The final battle for Earth commences.
Tropes:
- Alternate Universe: Fitz confirms that the alternate timeline seen all season is a branch reality like the alternate timelines seen in Avengers: Endgame.
- And the Adventure Continues: Sort of. The team has broken up and gone in different directions, so the series premise doesn't continue, but the characters do. Except for Deke. We don't know what happened to him.
- Fitz-Simmons are still working as scientists, though no longer in the field, preferring to stay at home with their daughter.
- Mack is still the Director, but of a rebuilt SHIELD that operates in the open.
- May has retired from fieldwork and is now an instructor at Coulson Academy, where Flint is one of her students.
- Rodriguez is still a field agent, working alongside Piper and LMD!Davis.
- Daisy, Sousa, and Kora are exploring the stars, acting as ambassadors for humanity.
- Coulson is Walking the Earth, as he still hasn't come to terms with his new life as an LMD.
- Back for the Finale: Fitz, Malachi, Piper, Davis, and Flint appear for the first time since Season 6.
- Back from the Dead: Much like Coulson, Davis is brought back as a Chronicom-enhanced LMD. He and Piper resume their usual routine, barely missing a beat.
- Badass Longcoat: Mack is seen in a suitably cool Nick Fury-esque leather trenchcoat in his final scene.
- Batman Gambit:
- Fitz's plan basically involved sending the team into the past with zero indication of their true objective, which was saving Kora. It was pure luck that they ended up meeting her at all, let alone arriving at the right time to be able to do so. Fitz did have an idea of how events would play out, thanks to his access to the timestream, but clearly could only hope the right scenario would play out.
- Also, it turns out that Coulson actually counted on Fitz's location being let slip to Sibyl, knowing that she'll immediately order all Chronicom Hunters to converge on the Lighthouse, giving the team access to Sibyl's control over the Hunters, allowing them to reprogram the Hunters and end the war.
- Beam-O-War: Daisy and Nathaniel pit their shockwaves against each other at multiple points throughout their battle.
- Bookends: The shot of Coulson flying off in his new car recalls the shot of Coulson and Skye flying off in Lola at the end of the pilot.
- Brick Joke: In "After, Before", Sousa asks, "what can she do?" about Elena's powers. When Elena displays her speed as the team takes back the Lighthouse in this episode, Sousa remarks, "So that's what she can do."
- The Bus Came Back: After sitting out the entire season, Piper and Flint return, having guarded the chamber Fitz was staying in during the rest of Season 7.
- Call-Back:
- For the first time in a long time, May is referred to as "The Cavalry". And for once, she refers to herself as such, showing as she's gone from rejecting the moniker to embracing it.
- When Elena asks the Chronicoms who were just about to attack them if they are friend or foe, after they have been given empathy, one of them answers "Friends. As we have always been." in reference to Enoch.
- The Quantum Tunnel that Fitz builds to travel between timelines looks exactly like the one Tony invents for the Time Heist in Avengers: Endgame.
- As Jemma reclaimed her memories, she said to Fitz "You were with me the whole time," calling back to "F.Z.Z.T." when Fitz told Jemma "You were with me the whole damn time!"
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Kora's failed attempt to restore Jiaying turns out to have been a setup for her successful revival of Daisy.
- Leo and Jemma are moving a pillow and a mattress to a chamber in Zephyr One. It turns out to be a sleeping chamber for their daughter, Alya.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Name variant. When Enoch suggests that they fly away to outer space after the destruction of the Shrike Temple, Jemma suggests a remote area known as the Alya system. Alya is the name that Leo and Jemma give their daughter.
- Combat Pragmatist: Knowing he can't beat Daisy in a fair fight, Nathaniel deliberately confronts her in the reactor room so she won't be able to use her full power without destroying the entire ship. Daisy, however, anticipated this and actually intends to blow up the whole ship, only needing to stall until Sibyl's ground forces can be reprogrammed.
- Continuity Nod:
- Fitz also saw many instances of the future and did everything he possibly could to give the team the best chance of completing the mission, much like Doctor Strange in Avengers: Infinity War.
- Daisy's Heroic Sacrifice versus Malick ends up with her succumbing to the vacuum of space, much like Star-Lord and Yondu before her. Like Quill and unlike Yondu, she survives the experience.
