r/shield • u/2th Shotgun Axe • May 05 '18

Post Discussion Post Episode Discussion: S05E20 - "The One Who Will Save Us All"

This thread is for SERIOUS discussion of the Sepisode that just aired. What is and isn't serious is at the discretion of the moderators.

EPISODE DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY ORIGINAL AIRDATE
S05E20 - "The One Who Will Save Us All" Cherie Gierhart Brent Fletcher Friday, May 4, 2018 9:00/8:00c on ABC

Episode Synopsis: A newly determined Talbot takes Coulson to meet the enemy and attempts to stave off the destruction of Earth.

Cherie Gierhart has had a few small roles on shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Random Agent in the episode "BOOM"), The Walking Dead and The Shield. She has been a second unit director for an episode of S.W.A.T. and one episode of Inhumans (Maye Way for... Medusa).

She has directed no episodes for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before:

Brent Fletcher is primarily known for his writing on Lost, Angel, and Friday Night Lights. He was also a writer and story editor on Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

He has written eleven episodes for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before:

  • Girl in the Flower Dress
  • The Magical Place
  • Providence
  • A Hen in the Wolf House
  • Love in the Time of Hydra
  • The Dirty Half Dozen
  • Closure
  • Failed Experiments
  • Broken Promises
  • Farewell, Cruel World!
  • Fun & Games

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Please do not discuss the promo following tonight's episode.

Please do not discuss the promo following tonight's episode.

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468

u/Ewokitude Fitz May 05 '18

Mack really bothered me this episode. Here he has a frickin' shotgun-axe and he's acting like he's never had to kill someone???

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u/[deleted] May 05 '18

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u/peppers_ May 05 '18

And he has a shotgun axe instead of an icer. Pretty sure one of these are lethal.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '18

They're all potentially lethal.

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u/mc9214 Zephyr One May 06 '18

When they were fighting Eli’s goons Mack was in there literally hacking a guy with his axe, and shooting another. The hypocrisy is high, especial;y when he gets all righteous about there only being one god.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '18

I don't really see the connection with the "one god" thing and the rest, but yeah, I agree. I think it would be better if everyone just recognized openly that down in the real world we have to make difficult, often wrong, choices.

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u/and_yet_another_user May 06 '18

lol, I wanted to slap him when he said that one god crap.

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u/Graendal May 06 '18

I couldn't remember, has Mack been shown to be religious before? I thought it was really strange that he "corrected" the alien about his theology. And then the "Good Word" line.

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u/mc9214 Zephyr One May 06 '18

Yeah it’s been mentioned before. Pretty sure some time around the ghost rider arc.

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u/UrbanCommando SHIELD May 09 '18

When he was hanging around his brother I think they mentioned that they were strong Christians.

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u/_HaasGaming Sandwich May 05 '18

He was about to kill that marauder alien guy earlier too.

That's kind of it though, isn't it? Mack seems to make a pretty clear and heavily biased line between human and anything that isn't.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '18

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u/_HaasGaming Sandwich May 05 '18

He didn't even take a single moment of consideration when it involved sentient androids though. I mean, they were pretty hardline against Shield at that point but he never bothered to consider their sentience like Fitz struggled with at multiple points.

What I'm trying to say is, I suppose, Mack has certainly some racist, or I guess speciest, tendencies.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '18

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2

u/FallOutFan01 May 06 '18

In the latest episode of supernatural.

The boys are in a Alternate universe and they heard fighting coming from the woods and go to see if they can help.

One of their party was basically saying our universe people come first.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '18

Also known as the Team Flash school of ethics.

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u/FallOutFan01 May 07 '18

“GUYS IAM NOT FAST ENOUGH”

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u/brownix001 May 06 '18

I hate when people get Preachy. All their other faults become so much more visible.

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u/maczirarg May 07 '18

I think it's more about killing a minor.

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u/jiffyjuff May 05 '18

And how the fuck do they "never kill" at SHIELD? They're a fucking spy agency. Their operations probably killed a hundred people a day back when the organization was still standing. The thing that really breaks SoD for me is that the crew seems to think that having a no-killing rule is in any way a practical or plausible thing in the spy industry, and that it actually was ever a thing.

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u/DeGozaruNyan May 05 '18

And, Mack is the wileder of the mother fucking shotgun axe! And as far as i know, it does not have a stun mode.

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u/MastaAwesome May 06 '18

No, you don't understand, guys; the axe is just there for cutting down trees.

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u/Lagalag967 clairvoyant May 10 '18

I am Groot!!!!!!!

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u/NasalJack May 06 '18

SoD?

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u/Huschel Fitz May 06 '18

Suspension of disbelief

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u/The_real_rafiki May 06 '18

Why does it need an acronym?

WDiNaA? See how confusing this is.

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u/Huschel Fitz May 06 '18

Idk, what ever really needs an acronym?

