Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- Marvel meets Joss Whedon meets...TV!

It's being pushed back an hour next season. Which the network says is because they want to go darker but it could also be seen as shuffling it to a timeslot where it's likely to die on the vine. Frankly surprised they even renewed it for a fourth season so I'll take what I can get.

SPOILERS!

The finale was pretty good, but after all the "SOMEONE WILL DIE!" teasing, it was pretty disappointing that they went for easiest option and killed the most expendable main character. I was half expecting that they would kill Coulson, with maybe some hint in the stinger that he might still be resurrected. That would've provided some interesting change in dynamics for the next season, with everyone adjusting to his loss, May or Mack becoming the new director, etc. Though based on the "6 months later" scene it looks like one of them might've become the director anyway.

Also, while I knew they wouldn't kill Daisy, because she's pretty much the main character, the one the viewers are supposed to identify with, I didn't like how SPOILER sacrificing himself in her stead took away her agency. After all the shit Hive did for her, she deserved to be the one who ultimately defeats her. Also, this resolution makes that whole "Lash's destiny wasn't to kill Hive but save Daisy" mumbo jumbo from the previous episode a bit pointless. Turns out saving Daisy didn't really help them at all in defeating Hive.

I agree that it's kinda sad how neither ABC or Marvel seems to care that much about AoS. It seems Marvel Studios are putting more effort into developing the Netflix shows, and ABC simply doesn't know or care about how to market this series. I sorta understand why Agent Carter flopped, it was tonally so different from anything else in the MCU (even if that uniqueness was exactly what made it great). But AoS is pretty much in the same genre and has the same tone as, say, Winter Soldier and Civil War, and considering how popular they were, and how solidly written and acted the seriers remains, you'd think it'd be a certain success?

I think the issue with it now is that it bought 100% in to Inhumans, and Marvel appear to be abandoning Inhumans in the cinema. Whereas the link tv to film worked brilliantly for Winter Soldier, because the events were playing out at the same time in the two different arenas, in this case all the seed work looks like it's gone to waste and because it's so integral a part of the show it's difficult to see how it's going to continue.

Having said that, Season 4 is confirmed but I expect it to be all about Daisy's return to the fold rather than exploring the post-credits Doctor Radcliffe SPOILER.

This series has been fairly satisfying but has, at times, felt directionless. The Primitives, in particular, felt like a cost cutting exercise to use one set of shitty makeup repeatedly to reskin repetitive fight scenes and not like they were ever a serious part of Hive's plan. Hive was definitely underused/shoehorned in - it seemed to me that the whole thing was about the IMAGINE WHAT THE VIEWERS WILL SAY WHEN BRETT DALTON APPEARS AHA rather than a real sense of narrative, and then once in the series was a Maguffin to remove ALL the hanging threats the series has introduced to date e.g. Lash, Malick.

IMO the Inhumans thing has in general been a positive thing for the series, because it's provided it with convenient a way of including new characters and plot elements, so the protagonists won't just have to fight against HYDRA or some other shadowy conspiracy all the time. But you're right that it does make it feel disconnected from the movies, since Inhumans have never even been mentioned in them, even though their existence is now semi-public knowledge. It was pretty weird having Civil War center around registering superheroes without no one even mentioning all these powered people popping up all over the world.

once in the series was a Maguffin to remove ALL the hanging threats the series has introduced to date e.g. Lash, Malick.

I don't really agree with this... Lash and Malick were only introduced this season, so they were part of the whole Hive plot arc to begin with, even if they first appeared before him. And IMO it was a good thing Hive was built up so much before we actually saw him, and even after that he wasn't over-exposed. His whole deal is that he's the Devil, and practically unbeatable, so he could only be defeated with the highest of costs. If they'd used him more and made him more into a regular recurring villain, that would've diminished his scariness.

I was thinking more that Marvel had an Inhumans movie on the slate, which was why they were introduced in AoS, and now they either don't or it's pushed back until everyone's forgotten it exists (depending on which gossip you believe). A cynic would say it's due to needing something to replace/allow X Men in non-Sony product (cf Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are not mutants in the Avengers films) but that Spoiler-Man in Civil War holds out hope it's not necessary.

Malick had so much HYDRA baggage it's hard to see him as anything other than a substitute, which was made explicit around trying to open the portal(s). Lash was an Inhuman related plot that morphed into the trite "every Inhuman exists for a purpose" schtick that got trotted out multiple times in the finale. If Lash's purpose was to save Daisy, then killing all those other Inhumans was just for shits and giggles then? And it's OK, just collateral, because he achieved his 'purpose'? (Also let's not go into the determinism aspects of this.) And I get that Hive needs a huge cost to destroy, but that's then out of balance for a small team of mainly non-powered people that are basically high tech spies. Leave that sort of epic stuff for the films.

