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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: On the fringes of the MCU [Endgame spoilers pg. 19]


Corvinus85

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19 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Isn't that obvious? Deke can't remember anything that happened in another timeline. No one does. He only remembers things that happened in the future, and during the short time since he has been un 2018.

There is only one timeline, as far as we've been told so far. He doesn't remember choosing the ring, but he does remember the consequences of choosing it, ie seeing it again when he's a kid (in his personal past, so he can remember it, but in the world's future, so it can be the result of his present day actions). He chooses the ring because it looks familiar, and it looks familiar because he chose it.

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2 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Isn't that obvious? Deke can't remember anything that happened in another timeline. No one does. He only remembers things that happened in the future, and during the short time since he has been un 2018.

Sure, but what I am saying, and the scene heavily implies it, is that he picked the ring because it reminded him of his grandma's ring. He went looking for rings at the pawn shop. He remarks on how many people pawn wedding rings. He mentions he had to find one that would fit Fitz's small hand. And then he hesitates and says that the ring he found for Simmons reminded him of his grandma's ring. He could have picked another ring, but he didn't.

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15 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Sure, but what I am saying, and the scene heavily implies it, is that he picked the ring because it reminded him of his grandma's ring. He went looking for rings at the pawn shop. He remarks on how many people pawn wedding rings. He mentions he had to find one that would fit Fitz's small hand. And then he hesitates and says that the ring he found for Simmons reminded him of his grandma's ring. He could have picked another ring, but he didn't.

I may have misunderstood what you meant to say. You said 'he remembered it because he picked it up', which sounded like he remembered picking it up (in another timeline). But you're saying you just meant that he remembered it because it was his grandma's ring, and the reason it was his grandma's ring is because he picked it up? In that case, I agree - and it's pretty obvious.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Finally caught up. Kinda feels like this period of being back in the past is too long and just spinning it’s wheels, having to invent things like ‘fear dimensions’. Although I did quite like Fitz creating a persona to justify immoral actions. Hydra school was dumb as shit and just generally dragging Hydra back into things is getting tiresome. Please tell me the ‘coming war’ that the Confederacy have promised protection from is Thanos? That’d be quite an elegant way to allude to the films, a tangential storyline that doesn’t rely on anything but still doesn’t ignore it. I couldn’t tell whether the ship in the vision was the same as the one from the end of Thor: Ragnarok? I usually (naively) try to watch the episodes in the correct order around the movie releases but there’s an episode airing on the 27th, not sure what’ll happen in that.

I still find their philosophy on time travel really annoying, it just leads to contrived ‘final destination’ stuff like Yo-yo shooting the gun. You want a real test? Drink the fourth glass. What happens then? Or slightly less sadistically, use the new knife to make a notch in the old knife. Then what? Does it appear? Does some twist of events prevent you from doing so? Wouldn’t be so bad if stopping this loop is the whole goal of the entire season. What if Mack took a shit sometime and that’s what broke the loop, and they’re not invincible at all? Seems like really flaky reasoning from Simmons.

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I agree the time travel stuff is a little iffy, but then it almost always is that's not something unique to this show. The Chronicoms were the worst part of it for me. "we cannot interfere, unless a little girl predicts something that would obviously never come to pass unless we interfered." 

Hopefully the rumors of a sixth season are true and they find a plausible way to keep Coulson alive.

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6 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I still find their philosophy on time travel really annoying, it just leads to contrived ‘final destination’ stuff like Yo-yo shooting the gun. You want a real test? Drink the fourth glass. What happens then? Or slightly less sadistically, use the new knife to make a notch in the old knife. Then what? Does it appear? Does some twist of events prevent you from doing so? Wouldn’t be so bad if stopping this loop is the whole goal of the entire season. What if Mack took a shit sometime and that’s what broke the loop, and they’re not invincible at all? Seems like really flaky reasoning from Simmons.

The test Jemma came up with was really stupid. She had a chance of 25% of not poisoning herself, and when she does in fact not drink the poison she sees that as proof that she's invincible due to time travel shenanigans?