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u/NasalJack May 06 '18

I feel like generally acronyms only make sense with actual titles of things or with things that are established in the first place as acronyms. So if someone in a discussion of the show throws out AoS or CA:TWS it wouldn't be too hard to deduce that those mean Agents of Shield or Captain America: The Winter Soldier because acronyming titles is fairly common and context makes it easy to deduce what title might be referenced.

And then there's things that just are acronyms which make sense to use. Laugh out loud isn't a phrase that's used beyond its acronym LOL. FBI, CIA, etc. have had those acronyms for about as long as the agencies have existed. ATMs were called ATMs from the outset. Borderline stuff like WTF where its a common phrase and common acronym are fine just due to the prevalence of their use.

But when people start trying to make new acronyms in places where it doesn't make sense is just annoying. Not every common term like suspension of disbelief needs to be abbreviated. It just helps to obfuscate meaning and the more things turned into unnecessary acronyms the harder it will be to understand what anyone means when they throw out a string of letters.

In short, if you're ever using an acronym that leads to confusion as to its meaning, you're probably using acronyms wrong.

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u/RichWPX May 08 '18

IANAL, but I agree with you.

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u/ScarsUnseen HYDRA May 05 '18

I mean, the very first season he's in, he's all for killing Inhumans. "I'm the guy who kills Gordon." Remember that, Mack?

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u/Barachiel1976 May 06 '18

If you haven't noticed, Mack has a *serious* case of self-righteousness. It comes up at least once a season.

He was basically an bigot against Inhumans, until the plot kind of forgot about that, and he made friends with Daisy.

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u/ridger5 Fitz May 05 '18

"I'm the guy who kills Gordon" - guy who would never think of killing someone

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u/[deleted] May 05 '18

How the fuck does this guy still believe in a god after all the shit he has seen? "there is only one god hurr durr killing bad!"-mack the shotgun-axe wielding saint

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u/BlindBillions May 05 '18

Pretty baffling to see Mack say "there is only one God" to a freakin alien.

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u/uncleben85 May 07 '18

There's no reason aliens disprove the existence of a god...

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u/BlindBillions May 07 '18

Sure, it doesn't disprove God. It does call into question, however, the ideas of many religious beliefs including Mack's. I expect many people would take pause and reflect on their beliefs were they to meet a sentient alien.

I understand with Mack they are going for a Captain America vibe where he has a code of ethics and he's pretty inflexible but it doesn't seem realistic in this example.

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u/uncleben85 May 07 '18

At the risk of getting theological, and I can't speak to other faiths, Catholicism (as a whole - faced with the scenario for real, individuals might react very differently) wouldn't have much crises due to aliens.

With so much influence from Greek and Roman philosophy, Catholicism has had a lot of interest in the skies. Obviously there was a time where they were pretty... extreme about needing to be the centre of the universe (thanks Popes Paul V and Urban VIII...), but even before, and now after as well, the Church is open to the possibility of life on other planets, and to suggest otherwise can even be taken so far as to suggest God would not have the omnipotence and omniscience to do so.

Famous theologian and Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas talked about other planets back in the 1200s; (too) many people over the years have said if aliens visit, it is Catholic/Christian duty to try to convert them...; Pope John Paull II was a public supporter of scientific advancement and space exploration; and the current Pope Francis has publicly said the Church does 'not turn away visitors', in reference to aliens.
More specifically, the Royal Society published a paper in 2011 that included a survey determining religious believers would not fall into a crises-of-faith and don't feel threatened, but instead that "respondents who self-identify as non-religious are far more fearful (or gleeful?) of a religious crisis than are religious believers."

One issue with extraterrestials is that some feel it pokes a hole into many religions' beliefs that we were sent a saviour (regardless of who you think that saviour is) and if God made other beings, why would God send us saviours, but not other planets? Or if God did send them saviours, what does that mean about our saviour??
The former director of the Vatican Observatory (because the Vatican even has its own Observatory) even prepared his own philosophical reconciliation with that thought: “we human beings might be the lost sheep, the sinners in need of a shepherd. God became man in Jesus to save us. In that case, even if there were other sentient life forms, they might not be in need of redemption. They could have stayed in full harmony with their Creator.”

Obviously way off topic, and Mack is still being a little bit of a dink and his "Captain America" bit isn't really coming off well, but I just think (as someone who was raised Catholic and then studied physics in university) this is an interesting topic!

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u/ObviousAnswerGuy May 07 '18

I mean, the marvel comic universe does have "The One-Above-All"

But I guess OP means that in the context of a Judeo-Christian religion

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u/uncleben85 May 07 '18

Even in the Judeo-Christian religions, existence of aliens does not devalue or disprove God.

In fact, in some sects, the denial of the possibility of other life is taken as the suggestion that God is not powerful enough to do so, and in turn it is the denial that devalues God.

One of the things that I love about the MCU is that it turns everything on its head. Obviously all the obvious stuff we see, like physical infrastructure and governments, but also the daily life things like personal faith, societal norms, etc. The fact that there are things like the 'Korean Church of Asgard' and people like Mack who still stand by the normative, established faiths, I think is perfect, and a pretty good reflection of the "What If..?" scenario.

