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

[judgejosephdredd]

Jul 18, 2022 18:22:06 GMT -6 hauntedknight87 said:

Agents of SHIELD's Iain De Caestecker has revealed that he's not interested in playing Fitz in a future project:


"I think I would say probably no. And not that I didn’t have a fantastic time doing it…I think, after everything that happened to those two characters [Fitz and Jemma Simmons], they really gave them a happy ending. And I think it would be so sad to mess with that again. It’s not fair … I’m not sure they would survive it this time. So I like the idea that they’re living a life of normality outside of the SHIELD."



www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a40632831/agents-of-shield-iain-de-caestecker-wouldnt-return/

I can understand, their storylines were pretty much complete. They can be referenced though, if they really want to make AOS canon. 

[hauntedknight87]

Honestly I'd be surprised if they did anything with any of the characters from Agents of Shield outside of Quake. I don't see Fitz and Simmons being used again and quite honestly i see no reason why they should return.

In fact i think Agents of Shield should be left alone. It was a fine series, but it doesn't really need a continuation.

[Chalice_Of_Evil]

Finished Season 1 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Blu-ray.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}I bought this a LONG time ago, and I can’t recall if I ever watched it (I might’ve started and then stopped partway through). Anyway, I decided it was time to give the show a rewatch as it had been so long since I originally watched it on TV when it originally aired. While there was certain stuff I remembered, there was quite a bit I'd apparently forgotten. For example, I’d forgotten that Daisy Skye was just a hacker chick in Season 1 until we were introduced to her in the first episode. Having gotten used to her being an action chick in later seasons, it was weird going back to her being the person who'd sit out of fights/mostly remained behind a computer. Luckily, it wasn’t long before Skye got to be out on a mission, which she handled fairly well given her newbishness in the field. I was also glad that it didn’t take forever for Skye’s secret to be revealed. They’d made it seem like she was a double agent is was working against S.H.I.E.L.D., and once she was found out, the team understandably felt betrayed, but it wasn't quite what we thought. In the end the main thing we learned about her was that she didn’t know her family, was dumped as an infant and Coulson (despite her betrayal) made it his mission to help her find out about her parents - though then when he eventually *did* find out some info, he hid it from her for a while...thus showing he was a bit of a hypocrite (and this wouldn’t be the last time we saw evidence of this). 




I know some people didn’t like Skye early in the show, but I never really had a problem with her. I do think they were trying a bit hard to have her sound ‘Whedonesque’ with her dialogue - and, yes, part of the reason for that would be that two Whedons - one being Joss - were creators of the show), but it just didn’t feel entirely ‘natural’. Also, the ‘subverting expectations’ (that Joss was so fond of) had gotten to the stage where it’d become somewhat predictable. So when Skye was crapping on about her Rising Tide hacker group and how they could never be found or whatever, as the music swelled, you just knew that she would be discovered – and, sure enough, Ward and Coulson opened up her van, interrupting her mid-speech. I think the fact the show was obviously trying so hard to be ‘classic Joss’ is maybe what turned off some people. Anyway, it didn’t really bother me that much and I actually enjoyed the early episodes (whereas most seemed to think that the first season didn’t ‘get good’ until the episode which tied in with Captain America and the Winter Soldier). I’d forgotten that Agent Grant Ward wasn’t too fond of Skye to begin with, and somehow I also forgot this amusing part:



While I didn’t mind the early episodes of Season 1 (I think I maybe skipped one of the really early episodes and another episode later into the season because I vaguely recalled them being pretty boring/lame), for me personally the show didn’t really show that it was capable of telling a truly compelling episode until the sixth one (titled ‘FZZT’ - which, for those who wondered about its relevance to the episode, I’m pretty sure was the meant to be the word for the zapping sound made by an object which caused people and the things around them float...before they died). Up until this one, the characters of Fitz & Simmons had just been these couple of scientist characters who were presented/thought of as being like ONE character (hence the the joining of their names to make ‘FitzSimmons’. I imagine the writers of the first episode probably thought they were being clever and that it’d be a ‘big reveal’ when this character referred to as ‘Fitzsimmons’ turned out to be two separate people...but, really, I think the biggest reaction it would've elicited would've been something along the lines of "...Huh."). And while they were fun in the first five episodes, what this sixth episode did was not only give us some much-needed depth to both, but also gave Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge’s a chance to really show off their acting chops, as they got to do more than just play the ‘technobabble’ aspect of their characters and displayed some real emotion in the dramatic scenes they shared (and this was just the tip of the iceberg as far as us seeing the level of their acting talent).

