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

[Annara Snow]

4 hours ago, Corvinus said:

It would be a shame, for sure. I think so far season 5 wasn't quite at the level of season 4, though episode 100 was excellent, and I can see it improve by the end of the season.

I'm glad Disney forced ABC to keep it going, especially considering the massive flop Inhumans turned out to be. Maybe they're thinking that there is still the opportunity for connections with the MCU, or maybe Disney is just looking at ratings differently from ABC.

Well, AoS has good numbers in anything that's not live Nielsen ratings. It usually at least doubles the numbers in delayed viewing, streaming, and is very popular in a number of other countries, including China (the fact that AoS stars have done several Coca Cola commercials for the Chinese market is evidence enough). Add evidence like action figures or the appearances of AoS stars in conventions, and it certainly doesn't look like an unpopular show. I just don't know if any of that means a thing to ABC.

ABC was really never a place for a superhero show. Just look at the new shows they're advertising - more procedurals, what a surprise. The DC shows on CW have poorer live ratings than AoS, but they're still considered hits and are never in danger of cancellation, because it's CW.

[DaveSumm]

I’ve finally caught up, I’ve been lagging behind the whole season. Seems a bit incoherent this season, like they’re muddling too many ideas together. Can someone explain to me what the point of the entire future arc was? They go and save a bunch of people, then come home and stop the earth exploding and prevent the people from requiring saving? I don’t see the logic.

[Bastard of Boston]

35 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I’ve finally caught up, I’ve been lagging behind the whole season. Seems a bit incoherent this season, like they’re muddling too many ideas together. Can someone explain to me what the point of the entire future arc was? They go and save a bunch of people, then come home and stop the earth exploding and prevent the people from requiring saving? I don’t see the logic.

I'm not as enamored with the show this season either, but I still appreciate it.

I'm not sure I understand your question, though. Ultimately, they're trying to prevent the future they saw from happening. The problem is, apparently, they already attempted to prevent that future from happening and failed. Future Yo-Yo told her younger self that she had already been through all this...going to the future, seeing what happens, having that same conversation with herself, going back to try and stop it. And nothing they did prevented it. It's almost as if, no matter how the AoS crew tries to change events back in their present, the future finds a way to happen.

I think this is shaping up to be the final season. I'll be sad to see it go, but it's been a long run with lots of quality. I have a theory that they'll find a way to make Coulson's sacrifice in Avengers still count. According to the most recent episodes, Loki impaling him is about to catch up with him. So all the people who were irritated about that moment losing its weight will get what they asked for, in a roundabout way.

[Annara Snow]

56 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I’ve finally caught up, I’ve been lagging behind the whole season. Seems a bit incoherent this season, like they’re muddling too many ideas together. Can someone explain to me what the point of the entire future arc was? They go and save a bunch of people, then come home and stop the earth exploding and prevent the people from requiring saving? I don’t see the logic.

I don't understand the logic of your question. Care to elaborate?

[DaveSumm]

19 minutes ago, Bastard of Boston said:

I'm not as enamored with the show this season either, but I still appreciate it.

I'm not sure I understand your question, though. Ultimately, they're trying to prevent the future they saw from happening. The problem is, apparently, they already attempted to prevent that future from happening and failed. Future Yo-Yo told her younger self that she had already been through all this...going to the future, seeing what happens, having that same conversation with herself, going back to try and stop it. And nothing they did prevented it. It's almost as if, no matter how the AoS crew tries to change events back in their present, the future finds a way to happen.

I think this is shaping up to be the final season. I'll be sad to see it go, but it's been a long run with lots of quality. I have a theory that they'll find a way to make Coulson's sacrifice in Avengers still count. According to the most recent episodes, Loki impaling him is about to catch up with him. So all the people who were irritated about that moment losing its weight will get what they asked for, in a roundabout way.

 

8 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

I don't understand the logic of your question. Care to elaborate?

