I know I'm mixing up my Whedon shows, but maybe SHIELD contracts extend beyond life like Wolfram & Hart do. Maybe they kept Coulson alive just because he died at the right time to test their machine.
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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 was kind of hoping that New York Coulson was the LMD. And this Coulson is also an LMD. And that we haven't yet met the one true Coulson, but when we did...it would be amazing.
Transformed into the cybernetic solider against his will, Mike Peterson (J. August Richards) must struggle to find the man in the machine. With a high-tech eye that allows him to see through walls, super strength and increased speed courtesy of a cybernetic leg, will Deathlok fight alongside the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or against them?
Also, apparently, Deathlok (the character) turns 40 this year, so... Happy Birthday! Or something? I've not been a Marvel bort for most of my life so I don't know what this means. It doesn't help that I'm still giving the show the side eye already.
I was just telling someone at the office that I was hoping this guy would be Deathlok. I don't know about current Marvel continuity, but the Deathlok I knew was Luther Manning, a cybernetic solider from an alternate dystopian timeline.
Just be careful if you even suggest to Gregg that some fans/geeks have given up on "S.H.I.E.L.D." Not only is he "very protective of my team and my show," but he’s convinced that even the uber-geeks will come around.
"I guess I don’t mean to say that people who have been frustrated by that discovery period are necessarily losers," he said. "I just think they should be, perhaps, a little more patient."
So, he soft back pedals a little. And to continue my defense: he calls a very specific subset of fans "losers." Namely those who have quit watching because it wasn't Marvel inclusive enough. On one hand, I understand the fans' complaints, and I also understand Gregg's frustration. He's generally a little more self aware when doing this sort of thing but I guess getting beat up over a period of time can still get to you.
I just don't know, man. I'd like to know more but then I don't want this to be some kind of stupid tempest in a tea pot. I'd much rather just (try to) enjoy the show as much as I can and let all the nonsense surrounding what it should or should not be sit by the wayside.
A handsome, charming Black man coming between the cute nerd couple everyone is shipping. Now where have I seen that before?
That's about all I took away from this episode, Whedon be Whedoning.
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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
Who's shipping FitzSimmons? I've only seen people talking about people shipping them. Any other time someone brings up FitzSimmons it's, you know, how the show presents them: As a single(ish) person. I've never put them together romantically. Fitz has even crushed pretty hard on Skye (though, thankfully, it hasn't become a shorthand way of identifying his character); and in an AMA Chloe Bennet (Skye) thought the idea of shipping Skye and Simmons wasn't unrealistic. (That was her speaking independently on the idea, not anything anyone has mentioned, implied or tried in the writing room.)
(As to the state of the show and thoughts on this episode in particular, I'm awaiting a rewatch to nail down/shake loose some opinions.)
I thought the episode where...uh...Lady Fitzsimmons had the Electric Chitauri Boogaloo virus pretty clearly implied that the two were at least somewhat into each other, even if they weren't completely aware of it themselves.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
I the media for always telling everyone that men and women can only be friends if it leads to them being romantically attached to each other. I didn't infer that from those events [Thanks] in part to them establishing previously (and, I guess, since) that they weren't like that with each other.
Adam is smart and I agree with everything he says. That's where I got the idea, too.
But seriously, didn't he jump out of plane and decide to get some field skills because he was jealous that she was making eyes at Agent Block-of-wood?
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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
A lot of folks are makng a thing out of the Coulson Crew straight up killing some guys who were just doing their jobs and were probably agents of a very similar organization (S.W.O.R.D.) if not S.H.I.E.L.D. itself.
Me? I don't see it.
These guys are Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and are stone killers, no doubt. Killing guys is what they do.
If I'm to be honest, my big issue with this episode and the show in general is Skye. I hate how we're constantly being told she's remarkable, amazing and special, but have yet to be shown just how is she so damn special? This episode was really bad at this, with all the "If only Skye were here, she'd be able to do this..."
For all of that, the team still succeeded, so maybe they didn't really need Skye.
