The Confederacy attacks the Lighthouse.
Tropes in this episode:
- Aborted Declaration of Love: Right as the Remorath are about to break into the control room, it looks like Coulson is about to tell May he loves her, when she cuts him off.Coulson: Look, May, this probably isn't the best time—
May: It's not! - All for Nothing: When Yo-Yo realizes that Daisy is trying to save Coulson, she realizes that Ruby wasn't the Destroyer and that they're still in the loop. She outright says, "I killed Ruby for nothing."
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Confederacy assaults the Lighthouse, transporting a group of Remorath into the facility to hunt down and kill everyone in their way as they head for the Gravitonium.
- The Atoner: Talbot is hellbent on righting his wrongs, so much that he is willing to infuse himself with Gravitonium.
- Big Damn Heroes: Talbot stops the Confederacy's assault on the Lighthouse by infusing himself with the Gravitonium.
- Brutal Honesty: Despite what Daisy believed, Yo-Yo points out that Ruby was an unstable psychopath who had to be killed.
- Call-Back:
- The Centipede device and serum, which made their debut in the very first episode, get brought up again as a possible way to save Coulson from dying. It needs another ingredient, though—DNA from Daisy's mother Jiaying.
- Tony Caine mentions Robin gave him a drawing of a "blue lady juggling someone's balls," referencing Sinara, who used a pair of hovering metallic balls as her weapons.Daisy: I think those are her balls.
- Chekhov's Gun: While the Odium seen here gets reintroduced as more of a Call-Back, it's more of a gun in this case as it will be used two episodes later.
- Continuity Nod: Tony Caine mentions "weird stuff going on in New York," a nod to Avengers: Infinity War.
- Composite Character: Glenn Talbot becomes the MCU version of Graviton. It's a composite in another fashion as well, because he now has Quinn and Hall (the comic version of Graviton) shouting at each other in his mind.
- Crazy-Prepared: The Lighthouse has a scenario for possible alien invasion. Unfortunately, option two on the list was "nuclear attack" and Coulson impulsively pushed that before "alien invasion" came up.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: With his new powers, Talbot folds the Remorath together like pieces of paper.
- Curbstomp Battle: At first, Team Coulson and the rest of the agents fight an uphill battle against the Remorath, being unable to hurt them in any way. Then the tide gets turned when Talbot arrives and kills them all easily.
- Dateless Grave: In keeping with the show's tendency to not show hard dates, Jiaying's grave doesn't have any listed (though considering that it follows real time fairly closely, we know the death year is 2015). Her surname is also mostly covered by leaves, though it says 'Johnson'.
- EMP: The Remorath have a short-range EMP that blacks out all electronics within a few meters of themselves. The practical effect is that darkness seems to follow them, adding to the intimidation factor.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When May and Yo-Yo are arguing over whether or not to save Coulson's life, he latches onto May's comment about how they couldn't leave him "in the middle of nowhere" to freeze. This reminds him that the Confederacy has a teleportation device which can reach anywhere.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: Apparently, how Davis survived Aida with only a scar is an impressive, hard-to-believe tale that leaves Piper later declaring that he 'can't be killed'. He believes, though, that the main cast probably wouldn't care.
- Godzilla Threshold: Left with no other options, Talbot infuses himself with the Gravitonium.
- Heroic Willpower: In direct contrast to Creel and Ruby, Talbot is not driven insane by Hall or Quinn when he's infused with the Gravitonium; he's so focused on saving the Lighthouse and making amends with Coulson that he can push them aside.
- Human Aliens: We finally get a look at Qovas. He looks like a regular human of African origin, meaning he's either part of the same Kree subrace as Korath, or he isn't Kree at all. The Remorath also appear like feral humans with war paint over their eyes and wearing facepieces.
- Hurl It into the Sun: SHIELD's plan for the Gravitonium, before the Remorath's arrival preempts it, is equip Zephyr One for space travel and then slingshot the Gravitonium case on a path towards the sun.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Yo-Yo is very adamant about having done the right thing by killing Ruby, though she seems to change her mind when it is revealed that it didn't break the loop.
- I Have No Son!: Fitz still doesn't change his attitude towards Deke, his own grandson. He forbids Deke from calling him "gramps".
- Immune to Bullets: The Remorath don't seem to be hurt by bullets, treating them like bee stings.
- Internal Reveal: Yo-Yo finally tells the team that trying to save Coulson is what leads to the Bad Future... just after Daisy leaves to do just that.
