Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD 5x21 "The Force of Gravity" Episode Review
Alright y'all. It's been a few weeks since Avengers: Infinity War has been released, but I will try not to talk about it too much. But I will address how it is still affecting the events of the episode and its potential role going into the season finale.
My link to the movie review is here by the way. Check it out if you've already seen the movie!
Now it all depends on whether or not Agents of SHIELD gets renewed for a sixth season at this point. If the show gets renewed, I will start coming up with crazy theories on how the ending of that movie will affect the show moving forward, otherwise I'm taking the show as it is and we're going to work with it.
SPOILERS AHEAD! THEY'RE INCOMING!
There is so much going on in this episode, and I was invested in all of it. This show has not lost stamina and incorporated the movie in the most organic way. Mack sees the news, probably catching up on current events, on the monitors and declares the dark future is happening. We can also see it in the Talbot's living room and Glenn Talbot (Graviton) even mentions the events, comparing himself to an Avenger without a hammer or iron suit.
I am most invested in Daisy's future. In the last episode, Talbot gives her up for unknown reasons.
She is taken by the Kree Kassius (the father of the two sons in the future) and hopes to use her and the other Inhumans before the Earth is destroyed. Daisy does not take well to being called an "experiment" and learns she is not physically in the room talking to the alien.
She is unconscious and being taken to him. But Daisy declares herself "Destroyer of Worlds" and wakes herself up, taking out the guards who were transporting her.
Coulson and May are trapped in a room together. Qovas tells them if they try to escape, the ship is ready to launch missiles at the Lighthouse. While they know the Lighthouse could probably survive it, they are more concerned about the surrounding area filled with innocent people.
The two of them get to talking about Talbot and the guilt Coulson carries about his role in his friend's descent to darkness. But they agree he is too far gone and a terminal solution is brought onto the table. They reminisce about the man too and think about how much things have changed on this show, how people change.
Then Coulson uses his fancy hand to disable the door, getting ready to fight the guard outside, but Deke already took care of it. He informs them that Talbot attacked the Lighthouse earlier, killing one agent, and took a Quinjet.
Side note: the story about the scar came up again, Deke declares it "the best story ever", and now I wanna know how this happened. We got more context this time: he would've died against AIDA if it weren't for the scar. This story will most likely never finish.
Coulson, May, and Deke go rescue Daisy, who already rescued herself. She is Quake and took out the attackers coming for them. Deke is being cute and asks if she's alright, but we don't got time for cute. May decides to stay behind to disable the missiles, a plan Deke is willing to do, but he is forced to tag along with her while Coulson and Daisy escape.
This argument and eventual agreement accumulates in a long-awaited kiss between them behind his SHIELD! Daisy looks in awe when she passes them to fight the bad guys trying to kill them.
He orders her to stay silent about the matter, but you know she's gonna tease him forever about it. Daisy and Coulson leave while May handles Qovas and Deke redirects the missiles to a different location.
Why does Deke only know six numbers?
May beats the crap out of Qovas, but I heard she might die so I was on the edge of my seat during this fight. The fear dissipated once I saw she had the upperhand like the entire time. The two of them use the teleportation device to escape, leaving Qovas to die on his spaceship.
I should mention Deke redirected the missiles toward the spaceship. KABOOM!
Talbot is determined to fix everything. He wants to stop Thanos but needs more power to pull it off. He visits Carl Creel, and this interaction was intense. Was Talbot going to kill him? Would Creel try to run? Neither happened.
Instead Talbot absorbed him and took him into his body. WTF! He needed the gravitonium inside Creel that badly? They were friends! Mack and Yo-Yo witness this through the hospital security camera and grieve their sort-of ally.
Graviton got a power boost but his journey doesn't stop there. He visits his family next and boasts to his son about becoming a superhero like the Avengers. Talbot even tells his son he can fly and my mind immediately went to Nathan Petrelli from Heroes. Damn a good reference.
But he is not pleased with his wife for trying to control him. She obviously didn't know she did that, but Talbot is beyond reason at this point. His son George gets scared, probably realizing his father is not like the Avengers after all.
Before Graviton can kill his wife, Mack, Yo-Yo, and some of SHIELD arrive to stop him. They clearly stand no chance against him, as he manipulates their bullets, Yo-Yo can't superspeed without feeling the weight of gravity, and he can lift their cars into the air. Talbot is essentially full supervillain at this point.
In the end, Graviton has procured Robin and her mother. He needs Robin to tell him how he cracks the Earth apart for the gravitonium and where he does it. This is pretty bad! Talbot/Graviton has an Inhuman Seer on his side telling him the future.
Everyone meets up after their individual adventures and get dealt the hardest decision to make: FitzSimmons figured out a way to save Coulson using the centipede serum and Daisy's dead mother DNA, but they also figured out a way to stop Talbot from breaking the Earth apart.
Both solutions require the centipede serum. Daisy confirms only one exists and the hour closes on the team to make the ultimate call: save their leader/friend or the world. And they have to make a decision fast because Coulson is dying out from a flesh wound.
We can't lose Coulson! But if they choose to save him, they're losing their one chance to stop Talbot from cracking the Earth apart for that gravitonium. The show is also teasing that one of the agents might not make it... because of Graviton or Thanos? I don't know anymore!
ABC... renew the show for a sixth season. I can't take much more of this. We have one last episode... the season/series finale is coming next week. Please don't let this be the end.