Full disclosure: I don’t exactly watch all of the tv, but I do watch two of the big ones – SHIELD and Arrow. I took note of some of the moments that got me excited and angry (as well as a few other comments I had overall) that I’m going to share with you. At first I thought this would be a quick post but there’s a lot to cover, especially with SHIELD, so this might be a long one. Just like your favorite shows though, it has to last you until fall when I can talk about the season premieres and how glad I am to have my favorite characters back. Btw, it should go without saying that there are MANY HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD, so if you haven’t watched either of the two shows I mentioned then you should probably stop reading and go fix that fact. Now, without further ado, let’s get started…
On Agents of SHIELD there were several moments where my heart skipped a beat or two. Honestly the whole episode was great (well, mostly, but we’ll get to that at the end). The first moment I honestly screamed at my TV though was when Agent Fury appeared just in time to save Fitz and Simmons from a watery death. After that it was pretty much nonstop action and a lot of cheering on my part. Things I loved about the last episode include:
- May finally getting the chance to kick Ward’s ass
- Fury and Coulson meeting during the big fight against Garrett (I love how casually Coulson is like “we need to talk but I guess now is not the time”)
- Peterson turning sides once he knew his kid was safe
And finally, making us think Garret was coming back and then killing him again right away put a HUGE SMILE ACROSS MY FACE.
There were also some other less specific things I loved about the show. For one, I loved all the snarky jokes in the midst of all the tension. It felt good to be able to stop holding my breath and laugh for a few moments. I also loved when Coulson and Fury finally got to have their talk. Most of all I love how this show is able to switch from tense to funny to sentimental and always make it feel natural. Despite all the fantasy elements in the series, the characters themselves always manage to remain very human, which is a nice touch that is able to make the show more relatable to it’s audience.
Final thoughts: If I rated SHIELD based on this episode it would get 5 stars. Usually it’s about 4 , but they definitely kicked it up a notch for the big finale. I’m really looking forward to watching Coulson rebuild SHIELD next season. My only semi downer remark is that I wish the final shot was of the team all together in a line after they meet Billy or the picture of Sky. The actual last scene left me scratching my head more than anything. I’m not sure where they’re going with this but we have plenty of time for wild specualtion till the show returns in the fall…
Whew, that was a lot and probably could’ve been it’s own post. Sorry but when I first had the idea to do a tv wrap-up, I didn’t think it would take that long to dissect just two shows. Everybody take a breath and get ready to dive into Arrow, which is basically going to be me saying how I didn’t like most of what was happening until I realized why it was happening. And on that note, let’s begin…
First let’s start with a like (well, partially). I enjoyed seeing the League of Assassins come in to help fight Slade’s army. My first reaction when I saw them was excitement followed by the thought, “I hope this doesn’t mean Sara made a deal and is leaving with them when this is over.” Of course that’s EXACTLY what happens, which was both predictable and a little disappointing.
Another thing that was somewhat predictable and disappointing was the way things ended with Roy and Thea. As soon as Roy said “I’m never losing you again” I knew something bad had to happen to screw everything up. The part that was a slight surprise to me was Thea finding the arrows under Roy’s bed. Of course she makes the wrong conclusion and runs off. Now for the part that actually made me angry about this episode: After finding the arrows she decides she can’t trust Roy or anyone else… so she runs off with her father who she just told to go “shove it” and assumedly is going to become a villain with him next season. I liked her arc of going from party girl to an actual decent human being, and I don’t want to see her turn away from that now. Hopefully this is just a slip-up (which everyone has on occasion, although not nearly as big) and we will be seeing her realize her mistake over time and shut her father down.
Now for the two biggest points to talk about here: the “no more killing” story arc and how it relates to the end of Slade Wilson. Now, as you may have noticed, most of this season has been about the Arrow making the choice to stop killing. At first the fact that Felicity kept pushing this while everyone else told Ollie to end things for good because Slade is a monster who gets no more chances was somewhat annoying to me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the fact that Ollie was becoming a better kind of hero, but I figure there are exceptions to every rule and Slade definitely should be one of them. That was how I felt right up until the end when everything started to come together for me. To continue though, I need to break down a couple other things I didn’t like at first but eventually started to get behind. Sorry if this is disjointed but that pretty much sums up the jumps my brain had to make to wrap itself around this episode.
1) At first I didn’t like Ollie telling Felicity he loved her (it felt too forced) or the setup of Ollie choosing between the two women he loves, but I did enjoy the turnaround at the end. Having it all be some kind of plan is way less boring or predictable. Way to play me, Arrow. (Side note: Even though I’m not sure I want Felicity and Ollie getting together, it really did break my heart a little seeing how disappointed she was that it wasn’t real. We’ve all been there, girl.)
2) I didn’t really like the flashbacks until the end when we flash between the Ollie-Slade battle in the past vs the one in the present. It was great to finally see the chance Ollie had to give Slade the cure but chose to “kill” him instead. Seeing that and then flashing to now when he has the same choice again finally made me ok with the choice not to kill him this time.
So there you have it, my TV wrap-up. The only other comments I might make is that I enjoyed the SHIELD finale more than just about any season finale of any show ever. It had lots of excitement and was completely satisfying. It didn’t ever try to make me angry with some awful cliffhanger to bring me back next season. Meanwhile, while I eventually ended up liking where Arrow went with it’s last story for the season, I didn’t appreciate Laurel’s father suddenly falling down and possibly dying in the last few seconds. “Oh no, now we have to wait till the fall to see if one of the main characters lives”. Either way this is going to make me angry, because either he ends up fine and you worried us for nothing, or you kill a main character for no reason when you already wiped out half the cast during Slade’s recent rampage. So yeah, not a huge fan of the Arrow finale but I loved the story arc they did leading up to it enough (and also want to see how they rebuild from all the destruction) that I’ll be seeing them next season. Agents of SHIELD definitely won season finales forever though, no doubt about it.