I’m sure you all are right about Ward’s flashback scenes. Given the on-screen dialogue, we are shown Grant Ward as a slightly pudgy child at the top of the well, another child next to Grant bullying him, and a third child (presumably Grant’s brother) drowning in the water at the bottom of the well. We are shown that the first child is Grant, because both the child at the bottom of the well and the bully call him Grant.
But the casting and camera angles are interesting. These are Grant Ward’s flashbacks, yet the camera’s point of view is always that of the child at the bottom of the well. Normally, this would indicate that Grant is the one in the well. And the bully looks much more like a young Grant Ward than the child being bullied. So the dialogue indicates that one child is Grant Ward; the camera angles indicates that another child is Grant; and the casting suggests that the third child is Grant.
Three possibilities occur to me:
This could all be intentional, indicating that during his Berserker flashbacks, Grant feels the guilt of one child, the terror of the second, and the rage of the third. If so, it’s brilliantly subtle.
All three boys could be brothers, and the Ward brother now calling himself Grant is not the same brother. He could have taken his brothers name out of shame after a tragedy like being responsible for his brother’s accidental death. Which could fit in to the general theme of the team members’ individually mysterious backstories.
I could totally be reading too much into the camera angles and casting, and this scene is exactly what it first appears to be. But it does seem unlikely for television show so grounded in comic books to accidentally frame a well shot to reverse the character’s point of view.
He says to Coulson - “You know my family history” - which indicates that he has something deeply personal that he keeps ‘locked away’ - otherwise, I agree with you on #1 - that its several different viewpoints of the same ‘incident’ and we’re not meant to know which one of the roles he played - but it seems that it would not be the one @ the bottom of the well - one of the last cut scenes - where ‘bullied boy’ is finally lowering the rope (slowly, subtly) implies heavily that the ‘drowning boy’ did, in fact, drown.
Well, I’ve been very down on this show throughout and told my husband before we watched this one that this was the last goddamned one we were bothering with unless we heard later that it got AWESOME.
And then they finally gave me the show I wanted all along! About how ordinary people react to the revelation that there are space aliens and space sort-of-gods? and your grandpa frozen in ice and all. I really thought the guy who plays Ward did well this time - perhaps I just hate him because of the script? And suddenly people are acting like adults and shit?
The berserker’s staff (snerk) makes those who grasp it relive a memory such that they are filled with rage. I interpreted the flashback viewpoint as the staff making Grant relive the memory from his brother’s viewpoint, to crank up his own anger at his failure to help his brother.
Grant already knew how horrible he was from his own viewpoint; now he knows how horrible he was from his brother’s viewpoint – much more rage and guilt inducing.
And, seriously, after this episode y’all need to stop breathlessly talking about this show’s “Whedonesque dialogue”. There is no way an episode about people looking to get a grip on the berserker’s “staff” would have passed without some snarky innuendo on Buffy, Angel, or Firefly, as it did on this show. That would have been Whedonesque; not here, though.
“Miscegenation” seems more apt (if loaded in its own way).
Neither did I.
SHIELD doesn’t get that. Imperfect understanding on the characters’ parts.
I actually expected that to be the point, and was surprised how…seductive May came off in the shot.
I don’t think there are that many allusions, really. Some to the movies. Or I’m missing them too.
I thought it was meant to be a subversion of the audience’s expectation, and I think I’ve seen that trick before (in TV at least)–but I agree that they pointed to him being any (all?) of the three and I like your first answer.
I agree with your reasoning to some extent good sir. I do believe it was intentional for the viewers to see from the perspective of each child and wonder if they were seeing through Grant Ward’s eyes, for a time. I think that the audience was meant to conclude, like others have said, that the child in the well was the little brother, grant is the older brother, and the third kid is the oldest brother or friend.
I would also like to add that I’m not entirely convinced that the child in the well actually drowned. Until I got on this board I really thought he might not have. It does show him slipping under the water, from his point of view, as the rope is being lowered, but he just as easily could have resurfaced to grab the rope. Maybe there’s more to the story, or maybe it’s just meant to be ambiguous and they will never tell us. Idk. I just think it could have been something less serious than an accidental death but just as traumatic as a whole.
What got me was the “I am not afraid of you” announcement to a now-godly Melinda May by the Last Blonde Standing; the latter attacks, the former pole-axes her.
There’s no smirking quip; no callback metaphor; no insult, no boast; just BAM.
Plus, it’s pretty obvious that Ward an Skye are an “official couple”, or are going to be, and thus if you have them actually get together people will stop tuning in.
Coulson said he first met Randolph when he was trying to figure out what Mjolnir was doing embedded in New Mexico. How do you suppose that conversation went? Granted, when Randolph left Asgard back in the 12th century to go fight frost giants in Norway, the hammer was probably sitting in the vault waiting for Thor to grow up and be worthy, but you’d think Randolph would have gone to ground as soon as Coulson left, rather than heading back to class to see if he can boink a few more co-eds.
Well, Coulson just said he consulted with him. I think it’s left open to interpret that as being a remote consultation (Skype/e-mail) rather than actually flying Randolph out to New Mexico (to keep the fanboys from yelling “Nah-uh! Then why didn’t we see him in the Thor movie!?!?!?”).
There are very few options I would choose if a conflicting option was to boink a few more co-eds.
I’ve been assuming that Thor was raised as the older son, seeing as how Odin raised him to be king. Since Odin found Loki at the end of the war, I’ve also been assuming Thor was born shortly before or during the war, certainly not after. The timing is kind of tricky, depending on how long it takes them to grow to physical maturity… if it’s the same 18-20 years it is for us, that’s barely the blink of an eye, but if it’s stretched out by their longevity, Thor could have been around as a baby for decades before the war even started and still look about the same age as Loki.
