Sorry, we’re in Café Society which means there is an equal chance that your response means “I listened to some of the commentary tracks and they’re not very good” or your response means “I have not listened to the commentary tracks, don’t intend to, but I am confident that they do indeed suck because Whedon.”
Could you clarify?
Ugh. Freak-of-the-week was why everyone was turning away from the show in droves during Season One. This season (and the end of S1), every episode has been resolving plotlines right and left. We know why Coulson is alive, Garrett got resolved, Coulson’s grapholalia got resolved, we found out why Coulson and Skye were connected by the blue alien, we met Skye’s dad, we found out why Sky was an 084, Raina found out what she (and Skye) become. There’ve been a few dangling plotlines added in (Xena’s locket, now the eyeless Inhuman), but that’s how it works.
And the amount of comics knowledge needed to follow this show is zero. My little nephews, who have zero Marvel knowledge, can cite me everything that happened. Whereas I, with lots of Marvel knowledge, have to sift out the comics canon from MCU canon which can be quite different.
This. The last 20 minutes of the episode I had to make my living room pitch black to see what was going on.
I was joking. I haven’t heard the commentary and I actually like Whedon’s work with Marvel. Comparing him to a young Bart Simpson is not meant as a slam.
As said above, nearly all of this has been explained. Are you by chance watching the show while playing on your iPad, and/or talking on the phone, and/or having conversations with other people in the room? This season pretty much requires you pay full attention at all times.
As others have, I disagree. I feel that Agents of Shield - unlike The X-Files or Lost - is actually moving along. This show is resolving the mysteries it presents.
I was struggling to like it last season. I actually missed a couple of episodes, but once I watched Captain America, I figured something had to have happened on the show. After SHIELD collapsed, the show became really good. This is one of the few shows that I can’t play around on my computer or phone while watching it or I’ll get lost (Person of Interest is another).
I’ll agree about it being dark, but I think it was intended to be. I’m one of those weirdos that buys calibration equipment to get my picture just right and I’m going to guess it was intentionally dark, being they were underground with limited lighting.
I am enjoying it - it delivers a nice, potent combo of Marvel / Whedon-y goodness. Which is exactly what I am looking for from it, so…yay.
They’ve tweaked the pacing for the better, given us satisfying resolutions and twists, and complexified (that’s a word!) the characters in the process. Let’s see where they take it and use it within the MCU.
Who would have thought, midway through Season 1, that Ward and Skye would turn into actual complex, interesting characters? I still don’t like Ward, mind you, and I wish Skye had put a few into his face, but the character has an interesting position in the MCU, especially since he is now teamed up with Madame Mask.
LOL, good name for her. Not much connection between her and the one in the Iron Man comic book, but I could see Marvel going that direction.
How about May-B, as opposed to the original, May?
Spot on here, the action editing is atrocious, nonsensical quick-cuts, bad lighting. The only exception are Ming-na scenes, probably due to her own athleticism able to stand on its own. Otherwise, just get a stunt-double already instead of crutching the actors with shoddy edits.
…and Raina is by far the most beautiful on the show, that woman is hypnotic, like a lava lamp in a tight dress.
Huh. It’s a comic book show, so it’s based on comics. But, the MCU is a different universe, and nothing outside the show & movies is canonical, and you don’t need to know anything from the comics.
Who else thinks you need comic knowledge?
I like him too. He doesn’t seem to have agendas. Mack & Bobbie seem to be up to something, and spies in general seem to always have several games going on at once, but Hunter seems mostly motivated by the people around him, and if things get too complicated he’ll bail because he doesn’t like getting hurt.
He’s the Xander.
Somebody suggested they are working on reviving Hartley (Lucy Lawless’ character who was killed in the first episode of this season). I think this theory makes sense.
It’s what it has in common with X-Files. I missed half of that series because I couldn’t see what was going on. They do it on other shows, too. They go into a room with their flashlights and guns and nobody thinks to flick a light switch with their elbows.
Is Kyle MacLachlan starting to turn Cardassian, his face all planes and odd ridges?
To chime in on two issues:
I have zero comics knowledge — I was a DC kid. I can easily follow the plot(s) without aid, although occasionally I get the feeling there’s an in-joke I’m not getting. (Full disclosure: I have seen all the Marvel movies.)
I have zero tech knowledge. I don’t even know how to make the picture on my TV brighter. But nothing about M’sAoS. is too dark to see and enjoy. I’ve had that problem with other shows, but not this one.
I know I’m a week late to the party, but I just saw this episode and loved it.
Ward remains my favorite character, partly because he and Hunter are opposites: they’re both rogues who don’t exactly fit into the organizations that employ them. At the same time, I’d say both characters have more personal loyalty than they let on. And ironically, Ward wouldn’t pop a few into anyone from Coulson’s team, even if he had a chance. After all, he did have such a chance and ignored it. Skye was kinda being a bit of a jerk there.
Likewise, I may not have realized it at first, but Reina and Skye are obviously both twists on the same concept: characters with no clear parental figure whose loyalties seem to be somewhat… flexible. Skye seems to have a real issue keeping her emotions from clouding her judgment, just as Reina tends to let her desires cloud her good sense.
It’s also fantastic to see Fitz slowly recovering; not necessarily by just being healed, but by working his way around his limitations.
My only real criticism is that Triplett was a cool character but never really seemed to come alive. I love the guy, but at the same time it felt like SHIELD was being pulled in too many directions so we never quite got a chance to really explore his character.
