Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Promo

[BanzaiCat]

Four episodes to go to finish Season 1. I am pretty surprised at some of the turns this keeps taking. They certainly got their hooks into me, as I'm wondering how the hell this mess is going to unravel and knit back together.

[Sir Slash]

Unraveling continues. Minor knitting-together begins Season 2. Agent Mae stays Hot throughout.

[BanzaiCat]

Agent Mae stays Hot throughout.

[JasonPratt]

In fact, there is even more Agent May than before. In a way.  :D

(That part of the plotline bothers me, partly because it's horrible and ought to bother me, and partly because it doesn't seem to be bothering the characters as much as it ought to. I guess they have so much to deal with it's just one more terrible thing, but still. Those who have watched up to now will know what I'm talking about, no spoilers for B_C.)

[Barthheart]

[mirth]

^cool!

[JasonPratt]

No giant rat yet this season so far, though. ;) (OR IS THERE?! Or does this metaphorically represent Season 1?  >:D )

[Barthheart]

No giant rat yet this season so far, though. ;) (OR IS THERE?! Or does this metaphorically represent Season 1?  >:D )

I dunno...after last night's episode there might well be a giant Rat on the loose....  ;)

[Sir Slash]

But they won't be back until March. That'll give Colson time to heal up from the beat-down he got.

[JasonPratt]

No giant rat yet this season so far, though. ;) (OR IS THERE?! Or does this metaphorically represent Season 1?  >:D )

I dunno...after last night's episode there might well be a giant Rat on the loose....  ;)

Heh. True dat. That person's expression when being shot was just priceless. 

So, everyone !!WHO ISN'T B_C SCROLL DOWN THE PAGE NOW!!, we can be sure who "Skye" and her father are supposed to be now.

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She's Daisy Johnson (though probably not named Johnson anymore, since in the comics her mom isn't Chinese, though props to the writers for doing that since the actress herself has a Chinese mother), aka Quake, one of the two dark-haired pixie-ish women to temporarily run Shield in Fury's absence (also the first one, although Maria Hill has done it more often and even before the Avengers movie was more established in that role). That means we can probably expect her to get a pixie-cut like Maria Hill eventually, and more probably inherit running Shield from Coulson.

There has been a running joke on the internet in various places that her Dad was actually supposed to be Kyle MacLachlan just being his usual creepy-weird psychotic self (or maybe "BoB" from Twin Peaks), so when he called himself "Cal" I Lol'd hard because he made it sound like "Kyle". But if she's Daisy/Quake (as the earthquake pretty much confirmed), and her father is a vicious crazy super-strong murderer named "Cal", then he's... well I don't recall his last name (not Jekyll) but he's a supervillain who likes to call himself Mr. Hyde. Probably pre-Hyde right now.

The eyeless guy at the end could be one of two Inhumans (and the terrigen mists, though not called that, 100% confirmed we're setting up the Inhumans as the MCU's mutants now), both of whom are super-weird. One whose name I can't recall can push eye-tentacles out of his head. The other, known as The Reader, was blinded by the other Inhumans for being able to create reality out of what he reads. That seems waaaayyy too far out for the relatively grounded Kree super-science explanation of the Inhumans, though on the other hand he can't use his power anymore so that would be cynically appropriate for a TV show budget ;), so I feel safe guessing it's the former guy.

I am not even slightly happy about X being sacrificed to the plot (in case B_C was unable to keep from reading this), but I could see the writers struggling to give all the characters (especially the two 'token black guy' characters) something to do, so this will simplify their lives I guess. There was literally no reason to kill this character, though, other than for mid-season dramatic effect, and to keep viewers who weren't paying enough attention and who don't have access to the internet (all three of them  ::) :P ) thinking the mists will kill normal humans (when actually a remaining shard from the protective coating is what killed this person). So this person was sacrificed for an attempt at suspense later which almost every viewer will know is false.  The only way I would accept that as a plot development is if, since it's impossible (due to the circumstances) for the characters on the show to know now how exactly X died, they think this confirms the mists are dangerous to normal humans, and then something something something worth pulling dramatically out of that (technical) dramatic irony.

More subtly, I noticed that the show confirmed, via "The Inhuman Sentinel" (for want of a better description), that Coulsen doesn't count as an Inhuman, and so maybe/probably won't be affected by any mist releases. I was going to complain about how this doesn't fit what we were told earlier about him and Skye, but in a subtle way it does: regular humans brought back by the Kree blood went crazy, but Skye didn't. This does suggest, though I probably should have realized this by now in hindsight already, that PERSON Y FROM LAST SEASON who started getting cosmic superpowers must have been an Inhuman -- that person was already kind of crazy, so the result just amplified it.

I think I can see the long/endgame here now, too. We aren't getting an Inhuman movie for several years more than I frankly expect the series to last, but I strongly suspect the plan now is to start releasing terrigen mists in a 'soft' version of the Earth X plotline, and the 'usual' Inhumans will be drawn by this back from their base on the moon eventually. This should amp up the Shield series for a while, and help explain the survival of some Cap villains, too, like Baron Von Strucker (who in the Ultimate Marvel continuity was the father of the Maximov twins, not Magneto, thus nicely explaining their existence in the MCU for the upcoming Av2 movie and afterward.)

We could even, dare I hope with Doctor Strange on the way (and now confirmed with Bene-batch as the actor), get DRACULA AND HIS MOONBASE!! -- he could be an Inhuman affected by the mists long ago!

Meanwhile, what spiky cat-person will Z turn out to be? Someone new? I can't think of anyone in canon whom this would be plausible, unless they've decided to make an established cat-person spiky.

Will Cal turn himself into Mr. Hyde to try to catch up with his daughter? That seems likely. Did he ever touch the mist-crystal container and live? -- I can't remember, but I get the impression he himself isn't an activated Inhuman yet, and maybe not at all. Though I'm guessing much as in the Earth X storyline, pretty much all human superpowers will end up being connected to Celestial manipulation in prehistory (maybe even for the same reason as in that story: protecting a baby Celestial gestating in the Earth's core, though not from Galactus anymore who eats baby Celestials, since he's over at Fox Studios for now), some of which are/were unlocked thanks to Kree experiments (thus the 'Inhumans' proper).


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[Sir Slash]

Damn Pratt. You sure know your Marvel. You're not really Stan Lee in another life are you?

[BanzaiCat]

Ok, I just finished the last two episodes of Season 1 last night. Now I need to find a reliable online source for Season 2 since they're not on Netflix.

[mirth]

ABC might stream them free with a few ads.

[mirth]

Looks like they only do the most recent 5 episodes :/

[JasonPratt]

^^ Argh to that.

On the other hand, there's a decent chance they'll be running repeats of the season until Agent Carter and then afterward until the series returns in March, so DVR that puppy pronto, B_C!

Or you could buy them off Amazon for two or three dollars each (depending on HD). Not on Prime yet unfortunately.