AGENTS OF SHIELD: “The One Who Will Save Us All” {Roundtable}

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD turns to the looming threat from the Confederacy and maybe some of the fallout of Avengers: Infinity War in this week’s episode “The One Who Will Save Us All”. If you haven’t seen Avengers: Infinity War beware of some major spoilers.

Karen, Rueben and I discuss Talbot’s crazy plan and what it all means when Thanos still looms in the background.

Oh Talbot (Adrian Pasdar). It seemed like a bad idea to become The Destroyer of Worlds, but what did you make of the work he did?

Rueben: He “seemed” intent on stopping Qovas and the Confederacy, but just as Jemma said, he is having a psychotic break because of the gravitonium, and it’s only going to get worse. I actually felt bad for what he did to Hale. I don’t think anyone deserves to die that way.

CATHERINE DENT, CLARK GREGG

Roz: I appreciate that his intentions are good in trying to stop Thanos from that plan, but by not listening to the team he’s just going to get everyone to that point from the beginning much sooner. We know how bad that world is, and I don’t want that again.

Karen: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” As stated by Lord Acton, this is no truer than in the case of dear Col. Talbot. He was already wonky due to the conditioning, and then becoming Graviton just exacerbated it. Good intentions aren’t always the best intentions. I’m full of idioms today.

Daisy had to go and get Mother Dearest. What do you make of the information from the CandyMan and how it affects getting Coulson back to the Lighthouse?

Rueben: I don’t see how the centipede spine and Jiaying’s DNA are going to save Coulson, let alone get him, or any of them who left the Lighthouse, back to the Lighthouse.

Roz: Getting Coulson back on earth should be priority one, but I think Daisy’s holding onto the idea that she doesn’t have to lead if she can save Coulson. Clearly her management style is leaving something to be desired (at least by Yo-yo), but is that the best use of time when someone else can break apart the Earth?

Karen: So Jiayang could heal herself, and the centipede device enhances physical attributes to a super-human level. Now, if you infuse the device with Jiayang’s DNA, then attach it to Coulson, does that mean he’ll have infinite healing ability? There’s also the serious consequences of making such a device. If it falls into the wrong hands…

Deke let someone else in on his secret, though Daisy also told him about Lincoln. How do you imagine Deke and Daisy working now?

Rueben: They shared a few good moments together that Deke is so going to read totally different than Daisy. I think given how he feels about her, he’s going to see things more romantic and she’ll see them as simply confiding. I don’t see a relationship going anywhere for them, but it’ll certainly be fun seeing Deke try.

Roz: Yeah, Deke’s going to read all of that information Daisy shared the wrong way, but I’m going to hope that if she knows Deke is FitzSimmons’ grandson that she’ll work harder to make sure they stay alive for him to be born (again?).

Karen: It was a sweet moment either way, Daisy opening up to anyone means something. But yeah, I think it’ll make keeping him safe a higher priority for her – whether Fitz sees him as an annoyance or not. He’ll definitely read into the share, but again, this has been one of the more entertaining parts of the last few episodes. I don’t want to see him hurt though.

Mack seems most at odds with what SHIELD is doing these days. His moral high ground is getting to me, but is it getting to you?

Rueben: Mack really does seem at odds with everyone on the team not just SHIELD. I’m 50/50 on the whole situation getting to me, as part of me understands where he is coming from while the other part of me just wants to yell at him. There is so much going on around him (and everyone else) that the moral high ground may need to be on the backburner [at least for now].

Roz: I get needing to have a moral center – based on religion – but Mack’s being so self-righteous about his behavior versus everyone else that I want to strangle him. Sure, killing Ruby was bad, but Yo-yo’s calculus on how many lives saved was important. If Mack could just get over being morally right (I don’t think SHIELD has done a morally right thing in YEARS), then so much would be better off.

Karen: Yeah, he needs to get over himself. I mean, they’re trying to save THE EARTH. No need to be Lawful Good at a time like this. Chaotic Neutral would be fine.

We get a connection back into the MCU. Why did it take so long to get back to that idea?

ADRIAN PASAR, CATHERINE DENT, CLARK GREGG

Rueben: I yelled, “Finally!” I knew they would have to, at some point, acknowledge what Thanos just did in Infinity War. I didn’t think they were in the past before the events in Infinity War so it had to dealt with, but how it will be dealt with from here on out…that’s a good question. Are we going to start losing other SHIELD members like in the final moments of the ending credits of the movie?

Roz: I’ve been sad that the other movies haven’t connected since “Captain America: Civil War” but even the idea of half these people disappearing is BAD BAD NEWS!

Karen: They kinda had to wait until the latest movie came out I think. Timing is everything. We’re talking about Earth’s destruction, so the tie-in makes sense here. It wasn’t that awfully long ago that we had the Darkhold Tome, so I’m okay with the frequency of mentions.

Holy button! What has you most scared about that possibility?

Rueben: Again, I’m afraid who will be lost in time because of Thanos. I don’t even think I want to surmise what could happen because the events of Infinity War are still too raw.

Roz: That Kasius’ dad has Daisy is what really worries me. I don’t want to imagine that they’ll do anything other than what we saw to her years before that future.

But more importantly, I’m worried that Talbot with all that gravitonium will actually destroy Earth because he wants to stop Thanos. WHAT?

Karen: It’s more apparent than ever that Talbot is the Worldkiller, right? And getting Coulson back to “fix” him is a distraction the team does NOT need. I dig the timey-wimey parts of any show, so I’m DYING to find out what happens next.

Agents of SHIELD airs Fridays at 9PM on ABC.