'AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.' meets 'AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR' | 'The One Who Will Save
With great power, comes great madness... Coulson and Talbot go galactic, while the rest of the team deal with the fall-out on Earth.
This week’s episode, ‘The One Who Will Save Us All’, focusses on what happens when a gravitonium-infused Talbot gets a taste of the powered life. While Coulson has his hands full with Talbot, the rest of the team grapple with more Earthly concerns: you know, building S.H.I.E.L.D.’s first spaceship, fighting off stray Marauders, and fighting… well, each other.
After last week’s throwaway line to ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, fans were left wondering if the fleeting reference would be the show’s only tie-in to the big-screen blockbuster. Rest assured though, this episode drops yet another mention of the events of ‘Infinity War’ – clarifying the show’s timeline, and setting up its collision with the MCU’s biggest event to date.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM BOTH
‘AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.’ AND ‘AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR’.
We pick up right where we left off, with Talbot using his newfound powers to levitate himself and Coulson into the sky and onto Qovas’ ship. Armed with his new mantra (“I can fix this”) and the righteous motivation of sparing humanity from an alien invasion, Talbot quickly takes the lead – much to Coulson’s dismay. He’s worried about both Talbot’s tactics and his sanity but is forced to watch on as Talbot makes demands with Qovas – who all but laughs in his face. But sure enough, the alien leader soon loses his confidence once Talbot crushes one of his minions into a bloody pretzel with a flick of the wrist. This is Talbot’s ship now.
Back on Earth, our agents are still fractured and angry. Daisy immediately gets into a physical fight with Yo-Yo after returning to the Lighthouse (with the corpse of her mother in a duffel bag, no less), Mack is still mad at Yo-Yo for her controversial killing of Ruby, and Fitz and Mack get into an argument on the ethics of espionage. All the while, good ‘ol Deke is still fawning over Daisy. Later in the episode, Daisy hands the vial of Centipede Serum and her mother’s dug-up corpse to Simmons, in the hopes that she’ll be able to cook up a cure for Coulson.
Back to the adventures of Coulson and Talbot-on. Forcing Qovas to kneel before him, Talbot demands a meeting with the rest of the Confederacy. Coulson realises that things are spiralling out of control and decides to take a different approach: teaming up with Hale. Hale, who’s been taking refuge on Qovas’ ship since Ruby’s death, is no longer the remorseless HYDRA general we first saw – her daughter’s death has left her broken and empty. Coulson, however, needs her help managing both Talbot and the Confederacy.
Talbot – donning his comic counterpart’s costume – and Qovas teleport themselves to the Confederacy’s meeting place, where the rest of 'The Six' immediately turn their noses up at the arrival of an Earthly “charlatan”. When one of the member notes that there are only six seats available, Talbot – who’s anointed himself “Earth’s Mightiest Hero” – decides to create a vacancy for himself by literally absorbing one of the alien leaders into his body.
Afterwards, Talbot and Qovas meet in private with Taryan, Kasius’ infamous father. Taryan shares that the Confederacy never intended on holding up their end of the bargain because they wouldn’t have been able to fight off Thanos anyway, whose attack on Earth has already begun. However, the Kree leader soon gets Talbot on his side by telling him that there’s still some Gravitonium left untapped below the Earth’s surface, and that the extra dosage could make him even more powerful – powerful enough, in fact, to defeat Thanos.
Talbot is intoxicated by the idea of being Earth’s only hope against Thanos and refuses to heed Coulson’s warning – instead, taking it as betrayal. Hale attempts to activate his HYDRA brainwashing as a last-ditch effort, but he sees right through her and crushes her. When Daisy and May arrive aboard Qovas’ ship, Talbot cries mutiny and easily turns away their assault. Daisy even blasts him at full Quake power, but her powers have no effect on the Gravitonium-infused Talbot and he knocks her out. He then dubs Coulson and May “prisoners of war” and declares that they should be treated thusly. And in the episode’s stinger scene, we see that Daisy has been sold off to Taryan. Uh-oh.
With only two more episodes to go before the season’s end, ‘The One Who Will Save Us All’ finally begins to slot in some of the missing puzzle pieces that make the apocalyptic future a tragic reality. That’s not to say that the path to Earth’s destruction doesn’t get that much clearer (only by a little!), but there’s an inkling of the season’s endgame, adding issues of morality, and no shortage of consequences, to every decision our agents – and non-agents – make.
Given what happens in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, there’s no way that ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ will completely ignore the biggest development to ever hit the MCU, right?
Right. The show is on a collision course with the big-screen blockbuster and according to Qovas, Thanos’ invasion is taking place concurrently with the events on ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Tony Caine’s passing reference last week was a clear nod to Iron Man and Doctor Strange’s battle against the Black Order at the beginning of the film, and considering that some fans have speculated the film takes place over roughly 24 hours – more ‘Infinity War’ mentions could be in store on ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’
At this rate, the final two episodes of the season will likely take place over the course of the same 24 hour period. Many fans will cry “cop-out” if the MCU’s most direct TV offshoot acknowledges the events of ‘Infinity War’, but it very conveniently spares half of its own ensemble from the film’s final twist.
With ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ suffering its own Thanos-related losses presents an interesting conundrum because at the time of writing, the show hasn’t been renewed yet. We’ll have to wait until May 2019 for ‘Avengers 4’ to reveal just how the surviving heroes intend to reverse at least some of what Thanos wrought (if they can), but in the meantime, any ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ deaths would have to stick for most of any possible Season 6.
New episodes of ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ are updated weekly on Amazon Prime Video.
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