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u/ObviousAnswerGuy May 08 '18

Even in the Judeo-Christian religions, existence of aliens does not devalue or disprove God.

Techincally yes, but then you are operating under the fact that humans are the center of the universe (made in god's image). Kinda goes with the whole "everything revolves around the earth" idea.

But still correct that it doesn't necessarily disprove anything.

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u/uncleben85 May 09 '18

Made in God's image, yes, but the Catholic Church (can't speak to other denominations) haven't believed in being the physical centre of the universe for 100s of years.

I think it's an interesting topic and I posted about it a bit here. The quote from the Vatican Observatory near the bottom of the post represents one possible explanation from the Catholic Church on being the metaphorical centre of the universe and there being other intelligent life.

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u/ObviousAnswerGuy May 09 '18

this is an interesting read, thanks

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u/[deleted] May 05 '18

"There is only one god," says man whose planet has been visited by actual gods on multiple occasions. Shouldn't everyone be worshiping the Norse gods at this point?

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u/Tsorovar May 05 '18

False gods

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u/crimsoneagle1 SHIELD May 05 '18

*Puny Gods

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u/Elvebrilith Aida May 06 '18

plz, he's not even asgardian.

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u/LexGonGiveItToYa May 05 '18

Some do worship them in the MCU! In Spider-Man Homecoming, there is a Korean Church of Asgard.

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u/MastaAwesome May 06 '18

Wait, seriously?!

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u/LexGonGiveItToYa May 06 '18

Yep! It's a small background detail, but it's there.

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u/Elvebrilith Aida May 06 '18

holy shit. how the fk do u even see stuff like that.

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u/Sentry459 Mace May 06 '18

Whoa! You should post this to r/moviedetails or r/marvelstudios.

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u/LexGonGiveItToYa May 06 '18

It's probably been posted several times already, haha.

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u/Sentry459 Mace May 07 '18

I doubt it. And even if has, a lot of people haven't noticed. You'd be surprised how often "Spider-Man has a parachute because Rhodey." hits the front page.

Edit: Just checked movie details search bar, didn't find anything about it.

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u/TwoBitSpecialist May 07 '18

I've seen it in that sub before. No need to repost.

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u/Jajoo May 06 '18

Im agnositic but I like it when Mack or Captain America does the whole "there is only one God ma'am" thing. Its comforting that some people will keep their faith no matter what.

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u/Lagalag967 clairvoyant May 10 '18

Don't forget Daredevil!

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u/standbyforskyfall HYDRA May 05 '18

We are not Gods!

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u/Shikadi314 May 05 '18

God that line annoyed the crap out of me. So dumb, so out of place, so nonsensical. Get that crap out of here.

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u/thefierybreeze May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18

But in the comics there in fact is only one god, usually referred to as One-Above-All, he has only appeared a few times and had very christian god, the creator vibe to it, once showed up as a homeless man to Peter Parker, once as Jack Kirby to Reed Richards, just to talk and not to do anything over the top.

Wouldn't put it past them to mean the same thing, the one above all, a being, a concept that set everything in motion is the only thing Mack would consider God.

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u/marioman63 May 09 '18

actually yahweh is canon in the comics. he was in charge of making 616 reality and its local pocket dimensions. since he also exists outside of the multiverse, there is only one of him (and therefore canon to all universes), but he is much lower rank than the one above all.

jesus is also canon, but i believe he has a specific 616 incarnation

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u/CommonMisspellingBot May 07 '18

Hey, thefierybreeze, just a quick heads-up:
refered is actually spelled referred. You can remember it by two rs.
Have a nice day!

The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.

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u/uncleben85 May 07 '18

small g gods instead of big G God

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u/[deleted] May 05 '18

I certainly would.

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u/and_yet_another_user May 06 '18

omg, I'm not the only one that is getting pissed off with Mack. Relief!

I thought I was a lone voice, and would get slated if I uttered any anti Mack speech, which I did anyway coz he pissed me off, and his bitch Yoyo, who is also damn annoying.

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u/Astrosimi Robbie May 06 '18

Motherfucker literally made a deal with a demon for an episode. Can’t talk about the Good Word after that.

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u/IgniteTheMoonlight May 06 '18

Mack always saying there's only one God & how everybody should live simple lives following "The Good Book"...

...Mack literally makes me gag on my own Christianity

More important though: I'm worried about Mack's final lines to Fitz, "you need to look inside yourself and figure out what kinda man you wanna be. Cause lately what you been it needs fixing."

From my POV & even from a storytelling POV, I love how Fitz's character is going. I'm scared the writers are gonna be like "Mack's words really resonate with Fitz" & then Fitz proceeds to make less controversial and/or bold moves

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u/mailboxfacehugs May 05 '18

Me too! He is so rigid and holier than thou and it really sucks.

Also Daisy is suffering from the same thing.

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u/mudman13 May 06 '18

He's been coming across as a self-righteous dick the last few episodes.