TV Recap: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1-22 - Beginning of the End

What a fun finale.  Yes, lots of drama and action, which I expected, but it also provided some pretty funny lines.

We started with the barbershop cliffhanger.  Thanks to some fast shooting and great fighting from May, the team there was able to defeat the henchmen sent to kill them.  Skye was even able to upload her Trojan horse.  And they discovered the tracker that Fitz and Simmons but on their plane, so they were able to follow it to a compound in New Mexico.

Meanwhile, Garrett is enjoying his new found power, but also going a little crazy, as best shown by the weird pattern he drew on one of the doors in the plane.  When they land, he kills a general who wants a demonstration of the new technology that Cybertech has.  Yes, he's losing it.  Fortunately, our team has a plan to go in and take him and Cybertech out.

But what about Simmons and Fitz?  They are stuck at the bottom of the ocean in the tank that Ward fired them out of the plane in last time.  Fitz has figured out a way to send out a distress signal, but it's a S.H.I.E.L.D. frequency, which means it is useless.  He and Simmons think they are doomed until they figure out a way to blow out the windows.  Unfortunately, they only have enough emergency oxygen for one of them, and Fitz insists that Simmons take it.  She grabs him and swims them both of the surface where they are rescued by…

…Nick Fury.

Fitz spends the rest of the episode in critical condition thanks to his lack of oxygen while they ascended, but at least he is alive for now.  Meanwhile, Simmons tells Fury how to track down Coulson and his team, and they take off for New Mexico.

Fury arrives while the fight against Garrett and Cybertech is in progress, and he tips the balance against the villains.  Garrett is defeated (but not before coming back to life once), and May takes out her anger on Ward.  Meanwhile, Skye finds Deathlock/Mike Peterson's son and frees him.  Still, Peterson goes off on his own to try to redeem himself before he reconnects with his son.

Coulson then lays into Fury for bringing him back to life.  Fury almost apologizes then shocks Coulson by making him the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in charge of rebuilding the organization.  Fury is going to go deep, deep underground as a result of everything that has been happening.  And the team lands at a new hidden base operated by Eric's bother, so we got to see Patton Oswalt again.

Yep, it's basically a happy almost satisfying ending until we get to the final couple of scenes.  Up first, Raina walks into a room with a bloody hulk in it and announces, "I've found your daughter," showing him a picture of Skye.  Then Coulson starts sleepwalking and drawing the same design that Garrett had drawn earlier.

Obviously, we've got further to go on these stories next year, and I'm really curious to see exactly where we go with Skye.  However, they have gotten rid of the big bad for this season.  It will be interesting to see just they structure next season.  More big, mythology type episodes early on, or similar to this season where there are more stand alone episode until the second half.  The split season might have something to do with that, too.

But we'll find out come September.