I think I’d become fond of Simmons as early as the first episode of the series (when she “Awwed" at one of their little flying contraptions, which they’d named after the Seven Dwarves). Between that episode and this one, she’d endeared herself to me quite a bit, so I was already pretty attached to her character - as I'm sure many others were as well - and this was what was needed in order for this episode’s ‘stakes’ to work, since the character of Simmons seemed to be on the chopping block. It explains why they took their time getting to this story, as it wouldn’t have had as much impact if people hadn’t grown to care about her and it had happened in one of the first few episodes. By waiting, they ensured that people *did* come to care about Simmons. Plus, I think the episode played into Joss Whedon's reputation/being known for killing off beloved characters in his shows (especially at surprising times) and they knew that people would be fearing he’d off someone they’d become fond of - which helped sell the moment when Simmons seemingly committed suicide by willingly falling out of the plane that they all apparently live on (think of the cost of fuel when it seems to always be flying!). Was Ward jumping after her, managing to get a parachute on himself and also somehow catching up to her despite her head-start somewhat cheesy/unbelievable? Maybe, but I bought into it because I *cared* about Simmons being saved (and considering the budget the show had at the time, it was a pretty well-done sequence. Then again, the quality of the effects on the show never really bugged me like they apparently did for some people, as I don’t expect the average TV series to have a movie-level budget).

Apart from my relief that Simmons was saved (despite Coulson yelling at her, it was clear he cared about her when he said they’d hate to lose her - Clark Gregg was good at the subtle stuff), one other thing I really liked about this episode was that it included some humour that actually worked (whereas some of what had come before, as well as some of what came after, didn’t always work/could sometimes ‘miss’ as often as it ‘hit’). I LOVED Fitz & Simmons’ impressions of Ward, imitating his kind of stiff, soldier type persona. I actually got a good laugh out of this, and best of all it allowed Brett Dalton to make fun of himself near the end when Ward did his own impression of himself (it’s actually quite impressive once you know what his character’s really all about after the ‘twist’ that comes late into the season).





While this^ episode seemed to be a Simmons-centric one, what came next was a Fitz-centric episode...which I wasn’t as fussed on. It seemed to mainly be about building the Fitz/Ward friendship which took some doing, since Fitz was kind of bugging the crap out of Ward whilst in the field on a mission (though NOTHNIG excuses Ward tossing away the special sandwich Simmons had made for Fitz - you arshole, Ward!). While I got the ‘point’ of this relationship-building, I just didn’t find it as compelling (or funny) as the Simmons episode. However, things got good again when we started delving more into how Coulson was saved from his death in the first Avengers movie. We’d kept hearing about ‘Tahiti’ and knew something was really off when he’d always respond to it being mentioned with “It’s a magical place” (in an automatic kind of way). I definitely remembered the reveal of him having his brain exposed as hi-tech robotics worked away on it (though had forgotten that he was begging for death and that Skye found him). I also remembered Ron Glass from Firefly making a couple of appearance as a doctor who played a role in Coulson coming back to life (and he wasn't the only castmember from a previous Whedon series to make a guest-appearance in this show, as J. August Richards and Amy Acker from the BtVS spin-off, Angel, both played important roles in this season - though the former was a recurring character whilst the latter was just in the one episode). I think that the series did a decent job of ‘earning’ Coulson’s miraculous coming-back-from-the-dead. Like, it wasn’t easy. Making him go through all that pain/suffering and the lasting effects it had on him ensured that one couldn’t simply say, “Oh, he was dead and then came back to life like it was no big thing.” - it was a BIG thing and the reveal of how it happened was a story arc that took up at least half the season, then it remained important until the very end of the season.

I liked when the show started trying different things, such as the episode that played out on a train, showing us the different characters’ POV’s (where an event happened, and we saw it play out over and over, but saw it from each character’s perspective each time). This was the episode that featured the requisite Stan Lee cameo. I enjoyed the fact that Simmons being a terrible liar (but GREAT at preparation) was an ongoing character trait with her (which allowed for some good humour. Speaking of humour, there was also a funny scene featuring Ward & Coulson trying to work the ‘holotable’ that Fitz & Simmons always made look so easy) and it was an episode that showed just how badass Melinda May could be, as she was put through the wringer and yet STILL managed to take out multiple bad guys.



