something close, sure, but an AU Daniel at best. I didn't like that he was forced into the mold of Daisy's love interest 0.2 seconds after he was checking his hair in hopes of seeing Peggy aggain. It was too fast to be organic. So I'm very detatched from it, and similar to you my headcanon for him is going to be closed to those two very finised seasons of Aggent Carter, and I'm good with that.

But I'll totally take a cracktastic Big Spaceship Adventures fic if you're offering ;)

[sholio]

I think what it comes down to for me is that I gravitate towards character relationships more than individual characters, so Daniel by himself is just ... nope, I wanted him with Peggy and Jack et al.

Totally considering a spaceship fixit, though. :D

[yalumesse]

Good point. Even time travelling Peggy wouldn't be nearly as interesting without people around her.

[schneefink]

...all right then! I think I prefer not to think of it as canon (like the ending of Endgame and some other stuff...) but it's a fun AU.

[sholio]

Hahaha, I totally get that. It was fun to watch, but it's definitely AU for me.

[chelseagirl]

(Dammit, my wifi cut out after I'd written a long response to this, so this is my second try.)

Since the word from the Marvel folks was mixed -- some thought the Peggy/Steve ending was in our own continuity and some did not, and there were good reasons for each -- I honestly thought in terms of our girl being called up to the big leagues of the MCU, and took it as real. But also, for fannish purposes, that I could continue my PeggySous ship with, as you say, an Agent Carter canon that closed when the show ended.

I'd quit AoS awhile back, but watched this season for Daniel Sousa. While I was not 100% down with the new prosthetic -- it effectively erased his disability, which was hurtful to some disabled fans I know who'd identified heavily with him -- I thought Daniel/Daisy was sweet, and developed naturally. And I also cried a bit during that final scene, even rewinding several times in order to do so.

[kore]

While I was not 100% down with the new prosthetic -- it effectively erased his disability, which was hurtful to some disabled fans I know who'd identified heavily with him

WHAT? Oh, that makes me really unhappy.

[chelseagirl]

Yes, it was pretty uncool.

[kore]

Aww man, the actor was so great at doing it realistically, too. (Well he's great at everything.) (He KEPT HIS SSR BADGE, how fucking adorable is that. https://collider.com/agents-of-shield-enver-gjokaj-interview-agent-carter/)

[chelseagirl]

So adorable. I really like Enver Gjokaj and hope he gets some more really good roles.

[kore]

In his interview he said he tries to write five items for a gratitude list every day in quarantine and had an older mentor (hmmmm!) who told him, "On Sunday we do Sunday shit. On Monday we do Monday shit. We don't do Sunday shit on Monday or Monday shit on Sunday." That's great.

[sholio]

See below comment for my reaction to this. I have a disability similar to Daniel's, and part of my love for Daniel was because of that, but I also felt like having the tech available and not using it would have felt like a profound oversight to me.

The actual problem that I, personally, have with this kind of thing in media is that they don't generally deal with the adjustment period and/or downsides of this kind of miracle tech, but I'm also willing to handwave it because of the TV episode format and the show not actually feeling like that's something they want to spend time on, in the same way that I can handwave terrible TV CPR. I mean, obviously different viewers will have different reactions to this kind of thing, but the show keeping Daniel at his canonical 1940s level of disability in 2020 would have felt a lot more wrong to me, tbh.

(Also, I do really appreciate getting canonical confirmation that it actually IS a prosthesis, which we never actually got in AC.)

[kore]

(Also, I do really appreciate getting canonical confirmation that it actually IS a prosthesis, which we never actually got in AC.)

Hunh, I thought that was confirmed in the pilot:

You know, after I got hit, at the field hospital, the chaplain asked me was there anybody I wanted to send my effects to should, you know, the worst happen. I told him I didn’t think my dad had much use for two pairs of green socks and an old paper bag. Let him remember my life, you know? Of course, I didn’t die, which was inconvenient because the chaplain had already trashed my footlocker. Still missing half my stuff....I can’t find my leg anywhere.

[sholio]

About the disability thing - okay, so Different People Are Different, etc, but I do actually have a leg impairment disability, and related to Daniel very heavily on that level, but I actually felt like having the technology around but not using it would've been worse. It made perfect sense to me that he would upgrade like that. The area where I have issues with it is that the adjustment was completely glossed over, but I get that it's shorthanded for TV purposes.

