Old plots bore fruit and terrifying new seeds were planted in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1 finale. Check out our recap and share your thoughts on “Beginning of the End”!
Here is the craziness that went down on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1 finale:
Incentives
A new recruit is introduced to the Cybertek mission base, where dozens of call-center-esque employees control the Centipede soldiers. They are about to orchestrate an attack on Team Coulson. But because Team Coulson is awesome, that doesn’t go super well for Cybertek, and they escape the Hydra bunker.
The artistic urge
On the Bus, Garrett gets the news and is like, “Whatever! I’m gonna draw on a glass window with a nail.” A deeply unnerved Ward watches Garrett draw and he asks if the two of them will really throw their lot in with HYDRA.
“It’s become bigger than HYDRA,” Garrett says, and tells Ward to decide what he wants. Ward is like, “I want my sane evil-daddy-replacement back, thanks,” but that’s not happening.
Garrett reveals that he has been drawing an apparently meaningless – but familiar – pattern of interlocking circles and lines.
The plan
In the mini-plane, Skye is thrilled that her Trojan Horse worked. Unfortunately, though FitzSimmons managed to tag the Bus, they are not responding. Coulson says that they need to find Garrett to find FitzSimmons.
The team prepares to invade Cybertek. The plan includes “grabbing the dealer” and “getting our ace in the hole.” Coulson bolsters the team with a quote from Nick Fury: “A man can accomplish anything when he realizes he’s a part of something bigger – a team of people who share that conviction can change the world.”
Are they ready to change the world?
Under the sea
Simmons wakes up in the medpod, which has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. She and Fitz have survived the fall due to the low-altitude flight, but Fitz has broken his arm. He is forced to tell Simmons that there is no way out of the box.
The two discuss dying. Simmons takes comfort in the First Law of Thermodynamics – that their energies have and will always been a part of living things. (Like monkeys. SNIFF.)
Fitz is about to make a confession to Simmons when she realizes that they can melt the seal on the glass to blow the window in and escape!
Clarity
Ward asks Raina to talk to Garrett, who is mooning at the Gravitonium. She recommends that he give the stuff to Quinn. Raina broaches the idea that Ward thinks Garrett is nuts, but Garrett says that the GH325 strengthened his body “and gave me clarity of mind.”
Raina admits that she has was only ever interested in “evolution,” and tentatively asks Garrett a question she has been holding for the Clairvoyant: “What will I become?”
Negotiating tactics
Quinn takes the army on a tour of the Cybertek facilities and shows them the Deathlok chair. Garrett walks in on the tour and pisses off the General. The feeling is mutual, so he rips the guy’s rib out and bludgeons him with it.
Monsters
On the Bus, a furious Ward confronts Raina as she leaves with Quinn and the Gravitonium. Raina says she agrees with Garrett, while Ward merely follows him. Raina says they need Skye – she is an important part of the “evolution” to come.
Ward says that Skye thinks he’s a monster. Raina isn’t sure that’s true, but if it is, Ward knows about Skye’s parents and the darkness inside her.
“I believe in a world where her true nature will reveal itself,” Raina says. “When that day comes, maybe you two could be monsters together.”
Later, Skye calls Garrett from Deathlok’s handler’s phone. He tells her that FitzSimmons are dead, and orders Ward to get Skye.
Directive
Coulson and Trip steal a tank and storm Cybertek, blowing an opening for May and Skye. The Centipede soldiers attack the tank, but luckily May and Skye have gotten to “the dealer.”
When the head guy switches the soldiers to “default directive” – protect Garrett – the soldiers lead Coulson right to him.
Hell and high water
Fitz and Simmons are ready to blow the window out when Fitz is forced to break the news that there is only one mask with enough air to get them to the surface. He insists that Simmons take it, but she refuses.
“Why would you make me do this?” she cries. “You’re my best friend in the world!”
“Yeah, and you’re more than that, Jemma,” Fitz finally admits. “So let me prove it to you.”
Simmons completely loses it, but Fitz presses the mask on her and blows the window. Simmons swims out of the box, towing an unconscious Fitz. When she reaches the surface, she screams for help – which arrives in the form of Nicholas J. Fury himself.
