This weekend, I finished watching the final season of Agents of Shield and it was, as expected, brilliant and moving, hopeful and emotional, and an action-packed time-travelling ride to the end. The first thing to say about it is thank goodness it came to a good conclusion, that for the most part the time-travel story made sense, and it was a happy ever after for almost all of the characters. Phew!

I’ve written about our agent friends before, at the end of series four, and I think since then it’s gotten better and better with every series. Somehow it feels like it sits under the radar of most other Marvel properties and yet has still delivered great stories, fabulous sci-fi, with characters that we have grown to love over the past few years. It really is sad to see them go, but then looking back over what they’ve been through, it’s about time they had a rest.

A quick summary of the seasons, for my own future benefit just as much as recapping the greatness of this show:

• Season 1: Phil Coulson is alive! How is that possible? The team come together and fight various battles against Hydra before realising they had been infiltrated by the enemy the whole time!
• Season 2: Coulson rebuilds Shield and new members join the team. Skye/Daisy finds out more about her origins and we learn a lot more about inhumans, as she gets herself some new powers.
• Season 3: Partly focused on gathering and fighting various inhumans, and partly focused on the disappearance of Simmons who ended up on a terrifying planet
• Season 4: Three part series that starts with the brutal Ghost Rider, moves on to confront artificial intelligence with LMDs, and then brings it all together when everyone finds themselves in the Framework.
• Season 5: Another saeson of two parts, the first of which sees the aftermath of the destruction of earth, the second is about trying to prevent that future from ever happening
• Season 6: Half the team are searching all of space and time for Fitz and Simmons, the other half are facing a deadly enemy that can take over their body. Also Coulson’s face is back, but is he the real Coulson?
• Season 7: Final series that bounces through time bringing together all the threads, focusing in on inhumans again and that most important thing to all the characters - family!

So many incredible moments across the years, and the occasional episode that really stands out above the others. In season 7 it was the time looping episode with Daisy trying to break the cycle. Really well crafted and executed. I’ll miss this show but I think it held its own against a much bigger universe, and given a small break to gather my emotions, I’ll dip back to the beginning and start the journey all over again. They’re time travellers, after all, it’s what they would have wanted.