This is probably a good point to mention how utterly awesome Ming-Na Wen was as Agent May. She quickly established herself as the most badass member of the team and although she had a tough exterior and showed very little emotion early on, we saw that she did care about the team and there was a lot going on underneath her steely glances and seemingly grumpy attitude. I think it became clear how much May cared about the team when Skye got shot TWICE (that was an effective moment, as it was actually shocking...especially the second shot. Although most probably expected her to survive - though I think some were hoping she wouldn't - the way they played it was still impactful, especially everyone’s reactions to it. Elizabeth Henstridge in particular totally sold Simmons’ sadness over someone who she’d become friends with coming close to dying, but thankfully she was the quick-thinker who helped save Skye...though that stuff from the alien torso Coulson discovered also had something to do with Skye’s survival and we learned it was what helped bring Coulson back too. Speaking of, while I personally though Coulson was probably the least interesting character in the main cast and oftentimes he showed about as much emotion as May did, when they really started uncovering what had happened to him, it gave Clark Gregg a chance to show some real emotion and he pulled it off well).

One episode that I always fondly remembered from the first season was the one which featured Lady Sif from the Thor films making a cameo. I felt her character (and the actress who portrayed her, Jaimie Alexander) was underused in the films and I was so happy to see her have an expanded role in this episode of AoS. It was fun seeing her interact with everyone, her reaction to Coulson (or ‘Philip, son of Coul’ as she called him) being alive again, and her one-on-one talk with May regarding what the baddie of the episode (another Asgardian by the name of Lorelai played by Elena Satine, who I know from quite a few things) could do - ie. enslave men with her voice, and if that didn’t work...her touch (it was interesting that Ward was able to resist her voice and only became her bitch once she touched him). I also enjoyed seeing Sif kick major arse, her one-on-one fight with Lorelai and hearing the backstory between their characters (honestly, I would’ve been happy with a whole episode devoted to just that - it's a shame we only got to hear about it). It was kind of funny how nonchalant Coulson was about Sif getting sucked out of the plane by the whammied Ward, while Skye and Simmons thought it meant Sif was a goner. One thing I didn’t realise until I read about it online was that Ward still pulled the trigger on his gun he had aimed at May’s head (after they’d fought each other in spectacular fashion) even once Lorelai had been gagged by that collar Sif brought which nullified her powers (so Ward was trying to kill May even when he was back to ‘normal’ - this was a nice little clue as to Ward’s true self before we got to the actual ‘big reveal’ episode). Just as well May had taken his ammo during their fight.




As for the actual episode that revealed Ward’s true allegiance, I recall being pretty shocked when the episode originally aired, as I’m pretty sure I wasn’t spoiled for it. I was sad to see Victoria Hand (Saffron Burrows) get offed, as I’d enjoyed her character (sure, she could be stern and seemingly not very fun, but as she proved with her ‘test’ of Simmons and Trip - another agent who joined the show when Bill Paxton’s mentor character to Ward and old friend of Coulson's, John Garrett, was introduced - to see whether the two of them were Hydra, she knew how to do her job). I think things actually started ramping up *before* this episode, and then the real payoff happened after it. Ward turning out to bad reminded me of Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He’d started off as a pretty ‘serious’ character who didn’t really give much away emotion-wise and who some people apparently didn’t think much of in regards to his acting, but then him losing his soul happened and we met Angelus which allowed David Boreanaz to let loose and really step up his game, showing that he did have pretty good acting chops. With Ward, I felt similarly that his character being revealed as a part of Hydra allowed Brett Dalton to really tap into other layers of his character, showing depth we hadn’t seen up to that point. However, I never found him 'dull'/'boring' even when he was 'good' Ward. I thought Dalton made him likeable enough, even when he could be a bit of a jerk at times. Once the reveal happened, I think some people wondered if he was a legit baddie or pretending or brainwashed, and I find it funny that it took several episodes for some to work out he REALLY WAS BAD (and not in that ‘redeemable’ sort of way some assumed - or hoped - he would be). I did like the fact that even after the reveal of his villainousness, we got to see him still playing the ‘good guy’ to the team (there was a fun interrogation scene and I thought everyone’s answers perfectly summed up their characters).



