With May down and Sarge apparently very much not on their side, the SHIELD team struggle just to survive in the face of Izel and her zombie army. Back at the Lighthouse, an unexpected invasion leaves FitzSimmons contemplating desperate measures.

As big moments in SHIELD go, Sarge stabbing May through the stomach with his sword and shoving her through a portal is right up there. Having been such a pivotal character from the get go, of course seeing her die – and at the hands of the man she loves (ish) was going to sting. But that’s just the position this episode starts us from.

Zombie armies closing in, Sarge revealed in all his horrific glory as the alien overlord Pachakutiq, and an important member of the team down. Can things possibly get worse for the agents of SHIELD? Well, as it turns out, yes.

Daisy’s desire for revenge against the man who’s killed her mentor leads her, Mack and YoYo into a fight that they can’t actually win, even with their fancy new bracelets stopping Izel from possessing them. Izel isn’t the main problem, the newly empowered Pachakutiq is, and it turns out that Izel looks like a fluffy bunny by comparison to him. In the midst of this battle, one more tragedy is added to the books for the team.

On the other side of the portal though, they have an unexpected ally, one that is determined to put an end to all this once and for all and has the tools and the guts to do it. Even when Izel herself goes through the portal to try to make sure the job gets finished, she finds herself faced with an enemy for which she isn’t nearly as prepared as she might think she is.

While all this chaos is going on, The Lighthouse comes under siege by the Chronicom hunters, who are apparently intent on wiping out SHIELD altogether and are using the knowledge they combed from FitzSimmons’ brains to bypass every security protocol and procedure. This leaves the scientists with the stark choice of blowing up every piece of SHIELD tech which the Chronicoms might find useful, and themselves with it. It’s all a bit bleak.

When things do conclude, there’s a fair bit of handwavium being applied to get there. In true SHIELD finale fashion, there’s big twists, massive leaps and surprise reveals. The problem is, that it starts to feel a little too contrived, narratively speaking. There are some serious logic gaps in certain elements of the resolution, and the final coda, while ostensibly designed to raise a rousing cheer from fans like myself, is more likely to elicit a groan.

I spoke a couple of episodes back about the show’s commitment to consequence and impact, and how surprising that was given the initial starting premise. This conclusion has the unfortunate consequence of diluting a lot of that achievement in various ways, in order to deliver what I am sure the writers felt would be a fan-pleasing ending. Unfortunately, my abiding feeling as the credits rolled was ‘was any of this actually worth it’. That said, the setup for the seventh and final season is at least intriguing, if a little cliched by the standards of the genre.

Verdict: Ending much as it began, with a whimper rather than a bang. For all the impact and drama that certain moments of this episode (and this season) had, the ending is just far too neat, and shies away from consequence in a way that this show rarely has, historically. A shame. 6/10

Greg D. Smith