The end is nigh for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. With just one episode remaining, the cast reflected on the Marvel TV series and the legacy it leaves behind after seven seasons.
Asked how she wants the series to be remembered, Quake actor Chloe Bennet said, "You know what, I feel like -- for our fans and for the people that watch, that love sci-fi and love Marvel -- I mean, they've been with us from the beginning. I think this will always have a very nostalgic place for people, and I feel like something's going to happen when it ends and it's going to be that show that people recommend and maybe slowly watch within a few years."
"But it's really been the heartbeat of the Marvel Universe for a really long time," she continued. "Especially in the past 10 years, the Marvel brand has grown so, so much and in so many different ways, and it's continuing to grow at Disney+, but also we did something really special that a lot of shows aren't capable of doing and a lot of things in the Marvel Universe haven't been able to put their finger on and we've been able to just function in a really specific space that much harder to do than people think."
"I think that'll be appreciated more with time. I think we're like a fine wine and I think hopefully we'll age and just get better and people will look back on it with a lot of love. It's also is so complimentary to the films in so many ways, and I don't think we've gotten enough credit, to be honest, for the show. I think when people start making new things, they're going to realize how difficult it's been to do what the producers and the writers have been doing with our show," she concluded.
"I agree with that, and I would add two things," added Clark Gregg, who plays Phil Coulson. "I think what I'd like it to be remembered for is, one, it's the show the fans built, in that Coulson was dead, he had become an avatar of a regular guy, marked in the green room, marshalling all the rockstar superheroes, and he struck a chord with fans. When that Asgardian bastard shanked him, they weren't having it and they did a #CoulsonLives campaign and Marvel, to their credit, and ABC listened and suddenly we had a show, and the show became kind of just impossible to kill, as people tried, but we just kept our heads down and we kept trying to make the show that we wanted and the fans wanted and it kept on."
"The other thing that I feel super proud about is, from the beginning of the show, one of the key ideas behind the show was that it was going to be a team of superheroes -- I mean, a team of regular people working with superheroes that looked like the world and there has been a level of diversity," he said. "The strongest characters in the show were women early on. The first superhero we had within the team was Chloe. A lot of the world was catching up with that, and certainly we kept trying to evolve and get better at that part of the game as we went along. But from the beginning, that was part of what our show was, and I'm proud of that."
"I mean, whenever they asked me, to me, what was the meaning of the show, I just think it's a beautiful representation of a group of people -- yes, with superpowers and with talents -- whose true superpower is a love for humanity, a love for this world, a willingness to die for it," Yo-Yo actor Natalia Cordova-Buckley explained. "We need more of that kind of values and heroism and love for Mother Earth and for each other, to understand the interconnectedness."
"I think, in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., every single character understands the interconnectedness of a team. And if you make that into the macro, humanity as a race, we are interconnected -- and we're living it right now with COVID. So, the message is, if I hurt, you hurt; if I die, you die. If I die, something dies in someone else, so it's this belief that we need each other to be well, to be healthy and that our true superpower is not running fast but the love that we have for each other," she said. "I've always said that, to me, that's the most beautiful message that this show showed me. So I hope that's what we're remembered for."
"And our show's name is 'Ragtag,' actually. You know, that's our code name for the production company of S.H.I.E.L.D.," Ming-Na Wen, who played Melinda May, pitched in. "I think our show, it represents a ragtag group of people who are a lot of times outsiders or don't fit in, and yet they're able to create their own family and their own world where they can support and root for each other and live up to their potential and encourage each other to live up to their potential."
Responding to Cordova-Buckley and Wen, Mack actor Henry Simmons added, "You two said it best. I mean, the only thing I could say is, really, it all boils down to family. It's just family. Those characters were family, and it's the lengths that you will go to protect [and] care for your family. And that's really the bottom line."
"It had such a huge pressure and expectation at the start. We found our feet in Season 1, and every season it was kind of like, 'Are we going to come back? Oh my gosh, we came back!'" recalled Simmons actor Elizabeth Henstridge. "And it felt like we kind of started maybe as -- the expectation was so high and then we kind of turned into the underdogs, and we've just kind of been scrappy and made it to season seven."
"I think we've really been able to -- the creators and the writers and the whole team has crafted the show to be kind of organically what it was always meant to be, and then being able to end on our own terms is just such a gift," she continued. "I think we're all so emotional, in terms of this being the end, because we feel like we've been through such a journey where every season we didn't know that we were going to come back and, just to be able to end it this way, I think is really great. So I think, for me, it's that show that has kind of the underdog charm, that we accomplished something kind of phenomenal and rare."
"It's interesting, because it feels like there's not a lot of Marvel properties that people would have to be like, 'No, it's good! It's good!'" Deke actor Jeff Ward added with a laugh. "I think the show always carved out a niche for itself. It was always different from what what everything else had to offer. I think one of the amazing things about S.H.I.E.L.D. that, to me, is kind of the main part of its legacy that I see, is I feel like there's a weight to the MCU movies that, you know, is awesome. "
"It's obviously very cool, and I feel like S.H.I.E.L.D. has that, but it's so effortlessly, always blended being very funny and kind of heightened comedy, sometimes being aware of itself -- when Jed [Whedon] and Jeff Bell would always like... that kind of aware-of-itself humor that's taking itself seriously but also commenting on itself in a fun way, like the way that they would seamlessly be able to do incredible action, especially when you consider on the budget and time constraints, that all of the action was done in, and then how it just would flip so effortlessly and seamlessly to really tugging on your heartstrings and or really making you laugh," he said.
"I feel like it has all these. It's genuinely thrilling, it's genuinely heartbreaking and it's genuinely really funny. So it's a very cool blend, that it always was all of those things, that I feel like is something that makes it unique, which is pretty cool," he concluded.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. concludes next Wednesday with a two-hour series finale, which pits the team against a fleet of sentient robots called Chronicoms. After traveling through time from the 1930s to the mid-1980s, the team has just watched the Chronicoms destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. with a few blasts from outer space. Now, they'll have to scramble to survive, even as the Chronicoms attempt to wipe them out and complete their invasion of Earth.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. stars Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Henry Simmons, Iain De Caestecker, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Elizabeth Henstridge and Clark Gregg. The series finale airs Wednesday, Aug. 12 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.