I do think the show ‘treaded water’ for a bit until everyone found out about Ward, starting with Skye who was the first to learn he was a baddie (when she stumbled upon the corpse of Patton Oswalt’s character, who Ward had killed). I did feel as though they were stretching things out until they got to the season final, though there was some good stuff that happened before it. We had some funny moments like with Coulson and May posing as basically Fitz and Simmons, then there was the dramatic reaction from Fitz to learning Ward (who he thought he’d bonded with) was a villain (though, really, the sandwich–throwing incident should’ve been your first clue he was no good, Fitz). While I understood his reaction, he did become rather annoying how he was continually living in denial whilst everyone around him (including Simmons) was telling him that Ward was REALLY REAL BAD (FOR REALSIES). One things I did enjoy in the last few episodes of the season was Cobie Smudlers returning as Agent Maria Hill (after having only previously appeared in the show during the first episode). She does SO much with the role, managing to make Hill awesome/badass, funny, but not without her flaws, as we see her make mistakes. I especially liked her standing up to Ward after he resorted to insulting her looks (which seems to be the go-to move for any guy who gets called out on their shit by a female), saying basically that Fury should’ve kept Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow around as ‘eye candy’ instead of Hill (this just showed how lame and pathetic Ward was). Something else it was good to see again was Coulson’s flying car, Lola, actually...you know...flying (which was another thing we hadn’t seen since the first episode of the show, and I realise that was probably because of budget...but still, having a flying car that hardly ever flew seemed rather pointless). I enjoyed the sequence with him and Skye plummeting to Earth in the car and seeing the result it had on Skye’s hair after they'd safely landed.




While I had enjoyed the character of Garrett (Bill Paxton - RIP - managed to bring a *lot* to the character), I thought that they did a major disservice to him in the season final when he was ‘going crazy’ from having the stuff injected into him that had saved Coulson and Skye. They had him spouting all this stereotypical villain crap and he was no longer entertaining like he'd once been. I also thought his final demise could’ve been played a bit better than it was. Yes, they went for the classic Whedon joke of a villain rambling on only to be cut off (in this case he was obliterated by some gizmo Coulson found), but I just thought it was a bit random. Coulson turns up, zaps the shit out of Garrett and acts like nothing happened. Were we to believe he didn’t see/hear Garrett monologuing and his killing him was purely an accident? Or was it that he *did* see/hear him, but then just killed him without even reacting to doing so? It was weird, and this wasn’t the first time I felt that if Joss had been the one directing, he would’ve refined the ‘joke’ a bit. I found throughout the season that various writers seemed to want to channel Joss’s particular style of writing/humour...but only succeeded about half the time. I actually felt the season final was a bit uneven and could’ve been more than it was.

The most important part, of course, was Fitz & Simmons stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a section that had been jettisoned out of the plane they’d trapped themselves inside when trying to escape Ward. Obviously they’d thought they were safe in that little room, but despite Fitz attempting to appeal to Ward’s ‘humanity’ (bringing up their friendship and such), it did no good and he dumped them in the ocean - there was parallel drawn between him doing this to them and what we saw via flashback with Garrett coming to Ward when he was younger, bringing him into Hydra, leaving him on his own in the middle of nowhere to fend for himself for many months and then telling him to KILL the cute chocolate Labrador named Buddy who’d been Ward’s only companion for that period of time Garrett left him. I HATE whenever animals are killed in shows/movies, so watching Ward point the gun at poor ol’ Buddy’s face was upsetting enough. Sure, he fired the gun into the air, sending Buddy off running away...but then we got a shot of someone watching Buddy flee through the sight of a sniper rifle and the pooch’s fate was left ambiguous (well, at least until the Season 2 final when Ward confirms he *did* in fact shoot poor Buddy - Ward, you arsehole!). While Fitz had a crush on Skye during the early episodes of the season (which I'd totally forgotten about), it soon became clear that he and Simmons were 'endgame'. Being trapped underwater, Fitz allowing Simmons to be the one to get to the surface with oxygen (since she was the 'better swimmer' according to him) and this resulting in him being without oxygen for a period, which affected his brain was just the first in MANY trials & tribulations they would both have to deal with throughout this series. Once again, Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge  showed they were two of the 'stronger' members of the cast during their scenes in this episode. 

As I previously mentioned, while other people were shitting on this show during Season 1 (up until the Winter Soldier tie-in episode, anyway), I really enjoyed it and felt that it stood apart from other superhero shows mainly thanks to the interesting characters and the actors who played them, as I felt they 'elevated' the material. What I really liked about this first season was the building of a 'family' dynamic. When the show started, it took some time to get a 'feel' for these characters (other than Coulson, of course, who we already knew from the MCU - though we didn't even know that much about him either) and really show how they could work as a team. While this first season did have some ‘rough patches’, I appreciated the ‘simplicity’ of it (as I know it’ll just keep getting more and more complex as the series goes on) and thought that it really wasn’t that bad.

[hauntedknight87]

I still wish that this series was made with Marvel Studios. It's a shame that it was made before Feige had control of Marvel Studios.

[WeirdRaptor]

Jan 24, 2023 16:02:57 GMT -6 hauntedknight87 said:

I still wish that this series was made with Marvel Studios. It's a shame that it was made before Feige had control of Marvel Studios.

