Team Coulson faces off against old enemies.
Tropes in this episode:
- Action Bomb: Creel has been strapped with C4, ready to detonate and blow up the plane should Coulson not surrender Hale. Creel and Ivanov will both be able to survive the explosion and subsequent plane crash, the former by turning his body into an indestructible material and the latter because he has plenty of backup bodies to use after that one gets blown up, but everyone else on the plane won't be so lucky.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Hale managed to find Ivanov's head so now he's forced to work for her.
- Anti-Villain: Creel is the most sympathetic out of the bad guys bunch, as he honestly believes Daisy shot General Talbot and is acting out of loyalty towards him.
- The Atoner: Piper is doing her best to atone for betraying Team Coulson...but unfortunately, her intel only makes the team walk into another of General Hale's traps, this time unwillingly. She sadly states that they would be better off tossing her out the airlock, and May agrees it should at least be an option.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Briefly it seems that Hale is The Dragon and Ivanov is the Big Bad, especially since Hale's phone call revealed she was under orders from somebody else. But it quickly becomes clear that Hale is very much in charge of him. Turns out she found his head. Of course, it then turns out that Hale really is The Dragon, to a member of a new HYDRA.
- We are led to believe that the Doctor was manifested by the fear dimension. Turns out that he wasn't, he was in Fitz's head all along. Even Fitz was fooled.
- Bittersweet Ending: Fitz gives into his inner darkness and possibly destroys his friendships with Daisy and Mack, and is imprisoned for it, while still maintaining he did what was necessary, though Jemma agrees with him. Coulson's plan to capture General Hale fails and he's forced to let himself be her prisoner. Oh and the Kree are the ones backing Hale and leading a new faction of HYDRA. At the same time, though, the rift is sealed and Daisy has her powers back. Plus, Deke reveals to Jemma that he is her and Fitz's grandson from the future, and assures her that they will be alright.
- The Bus Came Back: Anton Ivanov makes his return, having been Demoted to Dragon when Hale found his head.
- Call-Back: After seeming to have fully healed over time, Fitz's brain injury from being drowned by Ward finally resurfaces as an explanation for his Doctor split personality.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: Odium, as mentioned by Kasius in Episode 7, and seen in Episode 10, makes its return here in The Stinger.
- Chekhov's Gun: Daisy's inhibitor, active since Episode 6, is removed here.
- Continuity Nod:
- Another fear manifestation appears, this time Hive in the form of the astronaut Jemma saw on Maveth.
- Dr. Franklin Hall is directly mentioned for the first time.
- Jemma compares Fitz's hallucinations of the Doctor to the time he was talking to hallucinations of her as a result of his brain injury, insofar as to imply that his illusion of the Doctor was the evil Devil to her good Angel.
- Crazy-Prepared: The Doctor knew Fitz would realize he was just hallucinating eventually, and programmed the robots to force him to complete the task by threatening Simmons.
- Enemy Without: Fitz is forced to face his greatest fear... his Framework self. It becomes a case of Enemy Within when we find out the Doctor was all in Fitz's head.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Simmons lecturing Mack about staying off his wounded leg to avoid aggravating the injury causes her to realize the true nature of the Doctor's presence at the Lighthouse.
- Evil Me Scares Me: Fitz naturally freaks out when he sees the Doctor for the first time. Turns out, it was an extreme case of I Did What I Had to Do, as Fitz was so terrified of what would be necessary to fix the rift, the only way he could do it was through a psychotic break.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Several examples in succession.
- When Daisy first wakes up Strapped to an Operating Table, the Doctor addresses her as "Agent Johnson", even though to him she should be "Agent Skye" (or possibly "Agent Poots").
- When Daisy realizes she's talking to the Doctor, assuming he's an anomaly, she asks, "Where's the real Fitz?" The Doctor answers, "You're looking at him."
- During the argument between Fitz and the Doctor, Daisy asks, "Who are you talking to?", which doesn't make sense unless one of the Fitzes in the room is a hallucination, because fear dimension manifestations are visible to everyone. Moments later, Jemma arrives, and the Doctor is nowhere to be seen, just Fitz wearing surgical gloves and holding a bloody scalpel.
- Foreshadowing: The Doctor insists to Fitz that they both know he is real, and, when asked by Daisy where the real Fitz is, answers "you're looking at him". At first, you might think this is him arguing he is more of a real Fitz than his homologue, but this actually is a hint that he's not an anomaly, just the real Fitz suffering a case of Enemy Within.
- Gollum Made Me Do It: Briefly after The Reveal, Fitz has a moment where he's trying to convince Jemma and Daisy that the Doctor influenced him to do what he's going to do to Daisy. After Jemma told him that the Doctor wasn't from the Fear Dimension, Fitz finally admits that the Doctor has always been part of him.
- Happily Married: Deke tells Jemma that he knows for sure that she and Fitz will eventually work things out and stay happily married for the rest of their lives. After all, he heard about it straight from their own daughter, his mother.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Nobody will believe that it was a LMD of Daisy that shot Talbot.
- Hypocrite: For all of Ivanov's talk about human superiority, he's not too bothered by his current state. He even concedes that he changed his own definition to better fit his new condition.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Fitz reveals that, ever since the team's abduction, he has been hearing the Doctor in the back of his mind, subtly pointing him where he needs to go. He realizes that he was exactly what Hunter said—his inner darkness—which made him so good at blending in with the other bad guys in the future; however, he only worked up the courage to truly make the tough call once he started seeing the Doctor sauntering around.
