# Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D S01E03: The Asset (Spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743 "2013-10-09T02:49:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/81 "2013-10-11T15:00:43Z")
Into what? ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/82 "2013-10-11T17:20:05Z")
I liked Agent Mack best, too. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/83 "2013-10-11T18:01:08Z")
Funny how this supposed-to-be one-off character Mack is getting a lot of talk from fans (here, also in the AV Club write up of this ep, and I assume elsewhere) and not the regulars. Maybe they can bring him back to be a reoccurring character or the jet’s copilot. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/84 "2013-10-11T18:24:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’m willing to meet Whedon at least half-way: he’s managed to create a lot of good young female characters. But I’m starting to wonder if Chloe Bennett was a miss. I’m still hoping she can turn it around but she’s just not winning me over. She’s cute and all but I feel she should be playing a high school student in a sitcom not a secret agent in an action thriller. Y’all remember Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz in _Buffy_, Season One, right? Their scenes together were like talent night at your local middle school. Give it time. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/85 "2013-10-11T18:50:37Z")
I was also going to bring up SMG…her first early Buffy episodes were cringe-worthy. This latest episode solidified my dislike of the Wonder Twins. Without subtitles, they are indecipherable, and with subtitles it is just sub-Trek level technobabble anyway. I’m hoping they get an early airlocking and replaced with anything. Poetic justice would be if they both barely survived and were confined to Capt Pike wheelchairs. Coulson: Could this professor of yours be responsible for the gravitionium? Fitz & Simmon: _boop_ Coulson: Is it dangerous? Fitz & Simmon: _boop_ Coulson: Can you hack the system? Fitz & Simmon: _boop_ _boop_ Coulson: If Kim Possible hacks into the grid, can you feed panicky irrelevant expository plot points? Fitz & Simmon: _boop_ ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/86 "2013-10-11T19:06:00Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Oh, come on. Nobody’s that smart. Either you could hire 20 “almost that smarts” to reconstruct, given the monetary potential, or you could hire 10 and put them on that guy’s published work. Regular science works that way - it’s a bunch of people working on the same problem, each making incremental steps, with the person who gets credit for the discovery usually being just half a step ahead of his contemporaries. _Super_ science, on the other hand, is based on massive, once-in-a-generation insights that cannot be reproduced. It’s not realistic, but then, this isn’t a genre that places a particularly high premium on realism. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/87 "2013-10-11T19:07:48Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > Y’all remember Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz in _Buffy_, Season One, right? Their scenes together were like talent night at your local middle school. Give it time. David Borehanaz is still terrible. But your right about SMG (and Eliza Dushku also got a lot better with practice). But I think most of the problem here is that the character is poorly written, so its a little hard to judge if the actress is really bad, or just not good enough to get past the bad writing. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/88 "2013-10-11T19:29:49Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > David Borehanaz is still terrible. Possibly so… but I don’t think I’ve _ever_ seen a professional actor as bad as he was during his first 10 or so episodes of _Buffy._ He certainly got better from there, and was (for me at least) passable to good during his years headlining his own show. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/89 "2013-10-11T19:50:57Z")
So much complaining about the shotgun sound effect, as if it’s not as common as hearing someone pulling back the hammer on a Glock 17. Really, though, in anything with sound effects, a lot of them will be off. If you’re a nerd who watches and plays too much things that involve guns, you’ll notice those. If you’re a zoologist, you’ll probably be driven mad by the fact that animals all make the wrong sounds. Sound effects guys no nothing about the sounds things make, or they don’t care. > [@gonzoron](#): > > In fact, it took me most of the episode to convince myself that he _wasn’t_ Tahmoh Pinikett with a weird toupee. I won’t say “most of the episode” but I did consider that possibility at first. I’ve been watching the first season of BSG recently so I thought maybe I was too used to the nine-years-younger version of him to recognize him at first. Mostly it was actually the voice - he sounded similar to me, and often I recognize a voice before a face. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/90 "2013-10-11T20:07:57Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > Y’all remember Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz in _Buffy_, Season One, right? Their scenes together were like talent night at your local middle school. Give it time. Well… yeah… but she was playing a high school student. ---
**Author:** ![Tanbarkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/91 "2013-10-11T20:15:46Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > Possibly so… but I don’t think I’ve _ever_ seen a professional actor as bad as he was during his first 10 or so episodes of _Buffy._ He certainly got better from there, and was (for me at least) passable to good during his years headlining his own show. I think Boreanaz has trouble with dramatic acting (aside from teh broodingz), but he’s a strong comedic actor, IMO. “Angel” worked as a series because they brought out the goofier aspects of the character rather than having him just be shadowy and tortured, though there was plenty of that, too. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/92 "2013-10-11T20:15:54Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > That’s real world thinking, though. In comics, being a scientific genius is more like a superpower. Franklin Hall has the power to understand gravitonium, in the same way that Tony Stark has the power to understand how to build an Iron Man suit. The U.S. government can’t hire 20 “almost Tony Starks” and build their own Iron Man. (Although I guess they tried something like that in Iron Man 2 – but even then, it relied on finding another individual supergenius.) They tried it in Iron Man 1 - remember Stane’s rant at a team of Stark International scientists for being unable to successfully replicate the arc reactor, which Stark cobbled together in a cave from spare parts _before_ creating the prototype armor from the left-overs. ---
**Author:** ![Albert\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Albert\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Albert_Rose)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/93 "2013-10-12T01:58:58Z")
I liked the show better than #2. I’m not going to nitpick the details, but seriously, guys, it’s just as easy to get them right. Although I’m pretty easy to please, I don’t care for the FitzSimmons duo. The “trained monkey” joke was funny. I’m happy with all the other characters, and expect improvement to come for those actors who are struggling. More May! ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/94 "2013-10-12T11:23:13Z")