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9 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Finally caught up. Kinda feels like this period of being back in the past is too long and just spinning it’s wheels, having to invent things like ‘fear dimensions’. Although I did quite like Fitz creating a persona to justify immoral actions. Hydra school was dumb as shit and just generally dragging Hydra back into things is getting tiresome. Please tell me the ‘coming war’ that the Confederacy have promised protection from is Thanos? That’d be quite an elegant way to allude to the films, a tangential storyline that doesn’t rely on anything but still doesn’t ignore it. I couldn’t tell whether the ship in the vision was the same as the one from the end of Thor: Ragnarok? I usually (naively) try to watch the episodes in the correct order around the movie releases but there’s an episode airing on the 27th, not sure what’ll happen in that.

I still find their philosophy on time travel really annoying, it just leads to contrived ‘final destination’ stuff like Yo-yo shooting the gun. You want a real test? Drink the fourth glass. What happens then? Or slightly less sadistically, use the new knife to make a notch in the old knife. Then what? Does it appear? Does some twist of events prevent you from doing so? Wouldn’t be so bad if stopping this loop is the whole goal of the entire season. What if Mack took a shit sometime and that’s what broke the loop, and they’re not invincible at all? Seems like really flaky reasoning from Simmons.

I agree that dragging Hydra into everything is dumb, old and tired (does it even make any sense that it is all supposed to be the same organization, when it has different goals, ideology and structure every season? It just seems at this point like they're slapping the name 'Hydra' on any seasonal villain) and that Jemma's test didn't prove anything (I don't think she actually believes that she can't die, or she would have drunk that last glass; and they're supposed to change the timeline - and if they can, anyone can die at any time!


She was pretty creepy in this episode - even Fitz seemed saner - but I can't say it's not in character. Even back in season 1 when she seemed all sweetness and 'pure cinnamon roll'. she would get a bit too enthusiastic with her scientific curiosity and say things like, wouldn't it be great if we could open up and dissect Professor Randolph, a real Asgardian? (He's very much alive.)

But I can't agree on spinning the wheels - there has been nothing boring or uneventful about these episodes. Pretty much every single one delivered a huge shock, from Elena losing her arms, to what Fitz did and whatever the hell is going on with him, to whatever the hell Simmons and Elena are planning now. The fear dimension seemed like a fun idea, but proved to actually be a red herring for the Fitz twist. I love the fact that they have brought so many past characters back and are tying up the loose ends. Getting Mike Peterson back and resolving the Ian Quinn/Gravitonium loose end from season 1 were the things I'd been asking for for ages. (Though I'm annoyed that they never mentioned whether Mike has ever reunited with his son. He could have talked to Daisy at the wedding, they used to be friends, and told her about his son, rather than just be a soundboard for Deke.) I already liked that they were making Gravitonium so important this season, but I really wasn't expecting them to resolve the Quinn thing, and it was an excellent resolution (apparently it's footage that they shot in season 1 - so, great job on sitting on that one for 4 years before using it at the right time.) People were wondering if they could even do it in spite of the absence of the actors (apparently, David Conrad, who played Quinn, is not even acting anymore, and Ian Hart is probably way too busy with his multiple other shows).

Heck, I almost kind of wish things were a bit more "boring" at the moment... The fandom has been a mess since the episodes 5.14 and 5.15, with fans getting polarized, and fan debates ranty and toxic the way they haven't been since the days of Grant Ward. It's weird because Daisy and Fitz have been my favorite characters throughout the show, but some of the overzealous Fitz fans have been driving me mad with their "Fitz did the right thing, how dare Daisy be upset, she should just suck it up" arguments and the way they're suddenly making her the bad guy for not being totally OK with him after what he did and said he didn't regret it. Not that I like the exaggerated Fitz-hate either.

As for the time travel plot, it's something that really needs to be resolved first so I could make a judgment. Depending on how they end this storyline, it could be great or it could be really bad - as is always the case with time travel storylines.

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I don't think you guys understand the concept of Gemma's beliefs. She knew that the acid would kill her, she's not an idiot. Because that kind of acid, in those quantities, kills any normal person, in any universe and/or timeline. She believes her invincibility comes from her avoiding bad, potentially lethal, shit due to an established timeline. This is enforced by the gun going off and just missing her. So her test proved she wasn't going to pick the lethal glass, not that she suddenly had superpowers that allow her to survive drinking acid.

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I think their point is what would have happened if she opted to drink the acid, or jump off a tall building. If the timeline can't be changed then she has to survive somehow. 

