Agents of SHIELD *** SPOILERS ***

[Tom Sawyer]

Post contains spoilers. If you don't want to read spoilers about the show, you shouldn't have clicked on the link.

Is anyone else watching this show?

It started out really slow and dull at the beginning of the season and I only continued watching it out of some weird sense of loyalty to the Marvel brand, but ever since the Captain America tie-in where they've started into all the Hydra stuff, it's become freaking awesome and the new episodes are about the best thing on TV right now.

I especially like the transformation of dull and bland good Ward into creepy stalker evil Ward. Even that cardboard cutout Skye became interesting and compelling in her scenes with him.

This has turned into a damned good series and I'm glad I didn't dump it mid-season and miss all the good parts when they finally managed to find their legs.

 

[Underseer]

Wow, you weren't kidding about the spoilers.

I stopped watching it after a few episodes because the show just didn't feel like a proper Joss Whedon project at all. Then I heard that the events of the Captain America movie were affecting the TV show, so I started watching the show again and immediately spoiled one of the biggest plot points of the movie for myself: that hydra agents were distributed among SHIELD agents, attacked SHIELD, and now SHIELD is dissolved and no longer exists on paper.

I'm not sure I would go as far as saying this is the best thing on television, but I am enjoying the hell out of it.

Now that we know that Coulson was the one who shut down Project Tahiti and why he did it, I wonder how they're going to get around Coulson and Skye turning into vegetables or psychos.

 

[Mumbles]

I actually watched because it's a Whedon show, and those always change from Monster of the Week to a major plot point.

Okay, since we've already announced spoilers...

I love that Ward turned out to be evil as shit, just blasting SHIELD agents in the face. And I'm happy to see that all of the supposed "villain of the week" objects are back to tie out the season. In the end, this was well done.

And am I the only person who loves seeing J August Richards playing Deathlok, *and* Bill Paxton as a HYDRA agent? This is awesome. And we may see Graviton this week, too. This show may be even more of a nerdgasm than Arrow (which I'll admit, I don't watch live - yay Netflix)

 

[Underseer]

@Mumbles:

I love Paxton as a villain, particularly a schmoozing villain, and how can you ever go wrong with a tragic cyberzombie?

 

[credoconsolans]

I just started watching it after Captain America 2 was released, but I find it kinda lame.

The Skye thing had me rolling my eyes.

"I'll never tell you what you want, never never never!!" she screams to the guy she had a crush on who turned out to be a Hydra agent.

Until of course, the guy she has a crush on gets threatened with death, then she spills.

I thought, Jeez, this is the best SHIELD can come up with as a field agent? Send her back to the office to file paperwork, she's worthless.

 

[Underseer]

I just started watching it after Captain America 2 was released, but I find it kinda lame.

The Skye thing had me rolling my eyes.

"I'll never tell you what you want, never never never!!" she screams to the guy she had a crush on who turned out to be a Hydra agent.

Until of course, the guy she has a crush on gets threatened with death, then she spills.

I thought, Jeez, this is the best SHIELD can come up with as a field agent? Send her back to the office to file paperwork, she's worthless.

That part also made me cringe.

 

[purple_kathryn]

If you didn't watch it from the start -

Skye - was a originally a civilian that was trying to expose SHIELD. So she's not technically a field agent in the sense that the others trained for a years whereas she's only been with them a couple of months and most her training was on the plane with Ward

 

[marc]

"I'll never tell you what you want, never never never!!" she screams to the guy she had a crush on who turned out to be a Hydra agent.

Until of course, the guy she has a crush on gets threatened with death, then she spills.

I hated that part too. C'mon! she figured out he was Hydra when she found the guy he murdered, the one who ran the base that saved their ass.


Other than that, I've been enjoying the series. Now they no longer can have the 'SHIELD bureaucracy keeping them from doing their job' kind of episode. Instead they can move onto budding super villains, Hydra espionage, and rebuilding SHIELD. They already had origins of Deathlock and Graviton. Oh, and more crossovers with the movies. They've had Agent Hill, Nick Fury (who will be in the season finale), and Lady Sif so far. Maybe they could have Bruce Banner show up. Fitz and Simmons would have a great time talking tech with such a great scientist, and everyone else would just be working on being incredibly polite to him.

