As Izel prepares to release her people and devastate the world, the agents of SHIELD and Sarge prepare to make one last desperate gamble to stop her.

So, last time out, Mack and YoYo were prisoners of Izel, who had the monolith ‘essence’ and was ready to open a portal and let an army of her people through to wreck the Earth, with only the remainder of SHIELD left to stop her if they could figure out a way to prevent her possessing them at will. Ticking clock, world-ending threat – so far, so SHIELD finale.

The appearance of Flint at the end of that last episode really threw me, as I have to admit it feels like a lifetime ago that we last saw him and I’d half-forgotten the character. It turns out to be a very clever re-appearance though, tying into the plot nicely on several levels. Mack and YoYo haven’t manifested him by accident, and there’s more than their simple fear of losing him again which drove that.

Meanwhile, Sarge, Daisy and May are heading in, with the half-assembled plan of the latter two distracting Izel and whatever minions she might have while Sarge gets up close and rams his sword in her. That’s a plan which relies on Sarge being able to control the ‘rage’ which is building inside him and let it out effectively. It’s also a plan predicated on the thin hope both Daisy and May have that somewhere inside Sarge is a Coulson just trying to break free. It’s a nice, tempting thought, especially given his face and how much importance the man had to them both, but are they really thinking this through?

Back at the Lighthouse, Deke has more than a couple of surprises lined up for his grandparents, but to his disappointment they aren’t quite as excited as he might have hoped. This is actually a big episode for the Deke character, who to this point in the season has mostly served as a punchline. Here, Jeff Ward gets some real heavy lifting as we get to see the real emotion behind the playful mask. Deke – like Sarge – is a man entirely out of time and without a real place to belong, and that turns out to be a more powerful and present motivation in his life than he’s ever let on. All the things the show (and audience) seem to have written off as quirky idiosyncrasies turn out to be deep-rooted defence mechanisms for a guy who just wants to feel a part of something, and here he more than gets his chance.

On the ground, as the gang close in on Izel, it all falls down to Sarge and what kind of man he really is. The answer isn’t necessarily a surprise, but it’s one that will have a huge impact on long term fans of the show like myself.

Although there’s plenty that’s good in the episode – lots of decent character development, meaty dialogue etc – it can’t help but feel at times that the overall narrative of the finale is being dragged out a little. This feels like the slowest end of the world that the show has ever tried to deal with, and Izel at times feels like nothing so much as a token bad guy cypher to be standing around in the background doing bad guy stuff while our heroes all have heart to hearts. SHIELD has always been about characters first, but rarely has the pacing suffered so much as it does here as a consequence. Still, the one thing we know for certain is that it’ll all be brought to a conclusion in the next episode.

Verdict: A jarring mix of compelling human drama and a snails-pace ticking Armageddon clock which robs the episode of momentum. The finale promises to be interesting, if it ever gets to where it’s going. 7/10

Greg D. Smith