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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D - Hope springs eternal, we're all Tantalus here


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Ratings drop from 2.6 to 2.0.



C- from AVClub.



Guessing someone at Disney/ABC/Marvel is going to start retooling this thing. While there was admittedly a lot of stupidity in this show, I do think this episode gives them some opportunity to start righting the ship.


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Ratings drop from 2.6 to 2.0.

C- from AVClub.

Guessing someone at Disney/ABC/Marvel is going to start retooling this thing. While there was admittedly a lot of stupidity in this show, I do think this episode gives them some opportunity to start righting the ship.

Yea, they have a lot of work to do. There is just nothing compelling about any of them.

That and the writing/plotting is horrendous.

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So they've officially lost more than half their audience at this point? I usually don't follow these numbers, but I take it that's bad?

It's bad, but only in a relative sense.

Even though it's been hemorrhaging viewers, Agents of SHIELD is still one of ABC's best shows. So, it's in no danger of being cancelled - yet. If the decline continues, it certainly could be cancelled, but we're not at that point yet.

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So at no point between the Scorch thing and this episode did anyone at SHIELD decide it was a good idea to ask Mike how he'd been recruited and whether this linked up with the account of the only other recruit they'd got their hands on? They're a really shit spy organisation, aren't they?

Also they're up against an enemy that's technologically over-developed and they're worried - an enemy with access to Extremis, no less - yet they haven't even mentioned Tony Stark. I get that they can't afford to actually use him, but at least acknowledge the issue in some way, ffs.

Couldn't they just have Iron Man in the suit and hire someone who can do a decent RDJ impression? I mean I guess the CGI still wouldn't be up to the standards of the films but that'd be one way to get an Iron Man cameo in there.

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Iron Man is probably the last Avengers character you'd want to include in this show, as he basically makes the entire team irrelevant. He's got the supersuit*, so Ward, May and Coulson can just sit out any fights and, with a little help from JARVIS, he's got all the technobabble and computer stuff covered as well, meaning FitzSimmons and Skye can stay home and watch cartoons.

*Or does he? I'm a bit confused considering the ending of the third film, but presumably he's going to have to suit up again for the two Avengers films he's contracted to do.

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*Or does he? I'm a bit confused considering the ending of the third film, but presumably he's going to have to suit up again for the two Avengers films he's contracted to do.

Also his suits that could (sort of) hold their own against Thor in the Avengers and were then constantly upgraded after, fall apart when hit by (much weaker) extremis guys and lorries. So I'm not sure how great his suits actually are. He's got have built more by the time Avengers 2 rolls around, but I'm slightly confused about what the timeline is now.

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My one question from an very pedestrian show is about Sky's parents.



Would it be possible that May and Coulson are actually her parents? I always get the sense that there is/was more between Coulson and May then meets the eye and it could also explain why Coulson seemed so gung ho to have her on the team. It could also explain a bit of May's attitude towards Sky.



It was a thought I had while watching the episode(sort of paying attention while I was playing Hearthstone).


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My one question from an very pedestrian show is about Sky's parents.

Would it be possible that May and Coulson are actually her parents? I always get the sense that there is/was more between Coulson and May then meets the eye and it could also explain why Coulson seemed so gung ho to have her on the team. It could also explain a bit of May's attitude towards Sky.

There's a question of ethnicity between May and Skye though. I think May might have been the one who delivered her to the doorstep though.

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Also his suits that could (sort of) hold their own against Thor in the Avengers and were then constantly upgraded after, fall apart when hit by (much weaker) extremis guys and lorries. So I'm not sure how great his suits actually are. He's got have built more by the time Avengers 2 rolls around, but I'm slightly confused about what the timeline is now.

I didn't feel like the suits were particularly weak in IM3.

If you want to get technical: the whole heroes fighting heroes is a pretty stupid comic trope to begin with, and it was probably the stupidest moment in The Avengers, the only way to make that scene even vaguely work is with the assumption that nobody was actually trying to kill anybody. Thor after all managed to take out enemies that look much tougher than Iron Man in one shot in other fights.

The Extremis guys were mostly going for the kill, and in addition to undefined levels of superstrength they can generate heat well in excess of the melting point of steel or titanium.

