After the last couple of episodes I'm feeling better about the characters. Even though I think everyone (writers and actors) is still trying to figure them all out.
Having been on the inside of the grand military industrial complex I feel sorry for Skye this time. Everyone on the team is all System and Duty and Rules because it's not only been explained to them, in detail, they've likely seen that the system works and is there for real reasons. It's completely unlike the INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE, MAN lifestyle Skye is trying to live by. Giant organizations that have the power to kill people and break things definitely need to have their feet held to some kind of responsible fire (with great power, etc); but at the same time not all of the secrets they should be known by everybody in the world.
The biggest annoyance this week was Woodbored. Specifically when he and Fitz were in the culvert hiding from DOGS. He totally harshed the buzz by ditching the glorious samwich, and especially for that lame ass reason. If DOGS are TRACKING you it's because you smell like a HUMAN. The presence or not of a glorious samwich means pretty much nothing. Yeah, it's a unique odor that doesn't exist anywhere else in the environment, but GUESS WHAT - neither DO YOU.
So, now Coulson is extra-more suspicious about Tahiti being a magical place. Extra more now because he can't even view his own file about it all. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HUMM.
And the mystery of Skye gets another layer of WHAT UP WIT DAT because now not only does she not know who her parents are but now there's a murdered SHIELD agent involved.
The only thing this show has going for it is that there is really no competition this year. This television season sucks so bad, a Black Hole near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy called wanting to know how they did it. It sucks so bad it's got me watching X-Factor AND The Voice, neither of which I really watched ever.
Did anyone get the feel Coulson actually can't stop himself from saying "It's a magical place"?
Yah, I was going to say the same thing. It's like he's got some kind of conditioning that prevents him from thinking too deeply about whatever happened, and just forces him to bark out that canned response when it comes up. He looked like he was sort of struggling and failing to say something else in the latest episode.
So, apparently, this show is actually enjoyable when it's primarily about the Science Twins. I think they need to just kill off the rest of the characters and focus on the two of them having wacky adventures.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I can't watch until Monday because I haven't seen Thor. Because the stupid storm knocked out power at the movie theater near my Mom's house and by the time we found out we had missed the start times at the other theaters.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I don't think it absolutely necessary to have seen Thor the Second. The only reference to the movie occurs right in the beginning and only lasts for that opening scene. Afterwards the action only centers around Asgardian what-nots. What the team is doing in the beginning happens a short time after the events of the movie but does not contain terribly large spoilers.
I will say the integration of the greater Marvel and Marvel Cinematic Universe felt better this week. It seemed more organic and not shoe-horny. I enjoyed the events that transpired and how that alone forwarded singular character arcs in believable ways. Finally, Agent Woodbored didn't bother me at all. The teaming and pairing up of team members was good and we got some good interplay there.
Yah, having now seen both Thor the Second and the latest Marvel's Agents of Marvel's SHIELD by Marvel (A Disney Company), I am sort of at the the advertisements that they were all that closely tied together. The cold open involves the team sifting through the wreckage at the scene of one of the fight sequences from the movie for Asgardian artifacts to hide from the public, and then the main plot starts somewhere else, and just happens to involve Asgardian MacGuffins.
It would have been far cooler (and prohibitively expensive on a TV budget) to have them tracking down...
...that creature from the frost giant planet that was shown to be stranded on Earth in the post credit stinger form the movie.
I agree with Bort. This one felt more integrated than most of the previous episodes, both in that it felt like an actual part of the Marvel filmverse, and also that the characters mostly clicked, individually and together. The exception is that I still find Hacktichick immensely irritating, but a lot of that's probably on me and my frustrated desire for where they could have gone with that character.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
As if. If I were going to be all high school crush on a character from this show, the obvious choice is...uh...whichever half of Fitz/Simmons is the lady.
But, for reals, Hacktichick irritates the living shit out of me. What could have been a cool idea, to have the information-wants-to-be-free hacktivist infiltrating the NSA-on-steroids that is SHIELD, has been handled atrociously. Her motivation has consisted entirely of the desire to uncover family secrets, with a dash of loyalty to her ex, but no actual political or idealistic commitment to freedom of information. She doesn't want information to be free because that advances the cause of democracy, or equalizes the imbalance of power between those in the know and those not, or prevents unsupervised agencies form carrying out atrocities, she just wants information to be free because there's a particular secret she wants to know, and that robs her character of any actual significance. And then, when she actually does confront SHIELD's extreme secrecy policy, she comes off as just petulant that Level 7's don't get to know all the fun secrets that Level 8's do, with no mention of all us poor Level 0 schlubs who can't provide democratic oversight for projects we aren't even allowed to know exist.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
I'm watching the latest episode "The Bridge". It's awful. The actors are terrible. I don't like or feel anything for any of them. Even Agent Coulson and
Charles Gunn
Now, I have just watched the first season of Arrow and up to episode 8 of season 2. Some of the actors in this are also terrible, but I am more engaged because they are using DC characters all over the place. I know this because when a new character is introduced I them. Even if they are not used exactly as they are in the comics, fans are happy because they are at least there and used appropriately in the story line.
Just talking about Marvel characters does not make this a Marvel universe show.
I'm watching the latest episode "The Bridge". It's awful. The actors are terrible. I don't like or feel anything for any of them. Even Agent Coulson and
Charles Gunn
This...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leesifer
Now, I have just watched the first season of Arrow and up to episode 8 of season 2. Some of the actors in this are also terrible...
Why did Fury go to such extremes to save Coulson? A man like Fury has to be used to losing people and making sacrifices. And he must have liked Coulson enough to not want to use him as a guinea pig.
So, why insist on bringing Coulson back to lilfe?
I guess it's how the writers wanting to answer the question with another question. It might lead somewhere good, I don't know.
Why did Fury go to such extremes to save Coulson? A man like Fury has to be used to losing people and making sacrifices. And he must have liked Coulson enough to not want to use him as a guinea pig.
So, why insist on bringing Coulson back to lilfe?
I guess it's how the writers wanting to answer the question with another question. It might lead somewhere good, I don't know.
I'm not hopeful.
Although I feel your pain, I quite liked that episode in general. I'm not very good at analysing things, so I can't say whether it was the pace, or the acting or script or what exactly it was. But overall I came away thinking it was one of the best so far.
The thing that bothered me about the Coulson reveal was the idea that they could bring him back to life after being dead for days. Why did they even have to put that in there? Why not say he was only dead for minutes before they started working on him, or froze him, or whatever.
So, sort of like was hoping it doesn't look like he's an LMD. But then, they didn't really even answer the question so everbody is still all wtf. And now that I've seen how they want to explain it, I think I'd rather be disappointed with LMD. At least that would a) be simpler and b) already exist in the universe (though maybe not the MCU).
And a bonus: This just makes Fury look like a Frankenstein. I get that a General is going to put assets where he needs them to be, and in SHIELD that means putting people in certain danger. And people will die and as shitty as that sounds, that's what they're there for. So now after Coulson sacrificed himself and it meant something, Fury takes the big asshole step of torturing Phil to keep him alive. And for what? This better have some real Batman (nee Fury) Gambit attached to it, like he's already thinking ahead to thwart a Skrull invasion or some shit, you know?
edit for sneaky inbetween shady1234
I can hope that there was some kind of error and that Doctor Book meant that they were keeping him alive for days with that machine. But then, there's no reason for me to think that, really. It very well could have taken days to set up that contraption (who knows where it came from, what it is, how it works, maybe it was a LMD recording mawhatsit) and Coulson was dead for all seven, eight, nine - I don't know how many surgeries until he wasn't mostly dead no more.