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54 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

I don't think you guys understand the concept of Gemma's beliefs. She knew that the acid would kill her, she's not an idiot. Because that kind of acid, in those quantities, kills any normal person, in any universe and/or timeline. She believes her invincibility comes from her avoiding bad, potentially lethal, shit due to an established timeline. This is enforced by the gun going off and just missing her. So her test proved she wasn't going to pick the lethal glass, not that she suddenly had superpowers that allow her to survive drinking acid.

So, her experiment proved what, exactly? If you don't get killed in a situation where you're under risk, you're unkillable? That doesn't follow. She survived more dangerous situations in the past, where the likelihood of survival was much lower than 25% (getting dropped in the ocean in a pod, getting transported to and spending months on a desert planet avoiding Hive), and that had never made her conclude she was unkillable or invincible. Why would it prove it to her or anyone now?

And if they want to change the timeline - which they have to if they want to save the Earth - then they have to believe it's possible to change it. And if it possible to change it - then any of them could die at any time. Is playing Russian Roulette really a smart way to try to break the loop? For all they know, maybe they manage to change the timeline in such a way that one of them dies - but that still doesn't save the Earth, because they haven't changed enough of other parameters (after all, they're not the ones who supposedly destroy the Earth; Daisy staying in the future or not getting her powers back would have had a much better chance of preventing the Earth's destruction).

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9 hours ago, Corvinus said:

I don't think you guys understand the concept of Gemma's beliefs. She knew that the acid would kill her, she's not an idiot. Because that kind of acid, in those quantities, kills any normal person, in any universe and/or timeline. She believes her invincibility comes from her avoiding bad, potentially lethal, shit due to an established timeline. This is enforced by the gun going off and just missing her. So her test proved she wasn't going to pick the lethal glass, not that she suddenly had superpowers that allow her to survive drinking acid.

I guess you could argue that, prior to this arc and in-universe, she might have a point. My argument is that from a narrative point of view, immutable time plus time travel is a dead end. It immediately doesn’t make sense, as you either have characters acting as the loop needs them to, or you have final destination stuff where ‘destiny’ keeps having to spookily interact and keep things on track. My example with the knife: what happens there? It’s a room with a lock, you’re stood in the middle and you go to mark the newer knife with the old. What happens? Some random shit to stop it? Plus, Jemma herself said that Fitz’s actions were an example of the kind of thinking they’d need to break this loop. So it definitely didn’t already? 100%? I guess it doesn’t help that from our point of view, we know this must succeed. Even if it wasn’t an MCU show, the whole planet generally has some pretty serious plot armour.

My other issue is that Fitz has no basis at all for being so sure about time travel. If we accidentally invented it and asked Neil DeGrasse Tyson how it works, he’d say what any self respecting scientist would: we have no clue cos it’s never happened. Don’t go drinking any fucking acid.

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15 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I guess you could argue that, prior to this arc and in-universe, she might have a point. My argument is that from a narrative point of view, immutable time plus time travel is a dead end. It immediately doesn’t make sense, as you either have characters acting as the loop needs them to, or you have final destination stuff where ‘destiny’ keeps having to spookily interact and keep things on track. My example with the knife: what happens there? It’s a room with a lock, you’re stood in the middle and you go to mark the newer knife with the old. What happens? Some random shit to stop it? Plus, Jemma herself said that Fitz’s actions were an example of the kind of thinking they’d need to break this loop. So it definitely didn’t already? 100%? I guess it doesn’t help that from our point of view, we know this must succeed. Even if it wasn’t an MCU show, the whole planet generally has some pretty serious plot armour.

My other issue is that Fitz has no basis at all for being so sure about time travel. If we accidentally invented it and asked Neil DeGrasse Tyson how it works, he’d say what any self respecting scientist would: we have no clue cos it’s never happened. Don’t go drinking any fucking acid.

Yup; I'd be surprised if Gemma ends up being right 'cause it's kinda lame narrative wise (though, that she's gonna be proven wrong is kinda predictable).

Eta

Gemma, whenever she says that she and Fritz are invincible, is starting to remind me of that over-devoted girfriend that appears in memes.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Infinity War and Fridays episode of AoS spoilers:

I say again, Infinity War spoilers y’all.