Lash and Malick were only introduced this season,

I thought this about Malick, too, but I started rewatching the movies recently and was surprised to realize that he's in the first Avengers movie.

Lash and Malick were only introduced this season...

― Tuomas, Thursday, May 19, 2016

wat?

more goth daisy plz

so uh ghost rider is going to be appearing in season four

i didn't see that coming

well uh I guess the android takeover is in progress

I thought that was a pretty badass episode. Like a well-done mashup of The Thing/The Terminator/The Matrix without being as cheesy and awful as something like that sounds on paper. Pleasantly surprised that anyone else is still watching!

ahaha if anyone's still watching they dropped a MODOK easter egg

I'm still watching, tho it was a close thing after the Ghost Rider half of this season.

Yeah, I'm still on it although I missed the MODOK thing.

Ghost Rider half was pretty awful, the Hydra fake world felt... inconsequential? I thought they should have played the section up where they had no idea who was an LMD and who wasn't for longer as that was possibly the most interesting bit of the season. That said, loved the unhinged ADA in the last ep when she was learning emotions and got dumped.

i have no idea what MODOK is, but i have to say this season has been off the chart bonkers, but very entertaining.

have to be careful not to read too much here, as in the UK we have just got to the fake world part.

i've got a pretty big backlog of these to work through but the promise of any kind of modok-related content is more than enough to get me to get back on the horse

Myself also - we got to the bit in Season 3 where they visit the alien world, and there is much drama and then everyone escapes except everyone escapes - and there are still 12 episodes to go? Fuck a US television season.

the Hydra fake world felt... inconsequential?

Huuuuuuh?!? This does not compute at all, particularly wrt one specific member of the team who I won't mention for the sake of spoilers. But also that story hasn't quite wrapped up yet.

This has been the best season yet, imo.

I am legitimately ashamed of myself for missing that MODOK reference. Sending back my FOOM card as we speak.

Since the other UK people are behind I won't spoiler it either but I was specifically thinking in terms of the one big showmance and how it played out. Once they were back it was just status quo despite what happened out there. The Daisy plot there seemed to be all about the relationship (dodging spoilers there hard beyond that statement) and I felt the relationship between it an the real world was really badly explained - if you died in either world you died in both, except for the people who were already dead who were then alive? And I didn't really like the ADA resolution at all, which again was handwaved by "remember that thing we did?".

Second half of Season 1, post-Hydra reveal and close to Civil War (plus Bill Paxton chewing it up) is the peak I think.

Maybe it's just getting lost in the morass of shows at the moment, with all the CW stuff getting to season finale too, but this season just hasn't stood out for me. Wasn't keen on the Ghost Rider section, LMD had promise but pulled the wrong levers imo and noting it's not resolved yet but Agents of Hydra has been v patchy.

Yeah, man, I feel like we're watching different shows. I'm not usually crazy about alternate/virtual reality storylines because they tend to leave no lasting impact, but they've found some very novel ways to make the trip into the Framework matter on a number of levels (and I wasn't even thinking about the team member who chose to stay plugged in and the effect this might have on said team member). And, yes, it's not over yet (although it appears that Ada's Darkhold machina is not likely to deus ex some of the Framework-related things that I thought it might).

Re: the laws of the Framework, I think it's been relatively consistent but these things are rarely entirely coherent so I just have to let go at a point (see also: any and all time travel fiction). But my understanding is that there are already pre-existing avatars of everyone in the world within the Framework, and if you enter from the real world you'll inhabit your avatar (even if they're unfortunately buried in a shallow grave, say). But if you subsequently die in the Framework, your IRL body also dies.

I felt the relationship between it an the real world was really badly explained - if you died in either world you died in both, except for the people who were already dead who were then alive?

It's virtual reality! Anyone in the simulation, whether they were dead, alive, or never even existed in the real world were completely simulated. That wasn't Ward, and that wasn't Mac's daughter -- they were computer simulations of those people. I'm fine with the "you die in VR, you die in real life" since that's the oldest "I'm plugged into a computer" trope there is. I am not sure why the rest of it is confusing.

And I've botched it by stating it poorly.

Anyone in the simulation who was not a real life person plugged into a machine was simulated.

imo the only real question, which is completely irrelevant to the plot of the show as presented, is whether all of the simulated people were Ada-style artificial intelligences based on all the data the computer crunched, or if they were just non-player characters reacting to stimuli.

xpost Yes. There's a simulated you walking around inside the Framework. When you enter the Framework, you inhabit that avatar. And they suggested fairly strongly that when you leave the Framework, your avatar will continue on without your consciousness to guide it. Except for those instances where, while inhabiting your avatar, either you or your avatar die, in which case it's Game Over for both of you, man.