- Cool Car: Mack gives Coulson a new flying car at the end of the episode.
- Death Is Cheap: Lampshaded during the team's reunion when they joke that just about everyone on the team has, at some point, been dead.Mack: We've been through too much together. It's a miracle we survived. [looks at LMD Coulson] Well, except Coulson. And Fitz.
Coulson: And Daisy.
Simmons: And May.
Elena: Jeez, I was a zombie once.
Fitz: So was Mack, actually.
Elena: Really? Was I there for that?
Coulson: Look, if this is a contest, I died like seven times. - Deconstruction: Of the Time Heist in Avengers: Endgame. While the Time Heist was mostly successful (it required one detour due to 2012's Hulk's interference) and Strange's predicted perfect timeline does come to pass (even with Thanos tracking the avengers down to earth is accounted for by Strange), the difference here is that Fitz is not Doctor Strange and it takes him several years with the timestream (with self-admitted procrastination and fornication) to get time travel up and running for the team. And even with all the elements needed for his plan to work, Fitz's prediction for the timeline isn't accurate; as saving Jiaying is a big part of his initial plan.
- Disney Death: Daisy seemingly dies blowing up the Chronicoms' ships (and Nathaniel Malick). Fortunately, the team manages to catch her in time for Kora to bring her back with her powers.
- Earn Your Happy Ending:
- After having the universe endlessly getting in their way for the past several years, FitzSimmons finally get to settle down in peace, and with a daughter to boot.
- Daisy gets hers with her relationship with Sousa and having Kora as her sister.
- After all the disrespect he's gotten from the team, Deke ends the series with a non-fatal Heroic Sacrifice, is fondly remembered by his comrades afterwards, and he's even implied to become the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the altered timeline. Adding to this, because much of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been destroyed, that also includes HYDRA double-agents. Assuming none of them survived. Even if HYDRA agents did survive, Deke can use his knowledge from the future to excise them and eliminate HYDRA before they can do any of the damage they caused in the main timeline.
- The team as a whole manage to make it out alive and save the world together one last time. Even if their days of working together are over, they still make plans to keep in touch from time to time.
- Exact Words:
- Fitz says that the meeting in the New York safehouse is the last time the whole Team Coulson will be in the same room together. One year later, they do meet up again, but it's in virtual reality so they're not technically in the same room. Also, Deke is in another timeline, so even if they were there, they'd be missing one member.
- The Chronicoms said they wanted to establish a new world to replace Chronica-2. They got their colony all right, but nobody mentioned they would be sharing it with humanity.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: Subverted. Fitz is willing to abandon the new timeline after grabbing the person they need from it, but Coulson insists on removing the Chronicoms so that this timeline's Earth will be able to rebuild after everything that's happened.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: As their final exchange (see Taking You with Me below) shows, Nathaniel didn't anticipate that Daisy would actually be willing to sacrifice herself to stop him, presumably because someone as self-centered as him would never make that decision.
- First-Name Basis: Post-Time Skip, Jemma is on a first name basis with May, while May calls Coulson "Phil" for the first time since Season 5. The two moments show Character Development on both Jemma and May's parts; compare Jemma's fangirl-esque glee at meeting "The Cavalry" in Season 1 to the mature friendship the two women share in the present, while May has accepted the LMD Coulson as a real person (her request that he stop by her class sometime even implies that their romance might resume).
- Freudian Slip: Amusingly, Nathaniel slips that his real goals are world domination as he rants to Sibyl.
- Grand Finale: The last episode of the entire series after its seven-year run.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy:
- The armed Chronicoms patrolling the corridors all fail to notice Daisy, Deke, and Simmons right in front of them and just walk past. Subverted as Sibyl deliberately wanted the three to move freely so that they would lead her to Fitz.
- The Chronicoms around Sibyl and Coulson fail to react when May drops through the ceiling on top of Sibyl and then pauses to deliver a one-liner, before May and Phil commence to fight and curb stomp them.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: The team essentially "beats" the Chronicom Hunter ground force by using Sibyl's interface to reprogram them to feel empathy.
- Heel–Face Turn: Kora throws in completely with the heroes, becoming the key to their victory against the Chronicoms and ending the series exploring space with Daisy and Sousa.
- I Choose to Stay: Deke opts to remain in the timeline that he's currently in after Sousa initially offers to do so. It's implied that Deke takes over what's left of S.H.I.E.L.D. with his final line.
