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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: To Kill a Mockingbird


Greywolf2375

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It's the complete lack of oversight and accountability in this whole thing that gets me. I mean, some of it is clearly just shitty worldbuilding, but Coulson has acted as if he has the right to play with people's life in any way he wants to since the beginning of season 1, and he was just the leader of a lowly field team then, with a command structure above him and presumably bound to follow certain guidelines.

Well that's a disgusting thought. Why are we supposed to root for Team Coulson again?

Speaking of oversight and accountability: that photoplasticity from cracked.com had a pie chart of the US budget in marvel universe: most of being spent on Shield, a little on defence, very little on prisons or education.

Could explain why Daredevil grew up in an orphanages (orphanages were phased out in the 1980's and Matt Murdock would have been born in 1986 at the earliest) and why Hell's Kitchen is such a hole.

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I don't think Cal is 100% gone. His personality and mannerisms seem similar to what they were in his more lucid moments from the show; he retains a positive association with the name Daisy; on top of that, he's in a caring profession that seems to offer him fulfillment, and builds on what was presumably the dominant part of his nature before he ran into Hydra.

I agree. We don't even know exactly what they wiped from him, they seem to have the ability to be unrealistically selective about what they erase. (Also, I wonder why it didn't work on Agent 33.)

Cal isn't doing anything, his artificial replacement that was created in his body is.

This I don't agree with. While he's a different Cal now, he's still Cal. Just like me 27 years ago was still me. If I develop some weird form of retrograde amnesia tomorrow, I'm still going to be me, just different. But this is a bit of a philosophical distinction and I understand where you're coming from.

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This I don't agree with. While he's a different Cal now, he's still Cal. Just like me 27 years ago was still me. If I develop some weird form of retrograde amnesia tomorrow, I'm still going to be me, just different. But this is a bit of a philosophical distinction and I understand where you're coming from.

Even if I agreed with you example (I'd maintain that you are a different person today than you were yesterday; we may not solely be the sum of our experiences, but nobody can deny that they shape us), Cal hasn't been reverted to an earlier state, he has been turned into a completely different person. Different name, different, background, no memories of his wife and daugher, a different profession. We can only go by what we've seen of the character on the show, and everything we've known about him has been wiped away, with the sole exception that he still looks like Kyle MacLachlan.

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Even if I agreed with you example (I'd maintain that you are a different person today than you were yesterday; we may not solely be the sum of our experiences, but nobody can deny that they shape us), Cal hasn't been reverted to an earlier state, he has been turned into a completely different person. Different name, different, background, no memories of his wife and daugher, a different profession. We can only go by what we've seen of the character on the show, and everything we've known about him has been wiped away, with the sole exception that he still looks like Kyle MacLachlan.

I'm a different person in one sense, but not actually a different person. If the cops came to arrest me for killing someone years ago I couldn't say "That wasn't me, my experiences since have made me into someone else" and expect them to let me go. Yes, we have a limited view of Cal but I don't think you can be sure he's been turned into a completely different person. Maybe he's very similar to how he was before all that bad stuff happened to him. We have no idea exactly what they erased or changed, and really not enough information to say "he's not Cal anymore."

Edit: I'd say that we've gone off topic, but the show's not gonna be back for a while anyway so whats the harm in having a philosophical debate about the nature of identity.

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Yes, we have a limited view of Cal but I don't think you can be sure he's been turned into a completely different person. Maybe he's very similar to how he was before all that bad stuff happened to him.

How would they accomplish that? It's not like they have a copy of his past personality stored on a hard drive somewhere.

The point of the limited view of him is that if the writers wanted to imply that there is still enough of Cal left for him to be the same person, they would have had to use something we as viewers know about him. As felice points out, the one thing Cal wouldn't give up would be Skye, and he doesn't recognise her at all.

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How would they accomplish that? It's not like they have a copy of his past personality stored on a hard drive somewhere.

The point of the limited view of him is that if the writers wanted to imply that there is still enough of Cal left for him to be the same person, they would have had to use something we as viewers know about him. As felice points out, the one thing Cal wouldn't give up would be Skye, and he doesn't recognise her at all.

By selectively erasing things. For example if they erased all his memories since Whitehall cut up his wife and replaced them with "Your pregnant wife died in a car crash" or something. (I'm actually not clear on the timeline, she had Daisy before she was cut up?) then shouldn't he essentially be his old self? They had to wipe his memory of his daughter because losing her was so central to his mental breakdown. (and also because presumably he's not gonna be part of the show anymore and they needed to sever Daisy's connection with him.) So yeah he lost the thing he held most dear and that sucks, but it's not the same as being executed/committing suicide. Besides without any memory of her ever existing it's not like he's missing her.

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By selectively erasing things.

I don't think memory works in quite that simple a fashion, but then many things don't work quite in the way the show portrays them, so it'd be unfair to single out the memory manipulation machine (though come to think of it, isn't this the kind of technology that brought about the apocalypse in Dollhouse, which the showrunners of SHIELD also worked on?).

We'll just have to disagree on whether Cal is dead or not (he totally is).

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I don't think memory works in quite that simple a fashion, but then many things don't work quite in the way the show portrays them, so it'd be unfair to single out the memory manipulation machine (though come to think of it, isn't this the kind of technology that brought about the apocalypse in Dollhouse, which the showrunners of SHIELD also worked on?).

We'll just have to disagree on whether Cal is dead or not (he totally is).

Yeah obviously the show is not being very realistic about this whole thing. I think they can be very selective about it, as they tried to do with Agent 33 to erase her Hydra brainwashing. Also with Coulson they were able to erase just the surgery/recovery and replace it with false memories (or as it seems in the show one false memory of him getting a massage.) I'm curious do you consider the real Coulson to be dead because of what they did to him? I never watched Dollhouse.
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We'll just have to disagree on whether Cal is dead or not (he totally is).