Yeah, this was a surprisingly big part of the MCU's hype for a while. I still remember what a big thing it was when Captain America: The Winter Soldier dropped and the series made the internal turmoil resulting from the events of that movie a big subplot for a while. It was glorious.

[Chalice_Of_Evil]

Finished Season 2 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Blu-ray.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}Like with the Season 1, I hadn’t watched this season in quite a long time, so it was almost like watching it anew. I’d remembered that the Season 2 premiere introduced the characters of Lance Hunter (played by Nick Blood, whose name makes him sound like a comic book villain) and Mack, while also featuring Xena herself, Lucy Lawless (whose character, here - Hartley - sadly didn’t make it out of the first episode alive...though she did return later for some flashbacks), and best of all...an appearance by Agent Peggy Carter via flashback!



I’d remembered that Fitz was struggling to return to his ‘normal’ self after having been deprived of oxygen thanks to that arsehole, Ward, sending FitzSimmons to the bottom of the ocean at the end of last season...though I somehow forgot that he was imagining Simmons talking to him until it was revealed at the end of the episode. I’m sure some people were mad at her ‘abandoning’/’giving up on’ Fitz, but I *knew* there was a good reason for her doing so - as was revealed in the third episode which began with a musical montage of Jemma’s morning routine set to ‘God Help the Girl’ (a song I wouldn’t have been aware of at the time I originally watched this episode when it first aired, but since then I watched a movie starring Emily Browning which not only featured the song, but also had it as its title - so I almost immediately recognised the tune this time around).



Unlike the second episode (which was focused on the character of Hunter, who I wasn’t really fussed on despite the show’s best efforts at attempting to make us like him even though he messed up and Coulson seemed totally fine with this, not only letting him off the hook for it, but actually praising him for it...which just made me wish Hunter had died and Hartley had lived instead), thankfully things picked up in the third episode and we saw that Simmons hadn’t ‘abandoned’ Fitz (I never thought she had), but instead was sent on an important mission by Coulson to go undercover at Hydra headquarters. Not only was the opening montage perfect, but so was the character of Agent Barbara ‘Bobbi’ Morse (played by one of my favourites ever since I first saw her guest-star appearance in the Season 3 final of Smallville, Adrianne Palicki), who was first introduced as (in her own words) ‘being uptight and evil’, but eventually we learned she was also an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent who was tasked with extracting Simmons once her cover was blown.





Simmons perfectly summed up Bobbi’s character. She was amazing, could believably kick arse (Palicki has that whole Amazonian stature thing totally working for her) and even after having only just been introduced to her character, I automatically took her side in any arguments she had with Hunter, after she was revealed to be his ex that he was always bitching about. Seriously, how he ever managed to snag her is a total mystery. In fact, Bobbi was SO awesome I wondered if maybe the writers had decided that they’d made her almost TOO AWESOME early in the season, since later into the season she was shown getting fooled by Simmons (into holding electric gizmos that knocked her unconscious), getting her arse kicked a couple of times/needing to be saved, and WARD of all people ‘made’ her when she was spying on him whilst reading a book (how the hell could he have seen what page of her book she was on when he walked past her which allowed him to work out she was spying on him later when he pointed out she was still on the same page? He would’ve somehow had to have had x-ray vision!). Worse yet, they stuck her in a boring side-plot with Mack, where they spoke to each other cryptically and it seemed like it took FOREVER until the reveal of what they were up to finally happened...which turned out to be pretty underwhelming. They worked for another branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. - “the real S.H.I.E.L.D.” as Mack called it - and I couldn’t have cared less.

Worst of all, though, was that at the end of the season, Bobbi is captured by Ward and his yawn-worthy g/f, Agent 33 (who was a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent that had been captured by Hydra at the start of the season and was tortured/brainwashed into working for them, used one of those ‘Nano Masks’ from CA&TWS to disguise herself as May, who she fought and got electrocuted in the face by, causing her facial disfigurement, and this led her to Ward, who she helped after Skye - quite awesomely, it must be said - shot him, and then in no time Ward/Agent 33 were suddenly in luuuuurv ), and they attempt to torture an apology out of Bobbi, as Agent 33 wants revenge against her since she didn't blow her cover to help save Agent 33 when she was being brainwashed. It sucked that Bobbi was taken out of commission for the final episodes...which, once again, was probably due to her being TOO awesome - that’s also a large part of why I think Ward resented her so much when he hardly even knew her. He recognised that she was so much better than him in every way, she essentially replaced him on Team S.H.I.E.L.D. and he couldn’t handle it. He also couldn’t handle the fact that she totally had his number, calling him out on his hypocrisy and blaming everyone else for him being evil. Despite his attempts to break her (with needles under the fingernails that she didn’t feel to begin with because he’d drugged her up, but slowly the drugs wore off and she felt ALL the pain at once), she *still* managed to get free and hold her own in a fight between both him and Agent 33 until they cheated (it was SO not a fair fight!).

