Daisy grappled with her humanity, Hive played God, and someone was lost forever on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 finale.
The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 finale puts a remarkable conclusion on a season full of riveting story and brilliant thematic development. As thoroughly cognizant of faith as the season has been, “Absolution” and “Ascension” provide an incredibly twist on the conversation of gods and demons.
Together, the episodes focus the season’s gaze from the study of the divine to something perhaps even more miraculous; that which makes faith itself possible.
Humanity.
The intense humanism of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 finale takes several forms, but one of the most potent is Daisy’s cancerous guilt in the wake of her infection. Guilt itself, of course, is an intrinsically human trait (not to mention, one linked strongly to religion.) But, wrecked by her experiences under Hive’s sway, Daisy resists the idea that she can evolve out of her personal Hell.
Instead, our very first Inhuman attempts to erase her own humanity.
Hostile, bitter, and consumed with self-loathing, Daisy rejects Coulson’s forgiveness and pity. “I belong in this box,” she spits from her white room, demanding that he make the security protocols around her permanent — that she be sealed away from the world like a disease. Denied friendship, denied love, denied absolution, and forced to constantly re-live her crimes.
That’s rather ironic, as Daisy’s idea of dehumanization is the exact mechanism of the finale’s other major icon of humanity. Against all expectations, this end of the metaphor comes from Hive.
Blasted with the memory machine’s mind-altering rays, Hive’s brain (you know, such as it is) loses control of the lives he contains; the souls he has stolen, as Daisy puts it. To be a little bit pretty about the matter (though still entirely accurate, in my opinion) Lincoln, May, Mack, and Elena’s stunt results in nothing short of a miracle.
Hive — the god, the devil — is made a man.
Flooded with million of memories, Hive is overwhelmed by his own intrinsic humanity. He shivers with doubt, starts with confusion, grapples for a self-control that eludes mortal possession. He is no more than the sum of his selves, and those are painfully human. The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 finale offers one last observation of Nathaniel Malick’s heartbreak, the selflessness of Will Daniels… and both the evil and the tragedy of Grant Ward.
So the collision of Daisy and Hive is one that functions on both divine and humanist levels. Hive is freed from the indignity of the goobicle by his compliant angels, and a heartbreaking absolution from Mack cannot relieve Daisy’s burden now that Hive can disperse his poison with the Zephyr One.
Hungry, aching, and devastated, Daisy seeks absolution not from her friends, but from the so-called divine — the very source of her pain. She kneels before Hive, devout and beseeching, desperate to erase herself in the entity of her god.
And how utterly perfect that her god cannot answer her prayer. That the light inside of Daisy that Mack refers to (a duality, I believe, of humanity and divinity) was quite literally excavated by Lash. Daisy is preserved against Hive’s influence, permanently Inhuman and human, cast forever out of a Hell that felt like Heaven.
So she does, in her most Inhuman way, what any human would do: She tries to kick God’s ass, and it doesn’t go well. (It does, however, look fantastic, because director Kevin Tancharoen is just a wizard.)
The themes of humanity and divinity continue to weave through “Ascension,” as does the imagery of Heaven and Hell. Even as Simmons spikes the temperature in the Ragtag base, Fitz, May, and Daisy shiver far above, the Zephyr ascending to dangerous altitudes. Of course, the aerial command center is also raising Hive along with it — revealed at last in his truly hellish aspect — who by now is a god, the Devil, and a man all in one deadly collection.
But in spite of that impressive combination, it is not ultimately Hive who blends the human and the divine. (His terrifying demonic face is, after all is said and done, diffused into a welcome moment of humor from Coulson.) Nor is it Daisy who combines the two, as desperately as she tries to find forgiveness in the comforting prediction of death.
Instead (and certainly contrary to my expectations) it is Lincoln who finds a way to humanize the divine — and to make the divine human. Wounded and determined, Lincoln… well, Lincoln straight-up plays God. He steals Daisy’s destiny, propelling the doomed Quinjet into space Hive and the warhead inside.
In the jet with Hive, Lincoln finds a kind of peace that his previous whirl of self-destructive agony could never provide. He is his own man, making a sacrifice; a sacrifice so profound, in fact, that Hive seems envious. However godlike, Hive’s forced bonds, his parasitic nature, kept him ravenous for a connection that Lincoln has found in one selfless act.
“You must already feel a connection, to sacrifice for them,” Hive observes. “With all their flaws.”
And Lincoln, letting the fateful cross slip from his fingers, brings the entire thematic song of the season to a miraculous crescendo.
“They’re only human,” he says.
And in that humanity, how divine.
But while Lincoln finds graceful peace on the Quinjet (as, interestingly enough, does Hive) Daisy ascends to no such understanding. With agonizing echoes of Peggy Carter losing Steve’s voice on the radio, with painful memories of Fitz forcing Simmons to take their last breath of oxygen, Daisy panics, protests, and weeps for Lincoln to reverse course.
It is, after all, meant to be Daisy in that jet, an atonement, a punishment, and a relief all in one. There is nothing fair about Lincoln’s death, nothing just or balanced. There is only Daisy, left alone in her horribly human guilt while Lincoln ascends, paying for all of their mistakes.
And indeed, six months later, what is left but guilt? S.H.I.E.L.D. has come back to Earth, under new command and in desperate pursuit of the terrorist known as Quake. Quake is a violent thief, a terrifying menace, but she keeps Daisy’s promises before making her own small ascension of escape.
Though perhaps escape might be the wrong word. Daisy may now be a ghost, but she is the haunted one.
And speaking of haunted, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 finale left us with one final, unnerving nugget to ponder as the summer unfolds. Dr. Radcliffe, now apparently a close mentor to Fitz and Simmons, has decided to play God himself.
Speaking with his artificial intelligence companion AIDA, Radcliffe throws himself a celebration. He has, after all, achieved the ultimate act of humanity, that which makes our species divine: The creation of another living, conscious, and intelligent being.
And today is its birthday.