Spoiler

So we got the guy saying things were happening in NY, I’m now wondering how long a period the movie takes place over. Doesn’t feel like more than a few days? Maybe the movie kicks off but doesn’t complete by the episodes end, so the thread bare link between AoS and the MCU survives for another week. Guessing next week it’ll be dead ... maybe Graviton is so powerful he can form some kind of protective bubble around key players? Don’t think Thanos would like the sound of that. It’s a shame they couldn’t air all of this season before IW and just duck out gracefully.

 

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On 4/28/2018 at 4:20 AM, DaveSumm said:

Infinity War and Fridays episode of AoS spoilers:

I say again, Infinity War spoilers y’all.

  Hide contents

So we got the guy saying things were happening in NY, I’m now wondering how long a period the movie takes place over. Doesn’t feel like more than a few days? Maybe the movie kicks off but doesn’t complete by the episodes end, so the thread bare link between AoS and the MCU survives for another week. Guessing next week it’ll be dead ... maybe Graviton is so powerful he can form some kind of protective bubble around key players? Don’t think Thanos would like the sound of that. It’s a shame they couldn’t air all of this season before IW and just duck out gracefully.

 

It would be so epic if the S5 finale (possible series finale) tied into Infinity War in a big way. But I feel like based on the past treatment of AoS by the film producers our band of agents are on their own. And I'm (mostly) okay with that. But still, one of the great things about this show in the first two seasons was how well it blended in with the MCU. The show's writers really picked up and made some great storylines apart from the MCU, but I feel like the show doesn't live up to its full potential without interacting more in the plots and characters of the MCU. Eh. We'll all see in three weeks how it plays out.

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On 4/28/2018 at 4:20 AM, DaveSumm said:

Infinity War and Fridays episode of AoS spoilers:

I say again, Infinity War spoilers y’all.

  Hide contents

So we got the guy saying things were happening in NY, I’m now wondering how long a period the movie takes place over. Doesn’t feel like more than a few days? Maybe the movie kicks off but doesn’t complete by the episodes end, so the thread bare link between AoS and the MCU survives for another week. Guessing next week it’ll be dead ... maybe Graviton is so powerful he can form some kind of protective bubble around key players? Don’t think Thanos would like the sound of that. It’s a shame they couldn’t air all of this season before IW and just duck out gracefully.

 

Spoiler

I would say the movie takes place in about a day, at most. Events in NY take place pretty fast, and between the Black Order guys doing simulation missions, and Thanos being able to portal from place to place quickly, the timeline of the whole movie is very short.

 

13 hours ago, PetyrPunkinhead said:

It would be so epic if the S5 finale (possible series finale) tied into Infinity War in a big way. But I feel like based on the past treatment of AoS by the film producers our band of agents are on their own. And I'm (mostly) okay with that. But still, one of the great things about this show in the first two seasons was how well it blended in with the MCU. The show's writers really picked up and made some great storylines apart from the MCU, but I feel like the show doesn't live up to its full potential without interacting more in the plots and characters of the MCU. Eh. We'll all see in three weeks how it plays out.

It would be cool if the tie in is

Spoiler

a percentage of the characters, including 1-2 main characters just wink out of existence after the snap. Deke goes out, Fitz is like "we did it, we broke the loop", then he goes out, then May or Coulson. ;)

 

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I feel like they've sort of painted themselves into a corner with the show.  They've clearly referenced the events of Infinity War with the "Have you seen what's going on in New York" line.  And even to a certain extent prior to that - didn't the alien in the show say something to General Hale about being able to protect Earth from the coming war?  So much for that.  Since they've referenced Infinity War, I don't see how they get away with not feeling the effects of the ending of that movie. 

Timing may be a key...as a few others have mentioned.  They may be able to time it such that they get through the last 3 episodes without getting to the end of Infinity War. 

But beyond that, as has been lamented many times, it just doesn't feel like they're in sync with the movies.  As I recall, when the show was started, the idea was that they would focus on smaller stories, that wouldn't come to the attention of heroes like the Avengers.  But...we've had a world-wide Inhuman crisis (as I recall, they showed it being reported on news shows, and the MCU POTUS showed up in an episode), characters that are on par, power-wise with some of the Avengers, a literal earth-shattering moment, and now a giant alien spaceship hovering over the "Lighthouse".  I would think Thanos would have noticed another giant spaceship when he arrived. 

I dunno...should be interesting to see how they deal with it.

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