The fact that she managed all of this after hours of torture showed just how badass she was, then once she was recaptured, they tied her to a chair and set up a gun to blow the head off the first person who entered the room - which was presumably going to be Hunter, as he mounted a rescue mission to save her, and when he eventually *did* find her and was about to enter, she selflessly leaned over far enough to take the bullet that was meant for him in her shoulder instead, thus saving him and making her she even MORE badass than she already was. She was in pretty bad shape by the end, and it’s clear she won’t be getting back to being in top form for quite some time. I kind of resent the writers for presenting us with this kick-arse female character and then them having to ‘depower’ her in a sense because she kicked 'too much' arse. It did a disservice to the character and the actress, I thought. Still, even with all these obstacles the writers threw at her, she was STILL the biggest badass in the show since Melinda May.



Speaking of May, this season gave us the episode that explained why she was referred to as ‘the Cavalry’ and why she hated that name. Basically, there'd been a mission where S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents were being controlled by some kid with powers (the young actress did a good job playing a creepy super-powered child), she was killing them and May was forced to shoot her. Personally, I thought May didn't do anything wrong, since it was either a bunch of people or one disturbed child and I know which one far outweighed the other, but it was good to finally get the origin of May's nickname (even if it was a little underwhelming). It was fun seeing May vs Agent 33 early in the season (since they were both played by Ming-Na Wen during the fight scene) and I liked that she and Bobbi more or less got along (whereas it would’ve been easy for the writers to have them not like each other since they’re both strong, kick-arse women - but thankfully their characters recognised each other’s awesomeness and had respect for one another). Best of all was May tricking Ward into shooting his boring-as-shit g/f (after setting her up so she'd wear her face again with that 'Nano Mask') and killing her, thinking it was May. That was some sweet, sweet comeuppance for the bitch who had a hand in torturing Bobbi - though, naturally, it just made Ward madder than he already was and by the end of the season he’d gained henchmen (just how lame do you have to be to become henchmen of Grant Ward?). We also met May's ex-husband, Andrew, who was a neurologist/forensic psychologist that Coulson brought in to help Skye after she went through a rather dramatic transformation.

That transformation, btw, was probably this season’s equivalent of the Ward-is-Hydra reveal from last season...only this development happened in episode 10 of this season rather than towards the end of the season. There’d been this whole storyline with a Nazi back in the days when Agent Carter was around to interrogate him, he experimented on super-powered people which included a woman (played by Aussie actress Dichen Lachman, who I’d last seen in that other Whedon show, Dollhouse, before seeing her in this one when it originally aired) who never aged. Him dissecting her, taking her organs and doing god-knows-what with them (what, did he make them into a smoothie which he then consumed?) gave him this same immortality and that’s how he was able to exist in the ‘present’, having reinvented himself as an American named Whitehall (he was another Dollhouse actor, and I remember he got to be quite funny in an episode of that show. Disappointingly, here he was all seriousness).



Much more entertaining than Whitehall was Skye’s dad, Cal, played by a scenery-chewing Kyle MacLachlan, who appeared to be having the time of his life as a character who’d become unhinged after having experimented on himself to gain enhanced strength. And, oh yeah, he was the husband of that immortal woman (Jiaying) who’d been butchered by Whitehall and he wanted revenge against the Nazi bastard whilst pretending to be on his side. So there was all this family stuff going on with Skye, she eventually met her dad (who had killed some people, which made things awkward) and we finally learned her real name - Daisy Johnson (though he might've first mentioned her real name earlier than that. I can't remember. If not, then him humming the nursery rhyme ‘Daisy Daisy’ was certainly a big clue). Apparently Daisy Johnson is a character from the comics (much like Bobbi Morse/Mockingbird is), though since I didn’t read the comics, I wasn’t aware of this until I read about it online. It’s pretty cool that the show managed to bring two Marvel comic book characters to life and do them justice (screw you, MCU, for deciding to ignore this show and pretend it didn’t exist!).