 

[Underseer]

We can talk about spoilers, right?

The latest episode hints that Skye might have superpowers, or at least her parents did. So why were her parents hiding out in China? Are they mutants? Inhumans? Perhaps something else?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

We can talk about spoilers, right?

The latest episode hints that Skye might have superpowers, or at least her parents did. So why were her parents hiding out in China? Are they mutants? Inhumans? Perhaps something else?

I think the point was that they were aliens, which is why she didn't have any negative effects from the Kree blood. It would be cool if she were a Skrull and they're using the series as a setup for the Secret War (or whatever the Kree-Skrull war arc was called).

Also, Marvel Studios is contractually prohibited from using the word "mutant" in any of their works. Fox owns the rights to the use of that term to reference their characters.

 

[The Colourful Jester]

It's nuts how Marvel made that contract. They must have made it over a decade ago sure with no thought of future plans, but why didn't they make wriggle room for themselves all the same? Same with the Fantastic Four and Spider-man. It's a good thing they have so many names to their roster, but they did give away some of the best which is probably biting now.

Also - downloading a file! Laughed like hell at that.

 

[Underseer]

Now I'm curious about Skye's superpowers.

OK, so Skye didn't go crazy the way Coulson went crazy when injected with the formula made from the blue alien. If the alien is Kree and Skye is also Kree, that could explain her lack of a reaction to the formula, but would those Chinese villagers have described her parents as monsters if they were Kree?

Then again, Marvel sold the rights and can't put the Kree in any of their TV shows or movies.

Maybe her parents were frost giants? The frost giants from the Thor movie weren't that much larger than human and could account for the large blue-skinned torso/head at Project Tahiti, and it could also explain those Chinese villagers describing them as monsters.

Uh, what other blue-skinned aliens are there in the Marvel universe that could account for both Tahiti and Skye's parentage?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Now I'm curious about Skye's superpowers.

OK, so Skye didn't go crazy the way Coulson went crazy when injected with the formula made from the blue alien. If the alien is Kree and Skye is also Kree, that could explain her lack of a reaction to the formula, but would those Chinese villagers have described her parents as monsters if they were Kree?

Then again, Marvel sold the rights and can't put the Kree in any of their TV shows or movies.

Maybe her parents were frost giants? The frost giants from the Thor movie weren't that much larger than human and could account for the large blue-skinned torso/head at Project Tahiti, and it could also explain those Chinese villagers describing them as monsters.

Uh, what other blue-skinned aliens are there in the Marvel universe that could account for both Tahiti and Skye's parentage?

Did they sell the rights to the Kree? Now that I think about it, I believe that the Skrull rights went with the Fantastic Four, but I don't know about the Kree. When Coulson asked Sif about what blue aliens there were, the Kree were on the list of species she gave him. Given that they can't even mention the word mutant since the rights belong to someone else, I don't think that they'd be able to list the Kree as an alien species if Fox or whoever owned them.

Also, if you're a poor rural villager in China and some blue aliens start vapourizing your town with laser beams, I'd say that "monster" would be a fairly accurate description to give to them.

 

[Underseer]

Now I'm curious about Skye's superpowers.

OK, so Skye didn't go crazy the way Coulson went crazy when injected with the formula made from the blue alien. If the alien is Kree and Skye is also Kree, that could explain her lack of a reaction to the formula, but would those Chinese villagers have described her parents as monsters if they were Kree?

Then again, Marvel sold the rights and can't put the Kree in any of their TV shows or movies.

Maybe her parents were frost giants? The frost giants from the Thor movie weren't that much larger than human and could account for the large blue-skinned torso/head at Project Tahiti, and it could also explain those Chinese villagers describing them as monsters.

Uh, what other blue-skinned aliens are there in the Marvel universe that could account for both Tahiti and Skye's parentage?

Did they sell the rights to the Kree? Now that I think about it, I believe that the Skrull rights went with the Fantastic Four, but I don't know about the Kree. When Coulson asked Sif about what blue aliens there were, the Kree were on the list of species she gave him. Given that they can't even mention the word mutant since the rights belong to someone else, I don't think that they'd be able to list the Kree as an alien species if Fox or whoever owned them.