> [@Albert\_Rose](#): > > IAlthough I’m pretty easy to please, I don’t care for the FitzSimmons duo. The “trained monkey” joke was funny. Yeah, that was good, but between that and the “boobs” gag (also funny), I’m beginning to think Fitz will be the repository for all the leftover Xander, Oz, Andrew, and Topher lines they never found a spot for before, now with a thick accent. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/95 "2013-10-12T12:58:12Z")
Am I the only one who doesn’t dislike FitzSimmons. I get that having two of them seems a little superfluous, but I don’t mind it - even “in universe” they’re regarded as two parts of a whole. How much involvement does Joss Whedon have, anyway? Somehow I got the impression this isn’t “his” show in the same way his previous ones have been. I’d love to be corrected on this, though! Also, I wrote “no” instead of “know” yesterday. I was in a rush. ☹ > [@Fenris](#): > > 1. Regarding that last bit about how SHIELD will take care of Skye? No. Just…no. SHIELD is _NOT_ a lame-ass support group where everyone’s family and you’ll never get fired because we wuv oo. I hope that’s just a line of bullshit, because if it’s not, I’m dropping the show. SHIELD shouldn’t care if you’re broken or not, as long as you can get the job done. If Joss Whedon _does_ have a heavy influence on the show, I think this is to be expected. The Scooby Gang and Angel Investigations were quite family-like, Malcolm Reynolds pretended to be ruthless but he had much the same thing on his ship (especially when it came to helping River and Simon) and even DeWitt treated her dolls with far more care than she was supposed to. Whedon’s characters find it hard to turn their backs. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/96 "2013-10-12T13:17:36Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > If Joss Whedon _does_ have a heavy influence on the show, I think this is to be expected. The Scooby Gang and Angel Investigations were quite family-like, Malcolm Reynolds pretended to be ruthless but he had much the same thing on his ship (especially when it came to helping River and Simon) and even DeWitt treated her dolls with far more care than she was supposed to. Whedon’s characters find it hard to turn their backs. AND it’s pretty consistent for Whedon to USE that caring impulse to royally screw the entirety of the crew whenever it’s most inconvenient/heart-string-abusing. (I point out again how desperate Whedon was for the fans to know that Coulson was slated to buy it \*before \*he got hold of the script, and he actually attempted to change that, because he knows he has that reputation, and was (rightly) worried that fans would crucify him for it.) So it’s not totally out of whack for Coulson to want to make his own little SHIELD unit into a caring Scooby Gang (because he’s that kind of guy - we all know that because Cap is his favorite), and then for him to get called on the carpet for it, or even directly ordered to abuse or abandon his “assets” in order to accomplish some important goal. I think it’s telling that Coulson presented his decision to save Hall this episode by focusing on him having been a mentor to FitzSimmons, instead of focusing on his intellectual or strategic importance. Same with the “come to the dark side” speech to Hall at the end - he doesn’t mention the tactics or the intelligence - he mentions FitzSimmons and how they don’t think Hall is a bad guy. I think that’s really telling of his character. This also seems to be a pretty common plot set-up and authority-character conflict for the Whedon team, so I would be really shocked to not see it play out here. And I’m ok with that - I like seeing how different characters react to various positions of authority and their perceptions of responsibility towards other characters. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/97 "2013-10-12T14:30:27Z")
I like Fitzsimmons as well. Ward is the only one I’m not warming to yet. But I’m enjoying the show. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/98 "2013-10-12T14:46:28Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > How much involvement does Joss Whedon have, anyway? Somehow I got the impression this isn’t “his” show in the same way his previous ones have been. I’d love to be corrected on this, though! I think it’s somewhat less than his past involvement but comparable. Whedon obviously didn’t create SHIELD or the Marvel universe. Nor did he create the character of Phil Coulson. But I think he was the primary creator of the other characters in the series and the basic premise of the show. Whedon co-wrote and directed the pilot episode. Other writers have written the subsequent scripts. But that’s not unprecedented. Whedon only wrote four of the twelve episodes in the first season of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ (one of which was a two-parter) and came up with the stories for two other episodes which were then written by other writers. He co-directed the pilot and directed the final episode of that season. On _Firefly_, Whedon wrote three of the fourteen episodes and co-wrote two others with Tim Minnear. Whedon directed three episodes. On the first season of _Dollhouse_, Whedon wrote three of the thirteen episodes and came up with the story for one other episode. He directed two episodes. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/99 "2013-10-13T10:34:19Z")
The only times I don’t understand FitzSimmons are cases of technobabble- I never have any trouble understanding their accents (and when I don’t understand the technobabble, I still understand the _gist_ of the technobabble “if we cross %%%%% with ~~~~ we have SOLUTION TO BIG PROBLEM!!!”). And the reason for having two of the “same” character (as I see it) is to help explain (to the audience) their plans/solutions/projects. With two colleagues working together we the audience get dialog where there would otherwise only be inner monologue for one single character. Having one single character speaking what should be inner monologue would be annoying and tedious. Two colleagues in dialog solves this. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743/100 "2013-10-13T10:45:55Z")
Am I the last person to realize that Rising Tide = HYDRA? It’s [elemental](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Four)! Hydra = water. Also fire, the tesseract energy and _extremis_. Meanwhile, SHIELD patrols the ground- **from the air**! Brilliant! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d-s01e03-the-asset-spoilers/670743.md?page=6)