2018 is proving to be a big year for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addition to being the 10-year anniversary of the whole enterprise, an occasion celebrated via Avengers: Infinity War, February's Black Panther proved to be an even bigger hit than anyone could've anticipated, and may possibly wind up with an Oscar campaign when everything is said and done. Over on the TV side of things, Jessica Jones' sophomore season has just dropped and dominated the conversation for the weekend, and Luke Cage's second outing isn't far behind, with a release date in June.

All of these were to be expected, but one event that certainly wasn't was this week's episode of Agents of SHIELD, which also serves as the series' 100th episode.

In this day and age, any show getting to air at least 50 episodes seems like a Herculean task in and of itself. When taken ABC's relationship with Marvel into consideration -- the messy treatment of Inhumans, last season of Agents of SHIELD originally under the threat of cancellation -- it's a miracle that the MCU's first foray to the small screen has managed to stick around for half a decade at all. The show has always been the odd one out among the various arms of the MCU -- it's got considerable less scale and budget than the films, but at the same time, considerably more ambition than the Netflix shows have shown, along with a stronger connection, albeit one still downplayed. It's... weird.

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Then again, if there were any word to describe the first season of SHIELD, "weird" would certainly be it. At times, it felt like the show was going out of its way to make sure viewers absolutely knew it was tied to the MCU, dropping names and references that came off as so shameless, even Ready Player One's recent posters would call them out on it. And when the show revealed its true intentions in the aftermath of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it felt like the show had evolved into the spy v. spy caper that it wanted to be. Until that game changer of an episode, it was coasting largely on the goodwill of The Avengers from over a year ago -- however intentional or not. Still, even if the show did pick up after a dozen plus episodes, it couldn't be denied that the fact that it couldn't spread its wings until the first season was nearly over is not a selling point in the show's favor.

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One could argue that in spending so many episodes waiting until Winter Soldier's HYDRA reveal, that served as concrete proof that the TV series could only really become something when it was in orbit of the right MCU film. But then a very great thing happened in the second season by way of Chloe Bennet's Skye. In giving the showstopping reveal that she was actually established Inhuman Daisy Johnson (aka Quake) all along, it became clear that the show stopped caring about getting the approval of its older siblings.

In fact, the last time the series really made any attempt to sync up with the movies was with an episode late in Season 2 that aired just days before Age of Ultron. And it was at that moment that Agents of SHIELD truly became what it was always meant to be.

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The movies and fellow shows of the MCU have their own niches to fill, in their own separate ways. If you've got a fix to see black people look awesome and do their thing, Black Panther and Luke Cage will sate you; if you want some cosmic melodrama and comedy, there's the Thor films. SHIELD's first season and change didn't really have a niche, it simply just... existed, as proof that that the MCU was constantly in motion and the world wasn't static until the next successive movie began.

With Skye's transformation into Quake and the bringing in the Inhumans, the show had soon found its niche: tackling the more weird and ridiculous concepts of the Marvel Universe in a way that's both loving and self aware without outright mocking it in the way that came off insulting as in Jessica Jones. Both the second and third seasons of the show did a much better job at establishing the Inhumans than the show itself and made them feel like a problem that only they could truly handle. The Avengers handle the big threats on Earth, Doctor Strange the magical ones, and so on; so it stands to reason that an international spy agency and its remnants would get stuck with the outbreak of superpowered humans.

SHIELD may have spent more time than was really needed setting up the then-solo movie for the Inhumansbut it also used that time to establish its own sense of weirdness while bringing in more lore surrounding Jack Kirby's characters. Daisy, Lincoln, and Yo-Yo may not have had a talking fish man as part of their supporting cast, but they certainly got by with resurrected recurring baddie Grant Ward having his body worn by an Inhuman parasite. Once the Inhuman train fizzled out, the show set its sights on other Marvel corners to play around with: the unsettling nature of the LMDs proved to be fun and tense, putting the Agents in a simulation where HYDRA controlled the world was inventive and willing to be unashamedly political when that was really needed, bringing in Robbie Reyes' Ghost Rider for some much needed magic fun. The show deftlessly switches between various genres with each small arc of a season while maintaining its core identity and character dynamics throughout. The show even managed to bring in M.O.D.O.K.... sort of.

The finale for this season of SHIELD is being written like it's the last, and if that's the case, it'll be sad to see the show go. It's done much better than anyone could've truly predicted, but the fact that it's gotten this far and able to do so much that it has proves what the MCU is capable of when it decides to not care about fitting together with the other parts of itself.