A shocking return and a world-changing twist in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 6 finale

The penultimate season of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has called it quits, but with a seventh season already ordered, the creative team took full advantage to go all-out with the cliffhangers and twists to set up the show's final run.

Spoilers ahead for "The Sign" and "New Life," the two-part Season 6 finale of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which aired Friday, August 2, 2019.

After Mack and Yo-Yo inadvertently conjured the future Inhuman Flint at the end of last week (you get all that?), Izel jumps into his body and uses his abilities to recreate the monoliths, giving her everything she needs to open the portal to her world and unleash armageddon with humanity used as hosts for her people. Back on the S.H.I.E.L.D. side of the equation, Deke and Fitz are butting heads (just like old times), and Deke uses an experimental jump drive to bust into the temple and free Yo-Yo and Mack. It's a heartbreaking moment for a character often used for comic relief, as Deke wants — desperately — just to belong to this team. This family. To the point he risked his life to prove himself.

After breaking through to a remnant of Coulson inside of Sarge last week, Daisy and May are holding out fleeting hope he can possibly be rehabilitated. It turns out to be in vain, as Sarge finally realizes the pain that's been eating him up for centuries — it's love. His love for his old team he can't quite remember, and his love for May. So he stabs May through the chest and tosses her in the portal to try and make the pain stop. Yeah, not exactly the breakthrough the team was hoping he'd have.

Just when it seems like May might be the finale's big death, she wakes up on the other side of the portal, because apparently death doesn't mean all that much in that universe. She takes out the alien gatekeepers there to try and stop Izel's plan, but Izel comes through herself and puts the keys in place to open the portal. So May pops back through and stabs Izel through the chest with Sarge's magic blade, and passes it over to also have Sarge chopped in half. So the Big Bad is defeated, but that's far from the end.

Back at the Lighthouse, Chronicoms raided the base to take out S.H.I.E.L.D., which they viewed as a credible threat to their plans to rebuild Chronicom — on Earth this time around. Enoch takes over the body of a fellow Chronicom to rescue Fitz and Simmons, and the super-geniuses cut a deal to save their friends and their world. Fitz and Simmons have been separated to work, though we don't exactly know why, as Simmons teases they had a lot of "time" to work out how to solve things. Then they fly back to New York … to reveal a city absolutely transformed.

So, what happened? Did Fitz and Simmons go back in time and charge the present? Did the upgraded jump drive jump them to the future? Whatever has happened, it's obviously the storyline that will drive the show's final season. Oh, and the biggest twist? Coulson is back. At least, a hyper-advanced, Chronicom-updated, LMD version of him (apparently using his brain scan from the Framework as a jumping-off point, and then programmed with all the missions and events he'd missed). The closing shot of the season is a wild one, as "Coulson" smiles and drops a "Hey guys" to the team.

For a while, it seemed like Sarge was being set up as the character who would keep Clark Gregg around next year, but no, it's LMD Coulson. Regardless, fans will certainly be pleased to still have Gregg in the cast list.

Assorted musings

ABC/Marvel

So, is Flint still alive? He was conjured by monolith energy, but the team evacuated him … so he's still alive, right? If so, it's a well-deserved happy ending for a kid who had a rough go of things in the (now-erased) future.

It seems that, despite reaching bits of Coulson inside of Sarge, the alien entity controlling him was far stronger than the ol' director. So whatever was left of Coulson wasn't enough to take control. R.I.P. Sarge.

Yo-Yo is also on the chopping block in the finale, after being infected by a Shrike, but thankfully it turned to goo after Izel gets knifed. So Yo-Yo lives to use her super-speed powers another day. Also, the super fast shooting move? Very cool.

Though it seems like May is about to bleed out, Simmons' mysterious advanced tech looks to have no problem reviving her. So May also survived the final fight. Phew.

Up next? A long wait until next year, when we can finally find out what the heck Fitz and Simmons did to the world. Production on the show's final season is essentially done, too, so it'll just be sitting in the can for about a year. It's gonna be a long wait.