ABC/Kelsey McNealIn an Inhumans vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. war, nobody wins.
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ended season two with a bang tonight, airing its two-hour finale that had more death and destruction than anyone on the show even realizes right now. Fellow comic book junkies, it's going to be a long summer.
When Skye's mother Jiaying decided to manipulate her fellow Inhumans into a war against S.H.I.E.L.D. during last week's action-packed episode, she knocked over the first domino in the chain reaction that, in the end, would result in her death, but succeed in her ultimate goal in finding and changing more Inhumans, and making the world a better place for them, despite all the innocent, regular humans who would die as a result of that. But how did we get to this point?
The war between the Inhumans and S.H.I.E.L.D. heats up when Jiaying has Gordon steal one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s quinjets and shoot on the compound, but only blowing up the building with Gonzales' body inside, destroying all the evidence of her scheme. Skye, believing her mother that they were attacked unprovoked, ends up fighting against May and knocking her out with her powers. Remember the days these two were attached at the hip in training? We miss those days.
Jiaying continues to manipulate her daughter, and heals herself…by taking the life of another. Turns out, the Inhumans have been sacrificing themselves to her for decades so she can lead, but she used to hate it. Until, that is, Hydra's Whitehall tore her apart and Cal put her back together. According to Cal, she was never the same after that, and turned heartless.
Raina warns Skye about what's really happening, and tries to tell her not to trust Jiaying. She sees the future, and knows Skye will come to lead the Inhumans…and that Jiaying will kill her. She ends up letting it happen, knowing Skye will see the whole thing, horrified at what her mother's done. When Skye refuses to go along with her plan to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D., Jiaying has her knocked out.
S.H.I.E.L.D., however, knows that something is up, and Coulson refuses to make any rash decisions against Skye and her new people until he knows the whole story…and Cal is the perfect source. But after he downed all the vials of his own concoction, he gets manic (and a manic Kyle MacLachlan is just. The. Best!), passes out and flatlines. Turns out, the missing ingredient in his superjuice was adrenaline...and Simmons injects him with it to try and resuscitate him.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mister Hyde to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base! He goes absolutely nuts and trashes the whole base, while managing to be equal parts terrifying and hilarious at the same time. It was truly a sight to behold. Coulson refuses to kill him, though, knowing how much he means to Skye. They pin him down with a car so Coulson can talk with him.
Since Coulson doesn't believe that Cal is a truly bad man, and he was just manipulated by Jiaying so they could find their daughter, he talks some sense into Cal, making him understand he really isn't a monster, and convinces him to help him help Skye. Who would have thought we'd ever see a team up between Coulson and Cal?! This is everything we didn't know we ever wanted.
Hunter has Fitz track where Bobbi disappeared…and the answer is more terrible than any of us could have imagined. Ward and Agent 33 captured Bobbi to torture her into confessing she was the one who handed Kara over to Hydra back when she was undercover at the beginning of this season, and even though Ward comes up with the most cringe-worthy, terrible torture methods (seriously, we almost puked more than once), Bobbi stays strong and even tells them she would do it all over again to maintain her cover and save the lives of many at the cost of one. She even tries to get inside Agent 33's head, but fails, as Agent 33 promises that no matter what, she "stands with Ward."
But Bobbi manages to get out of her shackles and attacks both Ward and Agent 33, and while she kicks major ass and holds her own against two trained fighters, they manage to get the advantage. Ward breaks her leg and knocks her out, setting her up as a trap for Hunter to find. When he walks through the door, he'll see Bobbi, but an automatic gun will shoot him in the head. This. Is. Heartbreaking.
As Hunter walks into the room, towards certain death, Bobbi manages to jump in front of the gun, almost killing herself to save her ex-husband from the gunshot. Meanwhile, May tricks Agent 33 into wearing her face, and Ward, thinking it's the real May, shoots and kills her before realizing his mistake. It's chilling just how quickly and ruthlessly Ward shot May, truly believing her killed her, even with all their history between them. He's officially too far gone for any redemption at this point, and he knows it, having just killed the girl he "loved." And since Hydra has disintegrated (most of the heads were killed in Avengers: Age of Ultron), Ward builds his own Hydra team, intent on getting revenge for the death of Agent 33.