Just that, at the beginning of the season, the agents were the prophecised ones who would come to set everyone free or something. The bald alien fella went to an awful lot of trouble to kidnap them and send them to the future. And they arrive, and they save people, but we know the whole time that they have to go back and stop the earth from breaking apart. Why hang around? Just go back and get working on saving the earth. I don’t understand where the drive came from in the first place to send them to the future, or what they learnt there, or what they brought back. I quite like the idea of a giant loop that could’ve been going round and round for ages and self fulfilling, but they haven’t really done anything with it yet, and we know this’ll be the last loop and they’ll fix things (Fitz’s theory of immutable time be damned, I guess).

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

 

Just that, at the beginning of the season, the agents were the prophecised ones who would come to set everyone free or something. The bald alien fella went to an awful lot of trouble to kidnap them and send them to the future. And they arrive, and they save people, but we know the whole time that they have to go back and stop the earth from breaking apart. Why hang around? Just go back and get working on saving the earth. I don’t understand where the drive came from in the first place to send them to the future, or what they learnt there, or what they brought back. I quite like the idea of a giant loop that could’ve been going round and round for ages and self fulfilling, but they haven’t really done anything with it yet, and we know this’ll be the last loop and they’ll fix things (Fitz’s theory of immutable time be damned, I guess).

Maybe they require direct knowledge from the future to save the Earth and break the loop. Enoch was simply acting on Robyn's visions when he took them to the future, and Robyn's visions did not always have details.

If they hadn't traveled to the future, then present Yoyo wouldn't learn from the other one that trying to save Coulson is critical to their failure to save the Earth.

[felice]

3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Why hang around? Just go back and get working on saving the earth.

They spend most of the arc trying to figure out how to get back to their own time, and interacting with the people of the future because they don't really have any choice. They do bring Zeke back with them, along with a bunch of knowledge they didn't have at the start. And I'm still hoping (though not expecting) that they'll be unable to change the future, and Flint and the others surviving and gaining their freedom will actually matter. Maybe they come up with a way to evacuate a whole lot of people from the present to further into the future, after Flint has rebuilt the Earth, to reduce the death toll a bit.

[The BlackBear]

So just caught up on the last two episodes.

Hard to say on the time travel yet, but Deke might be new, as in his presence will make a difference to the future we've seen.

I always feel Agent's is at it's weakest when it tries to do DRAMA, so this last episode was really hit and miss for me. The reality questioning made me think of that episode of Buffy where she thinks she's in a psychiatric ward (and the stinger leaves the possibility open.) But you know what? I like Gemma and Fitz, they can have their little moment.

BTW their fears are totally lame, I'm not exactly sure what mine would be, but Shelob would be a pretty good guess. Did we see Fitz's fear? Cos I was certain it was going to be his Doctor alter ego, but it could well have been Gemma being a robot.

Took me a sec to remember that Comic's YoYo had her hands (not most of her arms) cut off too. They just need to push Mack towards being Stonewall and it'd be perfect.

And since Stonewall is Creels son: Nice to see he's back for a little while at least, if only so we can see him without a shirt again.

If the rumours of it being done are true... well that's a damn shame as it's a hell of a lot more enjoyable than all the CW DC guff (evidenced by the fact I'm watching this and not that.)

Oh and I saw you very small Thor tie in!

[Corvinus85]

13 hours ago, The BlackBear said:

So just caught up on the last two episodes.

Hard to say on the time travel yet, but Deke might be new, as in his presence will make a difference to the future we've seen.

Deke isn't new. He picked Gemma's wedding ring because it reminded him of a ring his mom wore, which had belonged to his grandma, and then we learn Deke is Fitz-Simmons' grandson. Therefore, Deke is part of the loop. It would have been too early to make the audience hope that they'll succeed in breaking the loop.

[The BlackBear]

He picked it up in a pawn shop. No reason it has to be Deke who originally did that. He probably isn't new, but he might be.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, The BlackBear said:

He picked it up in a pawn shop. No reason it has to be Deke who originally did that. He probably isn't new, but he might be.

He specifically told Deadlock that he picked up because it reminded him of his grandma's ring. So he picked the ring because he's seen it before, but the reason he's seen it before, is because he picked it up. Deke is part of the loop, and also probably won't be returning to his timeline. Also, no one else from the team would have gone to the pawn shop, because they are all wanted criminals, and trying to stay low.

