Agents of SHIELD: Season 7

[3CityApache]

On 8/18/2020 at 3:37 PM, RumHam said:

Working my way through season four now.

Oh, so you're still before the Framework! I envy you, this is definitely the best part of the best season.

As for the grand finale, I found it a little disappointing, even though I didn't expect much. Was hoping to see a few other familiar faces at least.

[RumHam]

Yeah, I've already watched through most of season six before and for some reason wandered off and never finished the season. I was just thinking how much the show had changed over the years and figured it warranted a re-watch. 

By the way do they ever pick up the thread of the anti-inhuman senator's brother being re-cocooned in the ocean? I know they didn't in the episodes I've seen. 

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

By the way do they ever pick up the thread of the anti-inhuman senator's brother being re-cocooned in the ocean? I know they didn't in the episodes I've seen. 

No

[RumHam]

Finished season five, which I now realize I never finished the first time through. Damn that finale was sad. This show can be surprisingly brutal when it wants to:

(Coulson's brain re-wiring, yo-yo's arms, von strucker's head, Fitz's "I think my legs are broken."

 )

I liked the season. Yo-Yo's "we have to let Coulson die to save the world" warning is beyond ridiculous though. Of all the steps that could have been taken to prevent Talbot from cracking the world to bits why that one? Especially since Mack died in that totally preventable final battle! If she'd just told her past self "kill talbot" or "hale is hydra collecting gravitonium and that's what destroys the world" she could have saved Coulson and Mack/Fitz.

[felice]

20 hours ago, RumHam said:

Finished season five, which I now realize I never finished the first time through. Damn that finale was sad. This show can be surprisingly brutal when it wants to:

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I liked the season. Yo-Yo's "we have to let Coulson die to save the world" warning is beyond ridiculous though. Of all the steps that could have been taken to prevent Talbot from cracking the world to bits why that one?

 

Spoiler

Presumably she tried different warnings and they didn't work. She remembers what her future self told her in the previous loop, and how that didn't stop Talbot. And there were potentially a staggeringly large number of loops before that, though without memory of those, changes can only be random. It's essentially the same slightly implausible idea as the "there's only one path where we win" that Dr Strange came up with in Infinity War.

 

[RumHam]

19 hours ago, felice said:

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Presumably she tried different warnings and they didn't work. She remembers what her future self told her in the previous loop, and how that didn't stop Talbot. And there were potentially a staggeringly large number of loops before that, though without memory of those, changes can only be random. It's essentially the same slightly implausible idea as the "there's only one path where we win" that Dr Strange came up with in Infinity War.

 

Well Infinity War and Endgame were full of little plot holes too. Probably at least in part because it turned out the writers and the directors had different understandings of how time travel worked in universe. 

I guess the difference for me is that Strange looked, he saw that there was only one way (well, not really. He got interrupted while looking ahead and there are infinite possible futures. Just cause he checked some huge number of futures doesn't really mean that was the only future where Thanos lost. )

Elena didn't do anything like that, all she had was her previous encounter with her future self. It would have made way more sense for her to pass on information about Hale, Gravitonium and Talbot than to say what she said. It seems to me like they wrote this dramatic act break and then later had to find a way to make coulson's death key to saving the world. 

Season six is just alright so far. I don't like the way they kept Gregg on. (I wasn't a fan of how they kept finding excuses to keep Brett Dalton around either) His body was sent back in time when the monoliths exploaded and merged with a non-corporeal alien? what? I don't even think he was the closest one to the explosion. Discounting that other chronicon, Fitz and someone else were right there when the bomb went off.

I would totally watch a three camera sitcom spin-off of Deke and Snowflake trying to make it work. Something with a laugh track where like he's trying to host a dinner party for his investors and she keeps murdering them to turn them into butterflies. 

 

[felice]

4 hours ago, RumHam said:

Elena didn't do anything like that, all she had was her previous encounter with her future self. It would have made way more sense for her to pass on information about Hale, Gravitonium and Talbot than to say what she said. It seems to me like they wrote this dramatic act break and then later had to find a way to make coulson's death key to saving the world.

You're probably right that in the real world they just came up with a dramatic idea and figured out a justification later, but in universe, the future Elena does remember what the previous future Elena told her, and knows that it didn't work because she's lived through following that advice. So when she meets her own past self, she has to say something different to have any hope of changing things. The first future Elena probably passed on the obvious information, the second would have tried something different, the third might have reverted back to the obvious again, or might have guessed that a previous iteration had already tried that (because her immediate predecessor must have had a reason for being cryptic), and so forth. It's a lot less efficient than what Dr Strange did - there could well have been a lot of loops where she unknowingly repeated herself - but on the other hand, she doesn't have the option of giving up, and finding the right advice to result in beating Talbot was probably somewhat easier than beating Thanos.