Meanwhile, after quitting last week, Mack decides to stay with S.H.I.E.L.D. until the battle is over and that's a very good thing, since he sees the Inhuman army sneak onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. ship with an unconscious Skye as their prisoner. They take the ship, intending to steal the alien rock onboard, the one that is "lethal" to their people. Mack frees Skye, and has her return to her hacker roots to take control of the ship back and send a message to Coulson letting him know what's happening on board. Seeing Skye work her magic on a computer felt just like old times, and it. Was. Goooood.
Not so good? Jiaying's ultimate plan. She wants to get all of S.H.I.E.L.D. to come to the ship's rescue so she can use all her Terrigen crystals on them, killing all the humans and changing all the Inhuman descendants among them. But Lincoln doesn't agree with Jiaying's methods, however, and switches sides. Good choice, bro.
This is when the action really heated up! Mack faces off with Gordon trying to keep the crystals intact after Coulson and Fitz set up a device that makes him unable to teleport out of the room, while Skye takes on a girl who can multiply herself five times and Lincoln and May help her, and Cal takes on Jiaying. But when Cal gets locked up, Skye goes after her herself, and when Jiaying realizes that Skye will never take her side, she tries to suck out her life force, killing her own daughter!
But Skye breaks free, and uses her powers to send the quinjet carrying a case of crystals to the bottom of the ocean. But when Gordon accidentally teleports himself right through the pipe Fitz was wielding, killing himself, he drops the single crystal he was holding. Coulson dives to catch it so it doesn't break, and it lands in his bare hand! He starts to turn to stone, and orchestral music starts playing, implying that Coulson's about to die…but the moment changes from gutwrenchingly sad to totally horrific when Mac suddenly chops off his hand with an ax! That...took a turn.
Meanwhile, Cal breaks out and finds his two ladies killing each other, and he steps in to kill Jiaying himself so Skye doesn't have to live with the pain of killing her own mother. What a messed up family tree. Once again: who would have thought we'd see Cal as the hero of the story?!
After the dust settles, the Inhumans learn the truth about what their leader was doing and the war with S.H.I.E.L.D. ends. Back at the base, Bobbi wakes up in her hospital bed, facing months and months of recovery and surgeries, and tells Hunter she can't do this anymore. Does she mean her relationship with Hunter, or her service in S.H.I.E.L.D.?!
Coulson convinced Mack not to quit (and used his chopped-off hand as blackmail pretty much, which...totally deserved). May asked for a vacation, and it's implied she's taking it somewhere tropical with her ex-husband. Cal undergoes the T.A.H.I.T.I. program, having his memory wiped and becomes Dr. Winslow, a vet who doesn't remember Skye. Buh-bye Mister Hyde.
And here's where the show sets up the now-official season three: a one-handed Coulson decides to put together a new team, centered around people with powers, led by Skye, under the promise that everyone on the team will be kept anonymous. An Inhumans team! Ah! It's all happening!!!
But even Coulson and Skye don't realize just how important and necessary their powered team is now, since the crate of crystals Skye sunk in the ocean breaks open, infecting all the fish, who are then caught by fishing ships and chopped up into fish oil pills sent to supermarkets and pharmacies everywhere. The world is about to become overrun with unsuspecting Inhumans! Jiaying's plan succeeded, even if she did survive to see it happen.
And then the end credits sequence totally broke our hearts. All throughout the chaos of the episode, Simmons finally realized that she loves Fitz, making 'shippers everywhere jump for joy and break down in happy tears! She implies as much to Fitz, and he later asks her out to dinner. But after she says yes, while running tests on the mysterious Kree liquid/rock, the rock breaks free of the case and swallows her whole! WHAT. How can you give us FitzSimmons and then take it away so violently the next second?!
Is it fall yet?!