Well, unless/until the showrunners decide they'd like to bring him back and have his memories restored somehow 8)

I'm curious do you consider the real Coulson to be dead because of what they did to him?

There's a huge difference between wiping a few days of memories and wiping at least thirty years and building an entire new life history. Realistically, they'd have had to rewrite his entire life, because he couldn't be left with any memories of friends, relatives, colleagues, etc even from more than 30 years ago because they'd all know him as Cal and if he ever runs into anyone who knew him he'd have to not recognise them so he and they would accept it as a case of mistaken identity.

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It's an interesting dilemma. Personally, between imprisonment, death, or mind wipe, any powers that be would consider the mind wipe to be the most "humane," as it creates the potential for a positive result -- you "create" an upstanding citizen.



Personally, this is the problem I have with time travel. In the Flash universe, you have everyone assisting Barry in changing the past, effectively erasing the previous 20 years. I often wonder why people don't consider the personal ramifications of the time stream being changed...it's like you're creating mass genocide just to save one person's life.


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I am sooooo sick of Cal. Is he just impossible to kill? Since he was first introduced, he has easily the most annoying character on the show for me.



Also, pretty stupid how Sky became this ninja asskicker in a pretty short period of time.



Annoyances aside, there is still enough there I like to keep me watching.


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Also with Coulson they were able to erase just the surgery/recovery and replace it with false memories (or as it seems in the show one false memory of him getting a massage.) I'm curious do you consider the real Coulson to be dead because of what they did to him?

As felice said, it's the difference between a few days and an entire life. It obviously changed Coulson (he certainly obsessed about it enough!), but most of his defining memories were left intact.

I never watched Dollhouse.

Well, I don't want to spoil it too much (though the show really wasn't that great), but it simply occured to me that the last time these guys wrote about technology that could alter people's minds it was treated as pretty much the worst.thing.ever, whereas here they are cheerfully using it to weaselly try to get a "happy ending" for Cal.

Well, unless/until the showrunners decide they'd like to bring him back and have his memories restored somehow 8)

Bring a character back from the dead? As if this show would ever sink to that level.

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I am sooooo sick of Cal. Is he just impossible to kill? Since he was first introduced, he has easily the most annoying character on the show for me.

Also, pretty stupid how Sky became this ninja asskicker in a pretty short period of time.

Annoyances aside, there is still enough there I like to keep me watching.

I actually liked Cal, he is crazier than a bag of cats!

As for Skye's ass-kicking abilities, I just assumed that she was training before the mist, but that the mist kinda gave her reflexes a boost... making her just that much better.

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I actually liked Cal, he is crazier than a bag of cats!

As for Skye's ass-kicking abilities, I just assumed that she was training before the mist, but that the mist kinda gave her reflexes a boost... making her just that much better.

I also like Cal, and enjoyed Skye's fight scenes in the season finale - her growing martial prowess is something we've seen develop through the last two years, I think, so her good showing now feels earned.

Sad that we lost Raina. She was a striking presence on the show. Was touched by her "I'm an angel, not a monster," speech. Sentimental TV moments rarely get to me that much, but this one did. It did seem a bit sudden - I would have expected another season's worth of character arc before getting to that stage - but having heard about the actress's big new role, I wasn't that surprised when what happened, happened. No doubt Ruth Negga will be relieved to have done with all the cosmetic prep she needed in S2.

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Also, in "TV time," Skye's been training to be an agent from the start of season one. So, yes, while seeing her get so many awesome fight sequences over other characters on the show -- like, say, Bobbi -- is a little jarring, you could argue she has paid her "TV dues," somewhat, and she is rightfully bested by fighters she should be bested by. May takes her down in the finale, and before that, she was beaten by Agent 33. The absolute worst is when it happens between seasons. So, while I will always prefer more time taken to level up a character, I can give the benefit of the doubt if I can see the seeds planted early -- and there are scenes with her working with Ward back when Ward was on the team.



The thing that irritates me about Skye is that she was already given an advanced skill set as a hacker. So, now you've turned her into an insanely talented hacker, a good hand-to-hand combatant, and a wielder of powers. The "Mary Sue" factor is in full effect with her...she's good at way too many unrelated things.


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Finally got to catch up with the finale - did really enjoy it. One nitty thing really bugged me though - Ward, 33 and Bobbi are beating the bag out of each other. Bobbi has literally kicked him through walls, they've drilled each other multiple times....and one punch then does it. Just felt way out of place for that fight to end like that.



I didn't really take it that Cal was thrown into the memory wiping - to me it seemed more like this was something he was in on, part of the decision itself.



Glad Mack is staying and that he got some time to shine, definitely one of the more entertaining in the crew.


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Finally got to catch up with the finale - did really enjoy it. One nitty thing really bugged me though - Ward, 33 and Bobbi are beating the bag out of each other. Bobbi has literally kicked him through walls, they've drilled each other multiple times....and one punch then does it. Just felt way out of place for that fight to end like that.

Think of them as video game fighters with green bars above their heads. Each little punch makes the bar more red, so in the end even a little hit could bring them down.

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Ward has the potential to be a great villain ... his best scenes are yet to come...

I think that despite Mack calling on Hacker Skye this week, she's officially transitioned from cute nerd to badass with powers...

Speaking of Mack... I think the show needs a male field agent other than just Hunter.... especially with Tripp gone... so hopefully he'll stick around.... not to mention he's an imposing dude...

Something is going to have to happen with Bobbi to make the transition to Mockingbird more plausible.... She's a kick ass agent... and also very (physically) imposing... but hardly --as of now-- Avenger-esque...

Wanna see Coulson's Luke Skywalker hand next season.

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