The return of a familiar face may give the SHIELD team a fighting chance of defeating AIDA, if they can avoid being arrested first. Meanwhile, YoYo faces a race against time to get Mack out of the Framework, and Fitz wrestles with his conscience.

It was perhaps inevitable that any conclusion to the season-spanning arc of this season, which has taken in alternate dimensions, a vengeful hell demon, Life Model Doubles and a parallel reality in which HYDRA won, would feel a little rushed. However, one can’t help but think that the writers of the show set themselves up for a fall here.

The thread which led us here has been full of drama, emotion and thrills. The long set up of AIDA, from Holden Radcliffe’s pet science project to world-threatening supervillain, was detailed and well-executed. The journey of Holden himself, wavering right on the razor’s edge between the light and the dark, was played to perfection by John Hannah. The Ghost Rider, a supernatural, flaming skull-headed demon of vengeance, was linked to the advanced AI and alternate virtual reality by the unifying theme of the Darkhold. All of it was done well, and made for a consistently excellent show which really came into its own in this fourth season.

But they left themselves just not enough time. Watching this episode, it’s hard to reach any other conclusion. Where previous seasons have concluded with a double header feature length episode, here we have a wrap up of all those various threads in one hour-long slot. That means we get the final tie off of several deeply complex and emotional plot lines all competing for space. Mack’s tortured decision as to whether to leave his fake daughter behind in the Framework or not; YoYo’s associated pain; the ongoing tension between Coulson and May; the return of Ghost Rider and a catch up of where he’s been and why he’s back, and the obvious chemistry between him and Daisy; the rift driven between Fitz and Simmons as well as the self-imposed one between Fitz and the rest of the team; the endgame of AIDA – these are just some of the many things the season has set up and here leaves itself no room to satisfactorily conclude.

That it then adds in other serious, dramatic events as well just exacerbates the issue, leaving us with no fulfilling answers to most of the important stuff and yet more questions that we can’t rely on getting answers to, based on the way this finale is handled.

It’s a shame – it’s a genuine joy to see Robbie Reyes return, there are some decent surprises in there (though more in the line of ‘gotcha’ moments at the audience than considered moments of unexpectedness) and the action scenes are, as ever, great to look at. We also get some fine acting from all concerned, but unfortunately they’re working from a script which gives things no time to breathe – it’s no good giving me a serious, emotionally affecting event for the characters if they are then forced to just go to the next scene as if nothing happened because we’re running out of episode time.

The sting is frankly odd – apparently tying in to a cryptic exchange earlier in the episode but doing nothing further to explain it. With the recent announcement that the show has been renewed for a fifth season, we can only hope that we get answers to all the questions left dangling at the end here, but it feels a little galling to have such a consistently strong season end on such a comparatively flat note.

Verdict: Rushes to an unsatisfactory conclusion after a whole season of consistently dazzling with its quality – it almost feels like the writers suddenly realised that they only had one episode left to wrap things up, and just tried to cram everything in there. Disappointing. 6/10

Greg D. Smith