There was this whole big thing with maps leading to lost cities, Mack got possessed or whatever and attacked the team until Bobbi zapped him and he fell down a deep hole (but miraculously survived). Raina was there too. I can’t say I ever was fond of her character (which was probably why she didn’t even warrant a mention in my Season 1 review), as she just seemed to exist to stir up shit. When she, Skye/Daisy (Dye? Skysy?) and Trip were together in a cavern, a mist engulfed them, turning them to stone - from which they emerged moments later (well...except for poor unfortunate Trip, who disintegrated), with Skye/Daisy having apparently gained earthquake-causing powers while Raina was later revealed to have become an unsightly thorn-covered monster (how ironic, given that she was always a thorn in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s side. She always wanted to be around super-powered people - last season she yearned to meet ‘the Clairvoyant’, this season she wanted to be what Skye/Daisy ultimately became...but it didn’t go according to plan, and that’s what she gets for being on Team Evil!). It was a hell of an ending to the episode.





Too bad Trip had to die in the process. From what little I've read on the matter, it sounded like the actor who played him wanted to leave, so I guess that left the writers with few options...but, personally, I liked his character more than Mack - who, as previously mentioned, was introduced in the first episode of this season and I think they tried a bit too hard to get the audience to like him by having him quickly bond with Fitz as he was trying to recover from his trauma, having him question/stand up to Coulson, and I’m sure he won over a few of the anti-Skye people since he was all about pointing out that Trip died because he went looking for her. While I didn’t dislike Mack, I l wished we could’ve kept Trip around instead. He just had this easy chemistry/dynamic with all the other characters and he was likeable without even trying to be. Maybe the reason the actor who played him wanted to leave was because he felt he wasn’t being given enough material worth sticking around for since the writers seemed to struggle to find things for him to do and largely wasted him? After Skye/Daisy developed quake powers (her character in the comics is, unsurprisingly, called Quake), she was struggling to control them, causing damage to her surroundings and unintentionally harming people. Trying to hold it in didn’t work either, as that just caused herself harm/bruising on her arms. Luckily, Simmons was there to create some gizmos for her arms which helped her control the power but cause not self-harm.

While I was pleased to see an appearance by Lady Sif for the second time in the show, I was somewhat disappointed that she spent half the episode with amnesia, not remembering who she was. Again, I think part of this was because they couldn’t afford to have her running around, kicking arse all episode, so she was hampered by this memory loss thing. I’d remembered that Eddie McClintock from Warehouse 13 appeared in this episode, but I didn’t remember that they’d altered his voice somewhat to make it sound deeper (I guess they thought he needed that to come across as a credible Asgardian/threat?). I enjoyed seeing Sif interact with the S.H.I.E.L.D. characters (evidently she’d picked up some human expressions), though I did hate seeing members of S.H.I.E.L.D ready to fight her to protect Skye/Daisy. In the end, though, everything worked out, Eddie McClintock’s character got zapped with his own memory stick (which allowed for a humourous moment) and Sif was no longer S.H.I.E.L.D.’s enemy. Still, it felt like a bit of a waste of such a great character.





Speaking of great characters, it was cool to see Jemma Simmons growing/being developed from the sweet, ‘nerdy’ scientist last season into someone who was willing to do things I don’t think she ever would’ve done previously. It was interesting seeing her 'make friends’ at Hydra (as per Coulson's advice during one of their meetings where she updated him on how she was going with her mission), then setting one of them up to take the fall when she was almost outed early in the episode, thus showing that she was capable of doing questionable things for the greater good. I was bummed that the Fitz/Simmons dynamic from Season 1 was altered in such a way that when the two of them shared a scene this season, it was more awkward and angst-y than it was fun (which is what they used to be). In the Season 1 final, Fitz confessed his feelings for Simmons when they were at the bottom of the ocean, basically took away her choice about which one of them would swim to the surface with oxygen and forced her into it, then she saw that his trauma was worse with her around (Mack basically said as much to her - which I kind of resented on Jemma's behalf, since it came across more as him saying “Fitz is MY friend now! Be gone, woman!” than concern for him - and she responded by saying that was indeed the reason she left). Fitz was angry with her, despite the fact she was doing what she thought would help him. By the end of the season they finally got back to being in a ‘good place’ with their relationship, and Jemma seemed open to them pursuing something more than friendship...but, of course, this is when the whole keep-FitzSimmons-separated-every-season plots began happening (which we would then keep getting for the rest of the series) and in the last scene of the Season 2 final, as one comment I read put it, ‘that thing ate Simmons!’ (the ‘thing’ in question being a stone monolith that would randomly switch to liquid form). I blame Fitz, since he was leaning on the latch and clearly that’s what loosened it so the liquid could spill out to swallow Jemma. I think I probably freaked out back when the episode originally aired on TV. NOBODY hurts Jemma! Least of all some liquid rock!