[DaveSumm]

Finally finished watching this as they’ve put all episodes on Disney+. I really enjoyed the last season overall, or at least, the first two thirds or so when they were doing the decade stuff. The ending got a bit clumsy...

Spoiler

I’d completely given up caring about Daisy’s sister, the Hydra guy, and the Chronicoms, so it felt like they just shuffled that out the way for the last episode. I didn’t fully follow Fitz’s plan or why that was the least complicated way it could all work? But hey ho. 

It’s funny looking through the r/shield subreddit at people vehemently defending the show’s presence in the MCU. I’d assumed by now an explanation might have risen to prominence as to why the snap didn’t happen, and it seems the best they can do is “it did, but none of the team got snapped, and nobody mentioned it”. Eesh. 

I’m now thinking what a massive shame it is that they didn’t swap Season 6 and 7 around? Season 7 seems custom built to deal with it, they all go back in time and create an offshoot universe, and then use the quantum realm to travel between timelines, it’s the perfect tie in. Then they can discover the snap when they get back. It’s also annoying that they couldn’t line up the season where Fitz isn’t available to the story where they killed Fitz and the other Fitz is floating in a box somewhere.

 

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

Finally finished watching this as they’ve put all episodes on Disney+. I really enjoyed the last season overall, or at least, the first two thirds or so when they were doing the decade stuff. The ending got a bit clumsy...

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I’d completely given up caring about Daisy’s sister, the Hydra guy, and the Chronicoms, so it felt like they just shuffled that out the way for the last episode. I didn’t fully follow Fitz’s plan or why that was the least complicated way it could all work? But hey ho. 

It’s funny looking through the r/shield subreddit at people vehemently defending the show’s presence in the MCU. I’d assumed by now an explanation might have risen to prominence as to why the snap didn’t happen, and it seems the best they can do is “it did, but none of the team got snapped, and nobody mentioned it”. Eesh. 

I’m now thinking what a massive shame it is that they didn’t swap Season 6 and 7 around? Season 7 seems custom built to deal with it, they all go back in time and create an offshoot universe, and then use the quantum realm to travel between timelines, it’s the perfect tie in. Then they can discover the snap when they get back. It’s also annoying that they couldn’t line up the season where Fitz isn’t available to the story where they killed Fitz and the other Fitz is floating in a box somewhere.

 

I also finished SHIELD the other day for the very same reason.

Spoiler

Their time travel made a little more sense in the end than in Endgame, I thought, since they ended up creating a parallel universe and then causing a stable time loop when they jumped back to their original one so right from the start they always win as a result of Fitz/Simmons machinations.

I enjoyed all the homages, throwbacks, and retro stuff and generally thought that this was a fun season. It was nice of them to bring back Victoria Hand to kill alt-Garrett since I'm pretty sure he ordered her death in the original timeline.

Daisy's sister never really got much character development beyond traumatised and easily manipulated so I agree she was kinda hard to really get on board with as a character and it felt a little odd as a concept to introduce in the last few episodes of the entire show. I'm not sure why Jiaying and knife guy never thought that maybe they should train her to release her powers in a controlled manner rather than having her painfully try to hold it in until it inevitably overflowed and did a bunch of damage.

Regarding the wider MCU it's clear that at least at the beginning the show was in the main timeline, now I guess the easiest explanation is that they are in some kinda parallel timeline probably as a result of all the time travelling and portals and whatnot that everyone's been through. I would like to see at least Daisy transition into the mainstream though, she's a cool character and has combat powers of a high enough tier that she can keep up with the average Avenger, especially when she doesn't have to consider tv budgets, collateral damage, or being non-lethal and the MCU is in desperate need of more female heroes since it just threw away Black Widow 'cause women gotta die for emotional impact :/

 

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Poobah said:

I also finished SHIELD the other day for the very same reason.

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Regarding the wider MCU it's clear that at least at the beginning the show was in the main timeline, now I guess the easiest explanation is that they are in some kinda parallel timeline probably as a result of all the time travelling and portals and whatnot that everyone's been through.

 

Spoiler

Well that’s what makes it so frustrating, around Season 5/6/7, you couldn’t move for opportunities to avoid the snap; they’ve been to an alternate future, to an alternate past ... and yet they chose to pinpoint the exact time that Infinity War happened, and right there and then, they were supposed to be in the regular MCU. I’m not sure why they bothered mentioning it, without that, you could fudge the timing a bit to place them in another timeline for the snap. 

Honestly, every tie-in AoS has attempted has looked very much like they haven’t been told what actually happens. Civil War they seemed to assume was the comic Civil War, and that the Sokovia accords were about registering superheroes. But then it wasn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought “ah, we’ll mention New York, what’s the worst that can happen?”, and were then a bit annoyed that the snap happened. I can’t picture a film like Infinity War and what must be pretty rigid spoiler policies letting a whole ABC production know how the film ends.

