Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

RichardGarfinkle said:

I binge-rewatched the entire season over the past week with some amusing results, especially as regards the writing. It seems to work better at this pace than at the transmitted pace. It also works quite well on rewatch since the entire series is full of Easter Eggs.

Nearly everything Ward says through the entire series until his big reveal has two meanings. A great deal of what Mae says to Coulson about how Coulson is doing also has two meanings.

Mike Peterson's development into Deathlok is handled very nicely. There's only one largely unexplained event: why did Garrett have Mike kill all those Cybertek people in the T.R.A.C.K.S. episode?

They actually did a good job of foreshadowing the possible danger of Hydra. Indeed in the second episode they talk about refugee Hydra scientists doing things after WWII.

That something bad was going to happen to Fitz was foreshadowed in the last few episodes since he kept talking about not liking change.

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This does seem like a show conducive to binge-watching. I also agree about Deathlok. He was one of the best parts of the show for me.

What I want to know is - how are the Brits in this thread watching episodes before me?? Has it been showing on another channel apart from Ch4?

The season finale was awesome! But does anyone know (or have an educated guess) what Coulsen was drawing at the end?

My answer to TJCory's question would just have been "next season's MacGuffin", but that sounds good, too. I've seen the alien referred to as Kree on io9, which makes sense except that the Kree appeared in the F4 canon, didn't they? Marvel may have a problem similar to the one about calling mutants mutants.

And I'd so love the Inhumans angle if they went for that!

Season 2 is FAR superior to season 1, mainly because it's not having to wait for "that moment" from The Winter Solider to actually get the series started. The first part of season 1 was basically a really long prologue that perfectly illustrates why so many people hate prologues. It didn't allow the series to start where the story started.

I actually didn't watch most of the first part of this season because the last one was so terrible overall. However, once I did watch part of Season 2, I watched all of the rest of it.

Agent 33, with her damaged May-face was a terrific idea. (Very much the ultimate "you don't know who you're really dealing with" character, and possibly an Easter egg nod to Disney's "hidden" Club 33.)

I *love* the Koenigs and how you can't tell if they're a LOT of identical brothers, or clones, or life-model decoys. They put a lot of heart back into the show that was missing by the end of season 1.

Fitz's difficulties are handled well, better than I expected actually, but in changing Fitz, they've made Simmons unnecessary. His dynamic with Mac is terrific.

I love, love, love, love that Skye did what she did to Ward. Seriously - happy dance loved it. As her supervisor, May would approve, as a father-figure, Coulson would approve, and as a long-time watcher of TV and movies who screams every time a character has the chance to do what she did and doesn't take it... I approve.

Kyle MacLaughlan plays cuckoo for cocoa puffs better than anyone. He's basically a 2year old at war with a grown man inside his own head. Throwing temper tantrums while trying to achieve fairly complex revenge.

I'm not sure why they're playing so coy with "those important words no one bothered to speak," like "the title of that 2018 movie" and "that city" or even the name of the "fog" but Skye's big reveal was very well done. Both her name and "what she became."

From the look of things, I'm not sure Raina will be as pleased with her transformation. Someone earlier suggested that she could be Moondragon, but if they're using that character and playing with her origin, then they're seemingly taking a very literal spin on the word "dragon."

Did not like the part with Tripp - at all. Nope. Didn't like it at all. Mr. Howling Commando, another guy who actually does the logical thing when presented with a horrifying situation (Skye and Raina) and then for it to be Skye's transformation that makes the cookie crumble? Nope. That's not right, man.

I am glad that Mac seems to be recovering, though.

Not sure about Ward and his new foot soldier. That's a creepy combination in the making, but could turn Boris and Natasha really fast.

Ahh! I stopped watching this after 3 episodes. Not sure why. Just kind of piled up on my DVR. I'm so so so so glad I returned to it. It really found its stride 5-6 episodes in. So, I binge-watched the holy heck out of it and am now caught up.

I'm so impressed with this show. I love Skye's transformation(s). I love Bobbi as well (especially knowing she was Wonder Woman in the failed T.V. pilot--she would have rocked that role).

I knew Skye would turn out to be a canon Avengers character, so it was awesome to finally get the reveal on that. I'd been a little sad on her behalf so far this season - it's like she was in limbo, no longer having her wide-eyed joy from season 1 but also not having much of a purpose beyond slowly becoming May. And the tension between her and Coulson at the beginning of the season? NOT COOL. So glad they're huggy again!