I liked seeing her be determined to take out Ward. While Fitz thought it was ‘wrong’ or whatever, I was firmly on Simmons’ side and was just bummed that she ended up taking out someone else who dived in front of the gizmo that was intended to disintegrate Ward. While I didn’t mind his character in Season 1 (both before and after he turned evil), this season it just felt like the writers kept him around because they love Brett Dalton (which they’ll continue to do for seasons to come). If they were attempting to make us feel sorry for him when he put all the blame for how he turned out on his brother (who’d become a Senator) and his parents...then they failed miserably. Grant was that sort of person who didn’t take ANY responsibility for his own actions (despite him telling his brother otherwise...right before he killed him - along with their parents - after he threatened him with death to get a confession out of him). All throughout the season Ward kept whining about how everyone else - his family, Garrett, S.H.I.E.L.D. - was to blame for the person he’d become, and I thought this just made him come across as pathetic. If you’re going to be evil, OWN it, don’t blame others for it! He really became a nuisance this season and when he attempted to justify his actions to his former Team, the best part was Skye/Daisy saying she was GLAD she shot him, everyone else agreeing with her, and Simmons saying she should’ve aimed for the face. Ward could’ve been made into a formidable foe (a former teammate turned against S.H.I.E.L.D.), but instead he’s just lame, with plot armour preventing him from being killed when he should’ve been dead AGES ago. The only thing he deserves at this point is EVERYONE contributing to his death (à la Murder on the Orient Express).



I did feel this season piqued around the time of Skye’s/Daisy’s transformation and then treaded water until we got to the season final (which is how I felt last season after the Ward-is-evil reveal...except this time the treading water went on a lot longer). We learned that super-powered beings are called Inhumans (I never saw the show that was about them, since it was never released here. I do know basically everyone seemed to hate it, though). I thought the eyeless teleporter character was quite interesting (the actor did a lot with fairly little, especially with no eyes. Shame he had to die). We also met Lincoln, who has 'the ability to manipulate electrical charges'...which is just a fancy way of saying he has electricity powers. I know others weren’t fond of his character (or the Aussie actor who played him, Luke Mitchell), but I didn’t really have a problem with him. Sure, he wasn’t particularly interesting, but he was nice enough, got along with Skye/Daisy (a much healthier relationship than her one with Ward, to say the least) and although he opposed S.H.I.E.L.D. to begin with, he eventually came around to realising the real villain was Jiaying, who showed her true colours when she attempted to drain the life out of her own daughter until Cal intervened and gave her the bear hug of death. Speaking of death, Mike Peterson (Angel’s J. August Richards) aka Deathlok returned (this time on the good guys’ team), I was glad to be rid of Raina (thanks, Jiaying!) and it was nice that Cal got to live his life as a vet after getting the T.A.H.I.T.I. treatment like Coulson had. Regarding Coulson, I continued to find his character the least interesting out of everyone, as he kept secrets from which caused others to go against him, whereas if he’d just been honest, a lot of the conflict in the season could’ve been avoided. Oh well, in the season final Mack chopped off his hand with an axe to avoid him turning to rock.

On the whole, I think this was a fairly solid second season of the show. But like how I didn’t think Season 1 was as ‘bad’ as others made it out to be, I can’t say that I felt this season was as much of a ‘vast improvement’ as others seemed to think it was when compared to Season 1. There was a ‘charm’ to Season 1, back when it was innocent and less convoluted...and Skye/Daisy had better hair (seriously, although Chloe Bennet is a beautiful woman, I thought her bangs this season were a step down from her hair last season). While I do think this season developed the characters more, gave us some real stand-out moments/new characters, I did feel the plot kind of dragged in the middle. Still, it’s easily the best comic book TV series I’ve been watching lately (I’ve watched one on DVD recently and am currently watching another on TV - neither of which hold a candle to this show). I don’t really remember much about Season 3, but I do seem to recall AoS kept getting 'better and better’ as it went on, so hopefully that proves true and I'm not misremembering.

[judgejosephdredd]

Jan 24, 2023 16:02:57 GMT -6 hauntedknight87 said:

I still wish that this series was made with Marvel Studios. It's a shame that it was made before Feige had control of Marvel Studios.

Agreed. A lot of really solid stories were told in Agents of SHIELD and there were very interesting concepts that expanded on the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the whole. 

[hauntedknight87]

[politicidal]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Ming-Na Wen hopes her time as Agent Melinda May isn't over yet.

movieweb.com/ming-na-wen-wants-marvel-return/

[hauntedknight87]

[taylorfirst1]

Probably the best superhero show ever made.

[WeirdRaptor]

Sept 25, 2023 11:16:54 GMT -6 taylorfirst1 said:

Probably the best superhero show ever made.

Also a damn good Men in Black show.