Oh, thank goodness
On the chopper, Simmons wakes up in a decompression chamber. Fury tells her that Fitz is being worked on – his brain was without oxygen for a long time. Fury was able to find them via the homing beacon Trip gave Fitz; Fury was looking for Coulson.
Strength
Ward stalks into the call center, taunting Skye. She does not take the bait. “Garrett is evil,” she says. “You’re just weak.”
Ward says that Skye made him want something for himself for once – maybe he’ll just take it. Cue the Cavalry. SORRY! Melinda May.
They knock it down and drag it out. Ward shows off his “I’m a misogynist” tattoos. Finally, May staples his foot to the floor and knocks him out.
As the saying goes, BOOYAH.
A second chance
Coulson confronts Garrett, who tosses him right at Nick Fury’s feet. (Garrett doesn’t know about that part, though.) Fury promises to have a conversation with Fury about TAHITI, but first offers Coulson the crazy-ass gun he tried to use to kill Loki in The Avengers!
“I know what it does,” he says.
Awww, yeah.
Unfortunately, the gun is not terribly effective against Garrett, though it works on Centipede soldiers. Fury’s gun is equally ineffective. Garrett says he and Coulson have seen the same thing – they are “blood brothers.”
“You didn’t tell me he’d gone this crazy,” Fury marvels; to make matters worse, Garrett even got Fury’s inspiring speech wrong! Garrett orders Deathlok to aim his mega-arm-gun-thing at Fury and Coulson.
Aces
Skye leads the Cybertek call-guy to “the incentives program,” which is no more sophisticated than family members locked in rooms, under terrible threat of violence. She finds Ace Peterson – the “ace in the hole” – and asks for a message to prove he is safe. She has hacked Peterson’s feed on her phone.
Across his vision, Mike sees a message. “Dad, what are we?” it asks. “We are a team.”
Peterson shoots the arm-gun at Garrett, and then stomps on the crazy would-be-prophet’s face.
Atonement
Garrett is packed into a coffin, and the Cybertek soldiers are sent to be de-serumed and de-eye-spy’d. Ward, however, is in for a world of hurt. Coulson tells him that Fitz may never be the same, and he will personally ruin the rest of Ward’s life.
“You devoted your entire life to a deranged narcissist who never gave a damn about anyone. And now he’s dead,” Coulson says. “You’ve got the rest of your life to wrestle with the question, ‘Who are you without him?'”
Later, Mike Peterson and Skye watch from afar as Ace is led to safety. Mike doesn’t want Ace to see him as a murderer, so he walks off into the night, saying that he will now be atoning for his actions.
Nice try
A charred and crumpled John Garrett busts out of his coffin and drags himself to the Deathlok chair. After being painfully re-built, he chortles, “There’s a reason why they say, ‘Cut off the head!’”
And then he is summarily blasted by Coulson, wielding the original 0-8-4.
Director
On the reclaimed Bus, Coulson rails at Fury for putting him through TAHITI. Fury takes it, but soon moves on to a more important topic.
“S.H.I.E.L.D. was a lot of moving parts,” Fury tells Coulson. “Guys like you were the heart – now you’ll be the head.” He gives Coulson a “toolbox” to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. from scratch, and tells the new Director to proceed as he sees fit.
Family, Exhibit A
The team meets Simmons at another secret base, to which Fury gave them coordinates. Simmons says only that Fitz is alive, which sounds ridiculously ominous.
The team is met by another Agent Koenig – this one named Billy. He welcomes them to “the Playground,” and says that everyone will get lanyards on a case-by-case basis.
“We don’t have much,” he tells Director Coulson. “But what we have is yours, sir.”
Family, Exhibit B
Raina walks down a dark hallway to a figure in an empty room. She leaves a picture of Skye next to the man, whose arm drips with blood.
“I found your daughter,” she says.
The beginning
Late that night, Phil Coulson cannot sleep, and whiles away the hours carving a vast – and now ominously familiar – map of circles and lines onto a wall of slate.