I wasn't surprised about Tripp. The writers have done nothing with him all season while giving Mack moving scenes with Fitz and pushing him deeper and deeper into the affections of the team, so I figured Tripp was a goner right from the start. Poor Tripp - they could have done so much more with him.

Kyle MacLaughlan plays cuckoo for cocoa puffs better than anyone. He's basically a 2year old at war with a grown man inside his own head. Throwing temper tantrums while trying to achieve fairly complex revenge.

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LOL That describes him perfectly!

Cyia said:

S

I love, love, love, love that Skye did what she did to Ward. Seriously - happy dance loved it. As her supervisor, May would approve, as a father-figure, Coulson would approve, and as a long-time watcher of TV and movies who screams every time a character has the chance to do what she did and doesn't take it... I approve.

Kyle MacLaughlan plays cuckoo for cocoa puffs better than anyone. He's basically a 2year old at war with a grown man inside his own head. Throwing temper tantrums while trying to achieve fairly complex revenge.

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Super agree with all of this. The thing with Ward got an audible reaction ("WHAT?") from me, which is really hard to do these days. I also loved Ward's line sometime before that where Skye's father is like, "I don't want you to see what I'm about to do (to Whitehall)" and Ward is like, "I don't mind." Seriously, Ward has been actually really interesting to watch this season, and that is not something I thought I would be typing a year ago.

A really solid season 2, so far.

The thing with Ward is that he still maintains his belief that he's one of the team. He thinks he's helping Skye. He tried to keep Hydra from shooting down the bus, etc. He's operating like he's still working with SHIELD, at least in his own head. The man's delusional at the very least, but it's so much fun to watch.

He was truly surprised by Skye's actions. That look on his face was like "Why would you do this to me?" Like they're still friends.

At the end of S1, the main question for Ward was "will they redeem him or keep him as a bad guy?" - And I'm very happy they went with option three - both, depending on who you ask. Plus, apparently crazy.

With the exception of Tripp (gotta agree there), they've done some amazing character work this season. Fitz' complicated recovery, Skye's growth as an agent (but apparent stagnation as a person), the matter-of-fact way they connected Mack and Fitz. All packed into episodes so full of plot development that I sometimes thought they were over one act break too early because it felt like 43 mintues of material already (and I ceratainly wasn't bored). Makes me forgive the occasional plot hole (so the second time you enter the city you don't need a hazmat suit, Tripp?).

I enjoy watching Ward. I think he's gone past the point of redemption, to be perfectly honest, but then I remember... Joss Whedon. So, yeah... it's possible.

Yeah, I loved the last episode apart from poor Tripp. So on the one hand, good job writers for making me annoyed that he had such an unjust death, but on the other hand C'MON COULD HE NOT HAVE GONE OUT DOING SOMETHING LESS DUMB.

EMaree said:

So on the one hand, good job writers for making me annoyed that he had such an unjust death, but on the other hand C'MON COULD HE NOT HAVE GONE OUT DOING SOMETHING LESS DUMB.

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I saw it as just the opposite. He didn't go out doing something dumb, but doing one of the few logical things the characters have ever done.

Tripp's a modern day Howling Commando; he's a soldier at heart, and he's old school. The "if it needs done, get it done," type. The crystals were *apparently* hurting someone he cared about (plus Raina), therefore, the crystals had to go.

Someone elsewhere pointed out that his "pointless" death may be more than in service to Skye's story. We just haven't seen it, yet.


***Blah Blah Speculative SPOILER WARNING Blah Blah***


If the MCU is still bent on connecting the movies to the show and other outlets, then Tripp's death is likely the first step toward the Terrigen bomb. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it makes sense.

Tripp was in the chamber when the mist activated, which served to show that the mists themselves aren't harmful to humans in their natural capacity (unlike the version that Mack ran into, which was a defensive weapon). Even when Tripp destroyed the crystals, it wasn't the crystals that killed him - it was the Diviner. That's what threw shards into his chest and activated the stone skin protocol.

Best guess is that Skye and Raina are the proof that the other Inhumans need to know they're not alone on the planet. Enter Reader, the eyeless wonder from the end of the episode.

