Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD season 5 episode 18 review: All Roads Lead…

This week’s Agents of SHIELD takes our team in three different directions. Can FitzSimmons stop Ruby? Will Daisy lead her team to save the world?

So Agents of SHIELD this week takes our team in three different directions and somehow manages to converge them all into more succinct storylines…

Not-So-Short Summary and Analysis

General Talbot breaks into Burt Gummer’s rec room and works on completing his mission. He takes out Robin’s mom, takes Robin, and tries to leave the base.

Daisy is running lead on the recon mission to take down Hale at her base. She seems much more comfortable leading when she has Coulson amongst the ranks. We get a fun Daisy/May solo mission to Hale’s base, too.

Also a fun bit of television logic on display: Hale’s base seems to only have three people in it (Her, Creel, her last remaining crony). But when Daisy and May arrive? Dozens of guards for them to punch.

“We’ve seen where this leads,” Simmons tries to tell Ruby, but no one believes their “I’ve been to the future” story. Ruby and Strucker are pretty much gone at this point, wanting nothing more than the Gravitonium in her.

They get eight percent of the way through before Hale, Daisy and May arrive to stop the machine. Still, she floats out of the machine, then crashes down to the ground.

She also … kills Strucker by crushing his skull in with her powers. It’s surprisingly gruesome (though he was coming off a little too lovesick for my taste this episode, so I’m kind of okay with it?).

Agents of SHIELD has fun with the psychosis part of Ruby’s character, as both Quinn and Hall try to break free and gain control. It’s no Legion, but it’s still a fun glimpse at the powers within her.

“I just saved the world,” Elena says in the aftermath of her slitting Ruby’s throat, which is the most surprising part of the episode. Seriously, I did not see that coming.

Post-Credits Stinger

Hale meets with a member of the Federation because she knows where the Gravitonium is and can lead him there.

Badass Moment of the Week

I mean… crushing Strucker’s skull? That was badass…?

Best One-Liner

“It’s not a bird–it’s a plane,” Coulson says, and I honestly think it might have been a drawing of Superman.

Deke is a super goober this episode, getting caught for liking Daisy. And then he just runs with it. Also, I’m definitely going to leave a lemon on my husband’s pillow sometime in the near future and just confuse the crap out of him.

Meanwhile Elena battles her own body the whole episode. Maybe they didn’t think of her superpowers when they designed those arms for her? But they are technically prototypes, so I’ll let it pass. And I definitely don’t blame her for killing Ruby after what happened to her. Maybe… not in front of Ruby’s mother, though?

Next: Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t know how Infinity War ends so that’s just great

Next week’s Agents of SHIELD will bring the alien invasion to Earth. It looks like a lot of sci-fi action, so get ready!