- Is It Always Like This?: Agent Kim asks this after the briefing at the top of the episode. Davis replies that the weird missions are normal, but the in-fighting isn't.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Averted with regards to Avengers: Infinity War, which entered wide distribution on the same day that the episode aired, but had already had its premiere screening and previews several days earlier. Unlike when an episode aired very soon after the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and blew the film's major spoiler for everyone who wasn't part of the first night audience, this time the first post-Infinity War episode confines itself to a brief handwave dialogue reference that includes no spoiler stronger than saying something big happened in New York City.
- Madness Mantra: Talbot keeps mumbling, "I can fix this," to himself in response to alerting the Lighthouse's location to the Confederacy. He makes good on the promise by giving himself powers that slaughter the alien assassins and create a way out of the locked-down bunker.
- Mythology Gag:
- Talbot successfully absorbs 100% of the Gravitonium, becoming the MCU version of Graviton. After he uses his new powers to kill the Remorath that broke into the lab, the container labelled "CAUTION: GRAVITONIUM" becomes splattered with blood, covering up the last three letters and turning the label into "CAUTION: GRAVITON."
- Since its introduction in Season 1, the Gravitonium resembles a mercurial Aether/Reality Stone. Even a small amount can grant very unstable reality-warping effects, but once it completely bonds with a host, the wielder poses a devastating threat to the planet itself.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- When the Lighthouse's systems register the Confederacy ship over it, a menu of options begins appearing. Coulson decides to select Option Two: Nuclear Attack before learning that Option Three is Alien Invasion. This causes the Lighthouse to enter an automated lockdown to protect those inside from nuclear fallout, for fifteen years. It does nothing but lock them inside because the Remorath can teleport.
- Daisy and May's secret plan to save Coulson ends up leaving the Lighthouse without its most powerful weapon, which results in Talbot getting the opportunity to infuse himself with the Gravitonium.
- Noodle Incident:
- Piper is told how Davis survived Aida's wrath with hardly a scratch and is honestly impressed, but evidently no one else cared to ask.
- "Something weird" is going on in New York City. The episode doesn't elaborate, making it technically a noodle incident when viewed separate from the MCU films.
- Not Helping Your Case: When Yo-Yo comes to shackle Talbot, he insists that it isn't necessary, as he is happy to comply. He admits himself that it's a poor choice of words right after saying it.
- Pragmatic Hero: Daisy is willing to defile her own mother's grave to save Coulson. Of course, her last encounter with Jiaying didn't exactly leave her with much reason to be sentimental.
- Prophecy Twist: In the end it wasn't Daisy or Ruby who was infused with the Gravitonium— but Talbot.
- Read the Freaking Manual: Or in this case, Listen to the Complete Menu. May rightfully chews out Coulson for his impatience before learning there was an option for an Alien Invasion.
- Red Shirt: Aside from Piper and Davis (and newcomer Agent Kim), pretty much all the agents who are not part of Team Coulson are killed by the Remorath.
- Shout-Out: The heroes barricade themselves against an otherworldly army's siege, only for the latter to attack from the ceiling/balcony.
- Simultaneous Arcs: Tony Caine's oblique comment about New York suggests that events of Avengers: Infinity War are happening concurrently with this episode. Presumably, this is why a spaceship can assault the Lighthouse without a military response; they're a bit busy with one in a major city to notice another in a small lakeside town.
- The Stinger: Daisy digging up the grave of her deceased mother hoping to salvage her Healing Factor in order to find a cure to save Coulson.
- Title Drop: The option Coulson accidentally chose was the second option, without fully listening to the third.
- Took a Level in Badass: Talbot infuses himself with the Gravitonium, which allows him to take out the Remorath with a simple glance.
- Wham Episode: The Alien Invasion begins, Talbot absorbs the Gravitonium and becomes Graviton, and Daisy is trying to harvest Jiaying's corpse to save Coulson.
- Wham Shot: Whose grave is Daisy digging up? Jiaying, her own mother!
- What the Hell, Hero?: The episode begins with a four-way one between Yo-Yo, FitzSimmons, Mack, and Daisy over the choices they've made in the past few episodes. Daisy and Mack are mad over Yo-Yo's and FitzSimmons's going AWOL, the latter maintaining they did the right thing to save the future. Daisy and Mack are also upset with Yo-Yo for murdering Ruby, while Yo-Yo is indignant over being given the third degree over making a tough choice no different from any of the others the team have made in the past. It takes Coulson pulling rank as director to get it to stop.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Yo-Yo realizes too late that her future self's warning her not to save Coulson wasn't just because Coulson was dying, but because Talbot was with him when Coulson was rescued. With Talbot now becoming Graviton, it would appear that prophecy is on its way to being fulfilled. Not only that, this makes her realize that she killed Ruby for no good reason.