There are now a couple of choices. Either Reader and his bunch will realize they can set off a terrigen bomb in the atmosphere without committing global genocide - in order to find more lost "children" like Skye and Raina. OR, someone else (*cough* Ward and 33 *cough*) will set one off in order to fulfill Dr. Nazi's big picture plan, as 33 only wanted to make him proud of her like a good disciple.

The third choice would be for Cal to set off a bomb like that in hopes that it would make the world safer and easier for his daughter, so she won't be the only one like herself in existence.

I think the Agent 33 version is most plausible, given her background, and if Ward thinks what he's doing will in any way help Skye, then it feeds his delusion that he's still on her side.

A terrigen bomb would also fuel a couple of seasons' worth of storylines, while also setting up the film in 2018. Someone's going to have to come clean up the metahuman mess, so who better than the royal family needed for the movie?

Good point on Tripp's actions. It wasn't the kicking thing that bugged me--as you said, that made sense to try and protect his friends--but I didn't like than he ran into that chamber in the first place. He could see the doors were closing and went inside knowing he'd be trapped, and knowing that only special people were supposed to enter the city. (I *think* that was common knowledge at this point, anyway?)

I'll preface all of this with noting that I *really* like techie characters, and much prefer to see them acting in logical and methodically as a contrast to the action hero characters. I've always considered Tripp a strongly techie/mechanic character, we don't often see him fighting. He strongly encourages harmony between Fitz/Simmons and Hunter/Morse and leaves if things get heated.

If he'd stayed outside of the closing door, he could have used the tools upstairs with FitzSimmons (varying quantities of explosive, and I'd be surprised if there weren't some rock-breaking tools too) to force open the closed chamber. Possibly he could have ever used the existing explosives and tweaked them to be a much lower potency? I have no idea how explosives work but it seems believable enough to me.

And *then* he could still die as part of the Diviner's defense mechanisms, but he'd have gone out in a way that wouldn't have felt mildly out of character. Tripp's always been shown as a patient, observant bloke, not the rush-in type.

EDIT: See the loud 'BALLS!' below for acknowledgement of me being a daftie.

EMaree said:

I'll preface all of this with noting that I *really* like techie characters, and much prefer to see them acting in logical and methodically as a contrast to the action hero characters. I've always considered Tripp a strongly techie/mechanic character, we don't often see him fighting. He strongly encourages harmony between Fitz/Simmons and Hunter/Morse and leaves if things get heated.

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Uh, sure you're not confusing him with Mack right now?

Max Vaehling said:

Uh, sure you're not confusing him with Mack right now?

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BALLS

Yeap. Entirely.

Rushing headlong into danger is entirely in Agent Triplett's character, and I'm an idiot.

Ignore me, I'm going back to my box.

Max Vaehling said:

Uh, sure you're not confusing him with Mack right now?

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I can't understand why they got an actor so similar to Trip to play Mack. That's been bugging me all season. Quite often you'd just see one or the other of them standing in the background of a scene, so up until they'd speak or they'd give us a close-up, I'd have trouble figuring out which one it was. Sometimes even then, at first, because I hadn't seen the show in a while and was fuzzy on what Trip looked like.

Just for disclaimer's sake, I'm not saying that every black man looks alike. I'm saying two big bald guys with a similar build and even similar voices in the same show, but rarely seen together, can get confusing for the audience. I remember in Stargate SG-1 when Ben Browder first joined the cast, some casual viewers had trouble distinguishing Ben Browder from Michael Shanks because they had the same build, the same haircut, and similar faces, so Michael Shanks grew a beard for a while. It's best to make your casting choices a little bit diverse for the sake of those viewers who aren't paying complete attention to side characters or who maybe don't have excellent powers of facial recognition.

But this problem was yet another reason why I completely expected Trip to die - it was almost like the Koenig thing, they'd brought in Trip's twin to take over for him.

Well, seeing as how this is based on a Marvel comic, tripp isn't necessarily dead

Meanwhile - poor Raina. Even she doesn't deserve a transformation that causes her constant physical pain. I've seen chatter that she's becoming the MCU version of Naja, but I'm not sure what that would mean for her character. I'm not familiar with Naja in the comics; she's apparently a recent addition.

It looks like Sif's back this week, and from the promo shots, Skye/Daisy is going in the black-box interrogation room.