It’s a shame, because despite the films hanging AoS out to dry, everything until the snap at least fits. You can watch the MCU chronologically, but what do you do with IW and Season 6? They just fundamentally don’t splice.

 

[Martini Sigil]

I'm wondering if Disney plus is considering an Agents of S.W.O.R.D show...  Jimmy Woo, Monica Rambeau, Darcy, Quake, Mockingbird... it could work

[Jaxom 1974]

15 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

I'm wondering if Disney plus is considering an Agents of S.W.O.R.D show...  Jimmy Woo, Monica Rambeau, Darcy, Quake, Mockingbird... it could work

Hmmmm...I heard it suggested that they could be bring Quake along for the Secret Invasion show...

[3CityApache]

2 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Hmmmm...I heard it suggested that they could be bring Quake along for the Secret Invasion show...

Apparently Chloe Bennet has already debunked this rumour. On the other hand I also heard they are considering reboot of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., with several members of the old cast remaining. I'd like that.

[DaveSumm]

I’ve said many times about many MCU properties, I’d be shocked if they reboot anything. Why bother? They have the entire back catalogue of comics to pick from. They could’ve made an Iron Fist movie and decanonised the Netflix show ... but screw it, let’s make it Shang Chi. They could’ve gradually rebuilt SHIELD in the movies and have it be SHIELD dealing with Wanda. But screw it, let’s make it SWORD. There’s no incentive to decanonise anything and reboot, because there’s just no point.

I’m not even sure what a rebooted AoS would look like, I mean it only just finished. And SHIELD still isn’t a thing in the movies. Why wouldn’t it just be Season 8?

[DaveSumm]

21 minutes ago, Mr Gordo said:

That said I would hope it would be more of a soft reboot then a hard reboot. Then again I haven't seen any of these rumors anywhere, so, who knows. 

The seemingly endless possibilities of WandaVision has brought with it a swath of clickbait articles, my FB feed is swamped with ‘rumours’. I don’t really buy this one, unless they’re playing very loose with the word ‘reboot’. Even then, I don’t  know what more there is to do with these characters, or why you wouldn’t just do Agents of SWORD with a fresh cast.

I think the last thing AoS did with the organisation SHIELD that the movies pointed at their involvement was supplying the helicarrier for Age of Ultron. That was the only time it was implied that there was anyone left resembling SHIELD.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

I’ve said many times about many MCU properties, I’d be shocked if they reboot anything. Why bother? They have the entire back catalogue of comics to pick from. They could’ve made an Iron Fist movie and decanonised the Netflix show ... but screw it, let’s make it Shang Chi. They could’ve gradually rebuilt SHIELD in the movies and have it be SHIELD dealing with Wanda. But screw it, let’s make it SWORD. There’s no incentive to decanonise anything and reboot, because there’s just no point.

I’m not even sure what a rebooted AoS would look like, I mean it only just finished. And SHIELD still isn’t a thing in the movies. Why wouldn’t it just be Season 8?

Not to mention that with the multiverse in play, they can just say that Agents took place in Earth-199998 rather than the Earth-199999 of the rest of the MCU.

I mean, screw it, if the Fox and Sony movies are now canon (albeit in different timelines), why the hell wouldn't Agents of SHIELD and the Netflix series be canon as well? And Agent Carter is all but confirmed to be canon in the MCU anyway.

The only thing I can see being completely 100% ejected from canon is Inhumans, because of how really shit it was.

[SpaceChampion]

Any chance Fury's Secret Invasion series will be a Secret Warriors show teaming up Quake, new Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk?  It can't just be Fury and Talos in a buddy-cop scenario, clearly.  So who else would be in it other than the characters from the Disney+ shows?

 

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

I mean, screw it, if the Fox and Sony movies are now canon (albeit in different timelines), why the hell wouldn't Agents of SHIELD and the Netflix series be canon as well? And Agent Carter is all but confirmed to be canon in the MCU anyway.

The only thing I can see being completely 100% ejected from canon is Inhumans, because of how really shit it was.

Inhumans existed on Agents of SHIELD, so those ones are canon.

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Inhumans existed on Agents of SHIELD, so those ones are canon.

Yes, but the ones from the show of that name... lets hope Prof. Hulk didn't include them in the unsnapping.

[DaveSumm]

8 hours ago, Werthead said:

Not to mention that with the multiverse in play, they can just say that Agents took place in Earth-199998 rather than the Earth-199999 of the rest of the MCU.

Even that I think is a bit disrespectful and unnecessary, when we all thought when we started watching it that it was 199999. Multiverse canon is just comic talk for not canon.  I could live with the idea that season 5 brought them back to an adjacent timeline, but I just wish they’d acknowledged that in the show. But to somehow confirm that the show was on whatever Earth, using dialogue in an MCU show or movie? Way too clunky, and just too much effort for something that is better left alone. And for what gain? Are we so desperate to use any of these characters again?