- I Shall Taunt You: Nathaniel brings up Jiaying's death to push Daisy's buttons during their fight.
- Instant Expert: Malick doesn't need any time to learn how to combine his stolen Quake and Kora powers.
- Internal Reveal: Sousa sees Elena's powers for the first time.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: One of the reasons Deke chooses to stay is that he knows how Daisy and Sousa have a thing going on and he wants her to be happy, since he's realized that she'll never return his feelings.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: Literally, when one Chronicom down on the floor by Phil and May's attack is starting to move, the entering Mack kicks its head in to stop it.
- Last Episode, New Character: FitzSimmons's daughter Alya.
- My Future Self and Me: The people in hazmat suits who helped extract the Agents at the end of "New Life" are revealed to be the Agents themselves from the future. At one point, Jemma is staring at her own past self from inside her hazmat suit and trying not to freak out.
- Mythology Gag:
- Like in Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D., the climactic battle is in space above Earth; and like how the Chronicom Hunters are given empathy to flip them from enemies into allies, the comics' Delta LMDs developed empathy for humanity which made them choose to turn against their own creator/leader LMD and end his plans to dominate humanity.
- The closing ends with Coulson flying off in a flying sports-car like the ones originally from Jim Steranko's S.H.I.E.L.D. comics run, and which was also demonstrated as a (faulty) prototype by Howard Stark.
- Negated Moment of Awesome: Sousa tries to make a big, moving speech due to planning to stay behind, but Deke unceremoniously interrupts him and points out that he himself should stay behind, as Sousa (a) doesn't have the technical know-how and (b) obviously has a thing for Daisy that Deke would rather not see ruined.
- Never Tell Me the Odds!: Amusingly enough, Sibyl disregards her own calculations after supposedly killing the team, as she knows that they always beat the numbers.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
- Izel bringing Flint to the present turns out to be the reason the team is able to defeat the Chronicoms, since Flint reconstructs some of the Time Monolith to allow Fitz and Simmons to build the time drive and initiate the plan to save both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Earth. In a way, Sibyl and her Hunter team return the favor when they attack the Zephyr on the surface and destroy Izel's temple in the process, as the end result ensures that no one can ever use the Monoliths or open passage to Izel's realm again.
- Nathaniel Malick preventing Kora's suicide is ultimately what allows the Chronicoms to be defeated once and for all in the end.
- Oh, Crap!: Fitz gets two in rapid succession, each with one of his stress tics: when he takes everyone's silence after he asks about Kora to mean that she's dead, he puts both hands on his head; then when he hears that Jiaying is dead instead, he does his double-facepalm.
- Once More, with Clarity:
- The ending scene of "New Life" is shown with new context on how Enoch, Fitz, Simmons, and later the rest of the team set it up. The mysterious agents in hazmat suits were actually their future selves, and the blasts that destroyed Izel's Temple were fired by a Chronicom ship in space that was tricked into thinking that the departing Zephyr was the same version of it that dragged the fleet into the main MCU timeline with it.
- After Jemma gets all her memories back, three of the scenes she'd remembered previously (her and Fitz reading in bed, her and Fitz watching a movie, and her and Fitz looking at the stars from the cockpit of the Zephyr) are shown with slightly different angles which reveal (scene 1) Jemma's very large baby bump, (scene 2) Fitz feeding an infant lying across his and Jemma's laps, (scene 3) and Jemma holding a toddler as Fitz points out the stars.
- Power Parasite: Nathaniel steals Kora's powers on top of Daisy's.
- The Reveal:
- The entire time travel adventure was orchestrated with the singular goal of preventing Kora's death and bringing her to the main timeline, where her ability would provide the power necessary to reprogram the Hunters so they'd be able to feel empathy, along with wiping out the data Sibyl used to control them.
- Jemma wasn't just keeping the secret of Fitz's location, she was also protecting the fact that they have a daughter.
- Rewatch Bonus:
- When Fitz is trying to get Jemma to remember everything, he mentions that there's one specific thing she needs to remember on her own. Everyone else thinks it's their marriage, but it's really their daughter.
- One of the scenes of FitzSimmons and Enoch preparing the quantum tunnel includes Fitz carrying pillows and blankets into the containment module, but they're not visible when Fitz closes himself inside. Then it turns out they're in the other side of the module, on Alya's bed.