[Annara Snow]

3 hours ago, Corvinus said:

He specifically told Deadlock that he picked up because it reminded him of his grandma's ring. So he picked the ring because he's seen it before, but the reason he's seen it before, is because he picked it up. Deke is part of the loop, and also probably won't be returning to his timeline. Also, no one else from the team would have gone to the pawn shop, because they are all wanted criminals, and trying to stay low.

That doesn't make sense. If he had picked it up in a different timeline, he wouldn't remember it. He only remembers the things that have happened to him in this lifetime - i.e. the future, and the few hours he'a spent in 2018.

It is familiar to him because it was his grandma's ring.

[Corvinus85]

11 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

That doesn't make sense. If he had picked it up in a different timeline, he wouldn't remember it. He only remembers the things that have happened to him in this lifetime - i.e. the future, and the few hours he'a spent in 2018.

It is familiar to him because it was his grandma's ring.

Why doesn't it make sense? 

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah I don't even have to think about what my fear would be

 

(It's Zuul)

[The BlackBear]

5 hours ago, Corvinus said:

He specifically told Deadlock that he picked up because it reminded him of his grandma's ring. So he picked the ring because he's seen it before, but the reason he's seen it before, is because he picked it up. Deke is part of the loop, and also probably won't be returning to his timeline. Also, no one else from the team would have gone to the pawn shop, because they are all wanted criminals, and trying to stay low.

Sure he picked it up because of that. But literally anyone else could have gone to that Pawn Shop in a previous timeline looking for a wedding ring and picked it up. Gemma and Fitz decide to get married, and they send some SHIELD guy to go get rings. There can't have been that many rings that were Gemma's size, so they picked up the same one Deke did.

I do think it probably was always the case, but we can't rule it out yet.

[SpaceChampion]

36 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

Sure he picked it up because of that. But literally anyone else could have gone to that Pawn Shop in a previous timeline looking for a wedding ring and picked it up. Gemma and Fitz decide to get married, and they send some SHIELD guy to go get rings. There can't have been that many rings that were Gemma's size, so they picked up the same one Deke did.

I do think it probably was always the case, but we can't rule it out yet.

You're not thinking timey-wimey enough.  If that's his first time through the loop, then the effect of picking up that ring passed up through the timeline to replace the memory / spacetime reality of the other ring someone else might have picked up instead.  Maybe the moment before he saw it, he actually remembered a different ring.

[Corvinus85]

56 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

Sure he picked it up because of that. But literally anyone else could have gone to that Pawn Shop in a previous timeline looking for a wedding ring and picked it up. Gemma and Fitz decide to get married, and they send some SHIELD guy to go get rings. There can't have been that many rings that were Gemma's size, so they picked up the same one Deke did.

I do think it probably was always the case, but we can't rule it out yet.

Which SHIELD guy isn't wanted by the law? And before you say Davis or any of the other dudes that showed up, all of them are wanted because SHIELD was branded lawless. Deke was the only choice to go traipsing about looking for wedding paraphernalia. 

[The BlackBear]

1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

You're not thinking timey-wimey enough.  If that's his first time through the loop, then the effect of picking up that ring passed up through the timeline to replace the memory / spacetime reality of the other ring someone else might have picked up instead.  Maybe the moment before he saw it, he actually remembered a different ring.

God I hate time travel. I think Days of Future Past is the only time I've seen it and liked it.

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

Which SHIELD guy isn't wanted by the law? And before you say Davis or any of the other dudes that showed up, all of them are wanted because SHIELD was branded lawless. Deke was the only choice to go traipsing about looking for wedding paraphernalia. 

I can't recall exactly but isn't Deke the reason they traced them back to that town? Or did the beacon have a tracer in it as well as a bomb, 'cos they still didn't find the base. If so, anyone could go if they kept a fairly low profile.

[felice]

4 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

I can't recall exactly but isn't Deke the reason they traced them back to that town?

Sort of - Deke forced Daisy to go out and interact with the cops to get him out of trouble. Visiting a pawn shop would have been a very low-risk mission in comparison.

If I recall correctly, Fitz's device was only a temporary fix for the rift. Destroying the planet might actually be a better option than letting it all get sucked into a horrific fear dimension...

[Annara Snow]

On 16.3.2018. at 9:58 PM, Corvinus said:

Why doesn't it make sense? 

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.