Mainly I'm glad to have it canonically confirmed that it's actually a prosthesis. :D Everyone was writing it like that in fic, but there was no actual canon confirmation until AoS.

[sheron]

Oh it was an AoS series finale?? I didn't realize. But also this sounds awesome?

Like, none of this will impact my AC headcanon (which is firmly stuck in the "how the tv show went and Endgame changes are alternate universe" headspace) but it's SO neat to hear of Daniel travelling outerspace?? I'm now thinking of watching this! (One day, when my other show feelings recede). I know exactly what you mean about it feeling like the comics, and that's just fine with me :D

[lynnenne]

I loved the addition of Daniel to the cast this season. And I agree, it was nice to see all the characters still alive and content at the end.

[kore]

I was really scared they were going to kill off May. That last scene really was nice, altho it kind of also reminded me of social distancing. D:

[kore]

It was probably due to scheduling conflicts or something, and I love that actor and it's great to see him doing more work, but after the first season it was like AoS really erased Peggy and that was a bummer. That final shot of Daniel in space sounds really sweet though.

I think this actually is an alternate timeline? It's clearly not MCU canon and it also seems to be an AU of the AoS canon itself. I'm not sure, though.

[amalthia]

looking forward to reading your thoughts once I finish the last three episodes of this season!

[kore]

I was also thinking, and wow, this really is the end of the Whedon-influenced MCU, isn't it....he was the one doing this show right after Avengers when his stock was sky-high and he also had influence on the MCU storyline long after AoU, altho he and Feige claimed he was the one who brought in Thanos when it was really Nicole Perlman. -- ANYWAY. EG even went back to AoU for some big plot points. But now it looks like the movies are going to maybe move into the multiverse, and possibly break out of the alternating solo trilogies/team movies pattern, and I wonder if they're all going to fit together as tightly or if there'll be some of that AU feel. (I really wondered this because of the What If? show getting a lot of publicity, too.) Obviously they're doing the synergy thing where the D+ shows now weave into the Disney movie and vice versa, but that's an even bigger machine with lots more working parts to keep track of and match up.

tl;dr I really like AUs, it seemed like EG was setting us up for some AUs?, please, Feige, just give me some cracky AUs like Cowboy Steve and Frog Thor (if they can bring back fucking Howard the Duck they can damn well give me Frog Thor)

[brightknightie]

>"(Comics are like this a LOT.)

:-D

"What do you mean, there's canon for the Scarlet Witch and the Vision after the birth of their sons in the late '80s? You must be mistaken. Everything was absolutely perfect right then at that exact moment and no one would ever have... oh, you found my shelf of graphic novels? and my trunk of comics? You think that you have evidence that I actually indeed know that Vision's entire backstory was painfully retconned by Mr. Byrne, and that then lots of stuff happened, including at least two full-scale psychological fridgings of Wanda, but that now at least Tommy and Billy are back as Wiccan and Speedster? Huh. No, nope, sorry, not me. Nothing has changed since the boys were born in New Jersey in the late '80s. Honest."

:-D

[indywind]

I won't dwell on my feelings about later-seasons Agents of Shield and the wider/multiverse MCU plot and character arcs, because I don't want to harsh anyone's squee. Except Black Panther and Captain Marvel, everything after CA:TWS is AU to me.

But hooray for Enver Gjokaj getting more employment and screentime! He's such a competent actor, besides being nice to look at. I've recently started watching 2011's Person of Interest crime/spyfi TVshow from Netflix, and caught him doing good work in a one-off guest role as a Russian mobster.

And if some fanwriter want to team up Sousa & Danvers (or even Sousa/Danvers)for some kind of hijinks, I would be all over that.

[amalthia]

Finished watching the end of the series. I liked the ending. Loved that the show gave characters time to interact and have conversations. I also loved that Daisy was sad that this would be the teams last mission and loved that they showed how the change would be hard on her because she grew to consider the team her family. I'm so glad they stayed in contact after they all went their own way.

[lokifan]

Awww! I'm so disconnected - and never saw AoS - I had no ideal Daniel was in it! But that's a lovely ending :) Totally agreed on the awesome final shot.