- Shout-Out:
- Nathaniel compares the scenery of the Quantum Realm to a The Grateful Dead poster.
- The code to open Coulson's case is 1-3-6, which is the number of this episode.
- The episode ends with Coulson flying his car towards the screen.
- Smug Smiler: Coulson sarcastically lampshades Sibyl's tendency for creepy smiles, offering one of his own when the team's plan comes into effect.
- Smug Snake: Nathaniel boasts that he's studied Daisy's past battles and that he'll be her last opponent, but even with both Daisy and Kora's powers at his disposal, he and Daisy are more or less evenly matched, and even that is at least partly because Daisy is drawing out the fight to ensure the success of the team's plan and because Nathaniel has confronted her in a location that limits her ability to use her powers to their fullest. Once she can stop holding back, she annihilates the ship (and Nathaniel) with one attack.
- Spanner in the Works: When he shows up, Fitz is confidently talking of how all they need to do is grab Kora who is now on their side after connecting with Daisy thanks to Jiaying helping them connect... and then he learns Jiaying is dead and Kora is with Malick. He is clearly jarred that his entire plan has just been thrown for a huge loop.Fitz: She... is pivotal... Okay, we'll have to work around that...
- Stable Time Loop: The entirety of Season 7 is revealed to be one. Enoch stole a Timestream data core from the Chronicoms, which Fitz uses to discern which timelines result in them winning over the invading Chronicoms (pulling a Dr. Strange in the process). He realizes that the only outcome where they win involves creating an alternate timeline using the Time Monolith to bring a specific individual back to their timeline. When the Chronicoms head to the past, he gets the team to follow them using the Time Monolith. The whole point of travelling to 1930 was to seed that timeline with the components for the Quantum Tunnel, so that when the team eventually reaches that moment, he can call them to assemble the device. Then when they get back to the main timeline, he sets the original team's mission into motion, where they travel back through time using the Time Monolith.
- Taking You with Me: After distracting Nathaniel long enough for the Chronicoms to be reprogrammed with empathy, Daisy releases an omni-directional quake blast in the Chronicom reactor room, sending Nathaniel into one of the radioactive spheres and causing a chain reaction that destroys the ship and the rest of the armada. Thankfully, the Zephyr is able to scoop her out of space before she dies from exposure.Nathaniel: You can't kill me without killing yourself.
Daisy: That's the idea. - Time Skip: The epilogue takes place one year after the events of Seasons 6 and 7.
- Title Drop: The title phrase gets repeated three times in the episode, the last of which is appropriately delivered by Coulson himself.Coulson: This is what we're fighting for.
Daisy: Family. - Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The audience doesn't get to hear the team's plan to defeat Sibyl and Nathaniel, and said plan goes off perfectly. On the other hand, Sibyl lays out her plan to reprogram Coulson in explicit detail, and that idea fails before it can even begin.
- Villainous Breakdown: Sibyl undergoes a suitably subtle one, discarding her statistics-based strategy and showing agitation when the Hunters can't find the Zephyr.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Fitz gets a collective one from the team once he returns, as they feel like he is treating everything as a game of numbers.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The end of the episode has the team catching up with each other a year after their final mission together.
- May has become a teacher at the new Coulson Academy, with Flint as one of her students.
- FitzSimmons have retired from S.H.I.E.L.D. and settled down to focus on raising their daughter Alya.
- Yo-Yo is still working for S.H.I.E.L.D., and is even in transit on a mission during their virtual conference (with Piper and an enhanced LMD version of Davis).
- Mack is also working for S.H.I.E.L.D., and is currently on an active Helicarrier. Given his outfit's similarities to Nick Fury's, he's likely still the Director in this timeline.
- Daisy, Sousa, and Kora are all in space as Earth's ambassadors to the cosmos.
- Coulson is Walking the Earth, and receives a new flying car from Mack.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: From Flint and Piper's perspective, all of Season 7, on top of all the time Fitz and Simmons spent together (four or five years, at least), took place over a matter of minutes, if that.
- You Are in Command Now: When Team Coulson returns to their own timeline, Deke is left behind. A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent questions if he's in charge now, and Deke decides to take up the mantle, presumably using Mack as his inspiration.