- Internal Reveal: Deke finally tells Jemma she's his grandmother.
- Ironic Echo: When bragging about how much more powerful his robot body is, Ivanov snarks at Coulson, "How's that for a cool origin story, bro?", echoing part of Coulson's sarcastic But for Me, It Was Tuesday speech to him last season.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Hale deliberately let Team Coulson catch her.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: During the course of the episode, Fitz gives in to his dark side and injures Mack and Daisy, possibly completely destroying their respective friendships.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Deke tells Jemma that he is her and Fitz's grandson.
- Mood Whiplash: Deke and Simmons share a heartwarming moment where he reveals to her that she and Fitz are his grandparents. Then the music abruptly cuts out and Simmons pukes her guts out all over the floor. Makes sense, given that she just met a grandson who's roughly her age.
- Obvious Trap: Coulson is perfectly aware about Hale trying to lure him into a trap when she asks him to come with her. However, as he tells May, it's a really good trap and he simply doesn't have another choice.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After knowing that Fitz is his grandfather which helps him getting used to Fitz's grumpy attitude, Deke can only stare in Stunned Silence upon witnessing that his grandfather has such a terrifying dark side.
- Pet the Dog: General Hale apologizes for her subordinates costing Elena her arms, though it is not clear how sincere she is.
- Play-Along Prisoner: General Hale planned her capture by Team Coulson so she could track them down.
- The Reveal:
- Hale is taking orders from somebody else—the Confederacy, the group that was run by Kasius's father.
- The Doctor never came from the Fear Dimension; it was all in Fitz's head and has been for a while.
- Sanity Slippage: The combination of tremendous stress of trying to come up with a way to fix the rift into the Fear Dimension, the brain injury from being dumped into the bottom of the ocean by Ward, multiple days of sleep deprivation, and having an entire second man's memories in his mind, causes Fitz to hallucinate the Doctor.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Anton Ivanov's attempts to get to Coulson fall flat. Coulson merely ignores everything Ivanov says and then correctly deduces that he's been forced into serving Hale.Ivanov: Look at how he scrambles to save face.
Coulson: Oh, you're still here. Hey, speaking of faces, how come your robo-warriors don't have any?
Ivanov: They are merely soldiers. Tools for battle.
Coulson: Interesting. 'Cause, see, I think, when you lost your partner Aida, you lost the ability to make convincing LMDs. That's why Hale isn't one. And you know what else I think? You're not the one calling the shots here. What happened, bro? Hale must have your balls in a vise.
Hale: [casually] Actually, it's his head in a jar. - Something Only They Would Say: Deke drops hints to Jemma about her relationship with Fitz that only FitzSimmons would know. He's got good reason, as it was his mother who would tell him, and his mother is FitzSimmons's daughter.
- Stable Time Loop: Elena realizes that she doesn't need protection from the Fear Dimension monsters because she's met herself in the future, which means she's guaranteed to survive until then, and if she does die ahead of schedule, then that means the loop is finally broken. On any other show this would be insane, but she's right, which means it isn't insane at all.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Daisy makes it clear she'll never forgive Fitz for taking out her power inhibitor. Fitz just agrees, and says he wasn't expecting forgiveness anyway.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Fitz eventually realizes that the Doctor did not come out of the Fear Dimension but is a hallucination his own mind created to deal with the guilt of operating on Daisy against her will, caused by his old brain injury acting up again from stress.
- Trailers Always Lie: The teaser made it seem like Ivanov's return would mean he'd be "the superior" to Hale. In truth, he's actually been Demoted to Dragon, and his return is merely the B-Plot to Fitz's internal battle with the Doctor.
- Trap Is the Only Option: Coulson willingly goes with Hale even though it's an Obvious Trap, since under the circumstances they don't have any better options.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Upon hearing the news that Deke is her grandson, Jemma promptly throws up. It's a wide shot, but vomit is visible on the ground after she hurls.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Anton Ivanov. As far as the world is concerned, he's just a S.H.I.E.L.D. robot, given that his various bodies are based on Fitz and Radcliffe's LMD design, which of course was built with S.H.I.E.L.D. resources.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Doctor wants to close the rift, but he's willing to go to whatever lengths are necessary to achieve it. Same goes for the real Fitz, who hallucinated the Doctor as a means of coping with the decision.
- Wham Episode: Fitz has a psychological breakdown, Daisy regains her powers, the rift to the Fear Dimension is sealed, Jemma learns that Deke is her grandson, and Coulson gets captured by Hale, who isn't working on her own initiative. She's The Dragon of the Confederacy, a surviving group of HYDRA ... overseen by the Kree who work for Kasius' father.
- Wham Line:
- Leopold introduces himself. "No. I'm the only Doctor here."
- When Hale's superior mentions the Odium ritual, we know exactly who's pulling her strings. And then he says this:"And of course, hail HYDRA!"
- After a tense confrontation has been going on for a while between the two Fitzes:Daisy: Who are you talking to?
- You Monster!: Fitz throws this accusation at his Framework self, who doesn't take it sitting down.