Also, if you're a poor rural villager in China and some blue aliens start vapourizing your town with laser beams, I'd say that "monster" would be a fairly accurate description to give to them.

So you're thinking Kree?

But wouldn't that make Skye Ms. Marvel or something?

 

[KeepTalking]

My first thought when I saw the alien was that it was a Jotun (Frost Giant), but Sif's comment does make one wonder if it was Kree. It could just be a bit of misdirection though.

The Marvel character rights are a bit odd on the surface, but TV and movie rights are very different. While a lot of Marvel character movie rights are owned by Sony or Fox, Disney owns all of the Marvel character TV rights, and Disney owns ABC as well as Marvel Studios. I am not sure if the Fox exclusive use of the word "mutants" for Marvel characters extends to TV, but I doubt that it does. So, really, all bets are off when it comes to TV, but given that Agents of SHIELD is a Cinematic Universe tie-in, I doubt that they would go too far in using characters/races that they cannot use in the movies. I am pretty sure that the Kree, being associated fairly heavily with the Fantastic Four, would be off limits movie-wise, so I am still leaning towards Jotuns being the aliens in question.

This is a bit off topic, but because of Disney owning all of the TV rights we are going to get a number of Netflix series starting in 2015 based on Marvel characters Daredevil, Luke Cage (Powerman), Jennifer Jones, and Iron Fist, as well as a fifth series to tie them all together.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So you're thinking Kree?

But wouldn't that make Skye Ms. Marvel or something?

I didn't think of that. It could very well be the case. I know that Marvel is looking to expand their roster of female superheroes and engage in other diversity initiatives, so they may be doing something like that.

I also don't know how the various rights work in regards to TV and the movies. Given the tie-ins between the two, I wouldn't expect them to be using something in the show that can't translate into the films. I do know that they've never used the word mutant in the show and have always phrased it as some variation of "people with special abilities" or the like.

On a totally unrelated note, WTF was with Mai flipping down the hallway to kick that guy in the face as opposed to just running down the hallway to kick him in the face? That just seemed random and out of place. I don't know what it was they were going for with that, but I hope they decide that it didn't work and never mention it again.

 

[Underseer]

So you're thinking Kree?

But wouldn't that make Skye Ms. Marvel or something?

I didn't think of that. It could very well be the case. I know that Marvel is looking to expand their roster of female superheroes and engage in other diversity initiatives, so they may be doing something like that.

I also don't know how the various rights work in regards to TV and the movies. Given the tie-ins between the two, I wouldn't expect them to be using something in the show that can't translate into the films. I do know that they've never used the word mutant in the show and have always phrased it as some variation of "people with special abilities" or the like.

On a totally unrelated note, WTF was with Mai flipping down the hallway to kick that guy in the face as opposed to just running down the hallway to kick him in the face? That just seemed random and out of place. I don't know what it was they were going for with that, but I hope they decide that it didn't work and never mention it again.

If they were looking for the Ms. Marvel angle, then I'm pretty sure they've already made references to Carol Danvers. They can't make Skye into Ms. Marvel if they've already mentioned the existence of Carol Danvers, or the comic book nerds will throw a fit. I'm pretty sure Coulson has her fighter pilot helmet among his "Easter Egg" trophy collection.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

OK, Skye's probably Miss Marvel then. Completely different character.

 

[Mumbles]

Just as a quick info hit...Agents of SHIELD has been renewed for a second season. Which I'm very happy with, since I doubt they'll be able to resolve everything in the final episode of season 1.

Also, more Clark Gregg and J. August Richards.

 

[Mumbles]

It's nuts how Marvel made that contract. They must have made it over a decade ago sure with no thought of future plans, but why didn't they make wriggle room for themselves all the same? Same with the Fantastic Four and Spider-man. It's a good thing they have so many names to their roster, but they did give away some of the best which is probably biting now.

Also - downloading a file! Laughed like hell at that.

As I recall they were nearly bankrupt, and desperate. They likely had no clue that Iron Man, of all people, would lead to a real boost of their brand, much less to a movie and TV franchise that would basically outclass Superman.