But really the ability of anybody being able to win a fight at any given moment in these stories is entirely dependent on the demands of the plot. After all why were the two remaining Centipede soldiers running away after they'd managed to severely injure SHIELD's biggest gun and had already demonstrated that May, Ward and Coulson didn't stand a chance against them? Or why didn't SHIELD bring more people into a fight against at least three supersoldiers? Or at least bring actual guns, just in case?

ETA: I don't think either of May or Coulson being in any way related to Skye makes any sense. They didn't know who she is, they had to look up the actual report and as far as terrible secrets go "your parents were these two SHIELD agents who gave you up for adoption" is not particularly impressive.

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I never expected this show to be the next Mad Men, but it wasn't too much to expect for this to be in the level of the likes of, say, early Arrow, CSI or the Mentalist. But it's not even a decent procedural, which isn't that hard to make.






There's a question of ethnicity between May and Skye though.





There isn't- Chloe Bennet is half-Asian (her father is from China), and even had some hit songs in Mandarin.


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You guys are so foolable. Skye is what May retrieved from that 'compound' when she got the nickname 'Cavalry'.



Skye is being set up as something extraordinary. It's stupid, but there it is.



Episode 9 made me feel like my eyes were gonna bleed 'OH hwelp mei, gawd doun phogot 'bhout mei!'



Episode 10 was watchable, and I'm on the hook to find out about Coulson.


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You guys are so foolable. Skye is what May retrieved from that 'compound' when she got the nickname 'Cavalry'.

But that doesn't make any sense. If Skye was extremely important SHIELD, even assuming they are as incompetent as this show occasionally makes it look, would never lose track of her. That is in fact why her background doesn't make for a compelling mystery. The only halfway acceptable explanation is that her parents were collateral damage during a SHIELD operation, which will give her something to angst about but will completely fail to make anybody care.

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May dropped superbaby Skye off at an orphanage to get her out of SHIELD, to protect her. Now SHIELD has tracked her down and reenlisted her.

Coulson was the one who enlisted her. Coulson seems to know what May does with regards to the issue, so all it would have taken is a word from May, and he'd have let Skye on her merry way.

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May dropped superbaby Skye off at an orphanage to get her out of SHIELD, to protect her. Now SHIELD has tracked her down and reenlisted her.

The way this show is running, its likely a bit of both. Skye is special. Coulson and May rescued her and hid her. The "Cavalry" is certainly tied into Skye's background.

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Episode 9 made me feel like my eyes were gonna bleed 'OH hwelp mei, gawd doun phogot 'bhout mei!'

Hahaha

I know we've all talked about this before, but I think one of the big problems is this is the Alliance trying to be Firefly.

If they'd had Centipede as the rise of A.I.M. with Samuel L doing his cameo to say how strained SHIELD is, they would have better explanations for why their away team is so limited.

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Finally got caught up. The most recent episode does set the stage well for a complete retooling of the show from here if they'd like.

Plot holes, not plot holes...you raise a point. Captain America and Thor get mentioned a lot. Hawkeye and Black Widow have gotten shout outs. Hulk? Not really that I can recall. Iron Man? Nothing, though didn't he get seen flying in the very opening seconds of the pilot. American Television Viewers, by and large, are not always the sharpest knives in the drawers, but mentioning Tony Stark w/o showing him? That's not going to confuse them.

Just an aside, a couple episodes ago, the one with the guy jumping dimensions, there was a Roxxon sighting with the gas station that blew up...maybe they'll be hehind Centipede and not Hydra? Do a riff on the "evils of big oil"... :p

There was a throwaway comment about IM in the pilot I think "Until recently all anyone had to worry about was a billionaire industrialist in a fancy suit." In the Thor tie-in episode there was a comment about Hulk when it came to Ward gettin pissed off and punching things.

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A two-parter? That's brave of them. If the second half of the season focuses on Centipede as a constant background threat it could be an improvement.


I still don't get Skye at all. She was utterly useless throughout this episode. She just stood around and chatted with people. Maybe she's supposed to be this show's Xander/Shaggy but that seems a bit silly for a super agent show. All the other cast members bring something to the table. At least May told Skye she was useless as well suggesting the writers know this is the case.



This really fits into the "late at night" replay category where it really doesn't matter too much if I doze off while watching. Hopefully netflix will learn a lot of lessons here before doing their Marvel shows.


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