My interpretation (and this is largely speculative because I don't think it was even necessarily implied) is that the Framework is kind of a hybrid between a virtual and an alternate reality. There's a lot of techie algorithm-ing involved but the thing is also to some extent Darkhold-derived. And that, I assumed, is what accounted in large part for the Framework's ability to so completely replicate an entire world's worth of people without any uncanny valley-ness. Because, for instance, how on earth would you program the complex existence of Mack's daughter such that he can't see right through the simulation?

Like my hunch is that the Framework just exists now, independently of any earthbound hardware. It's a whole separate universe unto itself that can be entered via technological means. We'll see how my theory pans out next week, I guess.

you're linked directly into his brain, just override any suspicions with a strong "it's her" xp

loved the Ophelia claim that it was another world, Fitz isn't evil now.. and neither is she!

whatever, lady

You're both right, this is just symptomatic of how little the show has impacted on me and how little I seem to be able to engage with it.

I'm the guy with decades of Marvel & DC continuity in my head - even the volumes of unbelievably shit stuff over the past 5 years - and still struggle with how leaden the concepts have been here.

Rebirth has stolen your joy, aldo.

kudos to the actress playing Aida having done two distinctly different characters and three versions of the same android/simulation/human character

The two-shot with her and Fitz in the containment cell in the last episode is the highlight of the season.

her "wait... what?" reaction to Fitz saying he only can love Jemma was great

Also, since you brought up the DC shows earlier...I'm so much more invested in this show and the characters and their relationships than I am in any of the stuff happening on the CW. I cannot think of a DC character they could kill off that I'd be at all affected by, but moments like the Fitz and Simmons reconciliation this week...man, that got to me. And I'm all 'they've got to run the Trip avatar through Ada's body-making machine!' and 'we can't lose Mack!' As opposed to 'oh, did [REDACTED DC CHARACTER] just get killed? (yaaaaaawn)'.

kudos to the actress playing Aida having done two distinctly different characters and three versions of the same android/simulation/human character

― mh, Friday, May 12, 2017 11:15 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was seriously going to follow up with this exact comment. I don't mean to overshoot or anything, but her performance has been some Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive, 'wait, is that the same actress?!'-level stuff.

For me the whole ADA storyline has been a kinda boring cul-de-sac of a story

The ada character felt like pure fanservice from the off with her sexy corporate chic attire & quiet smolder oh she might love me oh she might kill me ... the IDEA of this story is a huge eyeroll for me

there have been entertaining parts & i dont hate it completely but it feels like a placeholder story while they figure out a new arc, it just does not interest me

I know it makes me a 5 year old but I dont caaaaaaaare about lady robots & fuckin virtual reality worlds & i just want to see them fight bad guys in a normal marvel way instead of whatever this endlessness is

I think you mean "normal marvel movie / netflix show way"

half of the comics just churn crap in a much worse way than this!

but yeah, the "two guys secretly build a HOT ROBOT in their garage" bit was kind of a red herring for the much creepier reality that a scientist built a robot that looks like his dying friend (?!?) and ends up being the key, along with supernatural shenanigans, to letting the real one keep on living virtually

imo they dropped the ball on showing Agnes living her life -- she was literally kept on an island in the virtual world so she wouldn't find out her permanent home was a fascist wonderland!

i think you know i meant that since i usually dont talk about comic books much

hey lady I don't share all my interests on this board, I'm not going to make any assumptions

i aint reading any of the last posts, but ...
i am glad others are watching it.
they have totally raised their game with this season.
so many LOL moments and !!!! moments.
it's a massive weekly highlight for me and my 13 year old kid.

xpost fair enough lol

I know it makes me a 5 year old but I dont caaaaaaaare about lady robots & fuckin virtual reality worlds & i just want to see them fight bad guys in a normal marvel way instead of whatever this endlessness is

― Yoni Loves Chocha (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, May 12, 2017 12:40 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was gonna say but mh beat me to it. Every fourth Marvel comic you pull out of a random stack is likely to be about lady robots and/or fuckin virtual reality worlds (particularly if it's a stack of Marvel's popular '80s title Lady Robots & Fuckin Virtual Reality Worlds).

good book

The most recent episode with the "it's all too much!" Aida breaking down was the first where I appreciated the actor's ability. Nicely done. And I do appreciate how it may take a lot of LMDzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz episodes, but there's a payoff with the tv MCU gaining a Madame Hydra. Reminded me a lot of the Cap movies working the Purge actor into Crossbones.

sidebar (spoilery?)
I'm not that sad that Mac stayed behind tbh, they've not given him a whole lot to do for a while now.
he just kinda frowns and stands around now.