I also dislike the needlessly overcomplicated tech. That stupid file system that FitzSimmons was using was horribly impractical. You have to virtually scan through the files by virtually moving some big columns of virtual files. Let's roll through all of these to find the dates we're looking for...whereas a simple search utility would've done it no prob.
Yet, I still can't stop watch the show. I keep hoping it'll get better.
That stupid file system that FitzSimmons was using was horribly impractical. You have to virtually scan through the files by virtually moving some big columns of virtual files. Let's roll through all of these to find the dates we're looking for...whereas a simple search utility would've done it no prob.
Sou and I laughed and laughed and laughed at that Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.
Also can someone with more knowledge/contacts/forums tell me what G.H. was? Or does anyone even know?
Bill Paxton straight up killed the guy, and we know he's going to end up a villain or anti-hero. Agent Block-of-wood injured his guy and was already to give him help and save his life but he died too soon. That's good enough for television heroism.
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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 also dislike the needlessly overcomplicated tech. That stupid file system that FitzSimmons was using was horribly impractical. You have to virtually scan through the files by virtually moving some big columns of virtual files. Let's roll through all of these to find the dates we're looking for...whereas a simple search utility would've done it no prob.
Reminded me of one of those "Auto Trader" commercials.
I also dislike the needlessly overcomplicated tech. That stupid file system that FitzSimmons was using was horribly impractical. You have to virtually scan through the files by virtually moving some big columns of virtual files. Let's roll through all of these to find the dates we're looking for...whereas a simple search utility would've done it no prob.
Yet, I still can't stop watch the show. I keep hoping it'll get better.
wei yau is very smart and I agree with everything he says.
Except to suggest that watching two nerds at keyboards is already boring enough so giving them something to do at least makes it look exciting, even if it's the totally ass backwards way to search for something. Additionally, it's odd that Fitz figured out it wasn't just encrypted but it was an ascii picture of where the Guest House was. Which, you know, creates other Where is this place and What is this place questions that they didn't show them solving. One is forced to assume they used GUI based satellite terrain matching software to find it. And also also, Skye was in nacoma stasis from Switzerland to Maryland and then to the undisclosed location (I assume western US). TV magic everborty.
wei yau sort of walked me through some of the squicky stuff I was having a problem with. I don't like that my Agent Coulson is one of the bad guys. Alright, so SHIELD is the kind of organization that kicks in doors and kills people all they want and nobody can say boo about it. They're a supragovernmental entity, they're beyond any single government and thus any silly thing like constitutional rights don't seem to exist. But that's comic logic for you. Of course organizations and the people who comprise them will tend to abuse any authority they think they have as well as any they actually have. But here in the real world I'm tired of the so called good guys using the ends to justify their means. My small hope is that this comes to a head in some manner in the Winter Soldier. If this were just the movie-verse, I could feel good about that small hope. But thus far, Agent Coulson's Marvel's Agents of SHIELD hasn't demonstrated they can handle these things with anything like nuance or skill.
But let's put all that aside for this episode. (It's a bunch of the little things from this episode and others that keep building up detracting from my zeal in enjoying this show.) Here's what bugs me especial this episode: Wasn't it just a few episodes back we had this big ol' thing about secrets and how they can destroy even professional relationships? And now that Coulson is all shell shocked somehow from seeing an alien - albeit one that is half an alien and hooked up to extraction tubes - he's back to keeping secrets for someone's own good. WTF, Phil? You know this is just going to shit on your face at the exact wrong moment, right?
Now as to the providence of this alien? My immediate thoughts were HEY THAT'S A KREE RIGHT. And checking some comments and stuff around the internet, other folks had the same thought. Which was quickly dampened by others who say MCU doesn't have the rights to Kree, so this alien is prolly a Sakaran or something. (And also trying to find some alien tie-in with Guardians.) So, nobody knows for sure yet and I thought I'd let you all know.
YES MEN was supposed to be an exciting show. I was hoping it would be the best of the season thus far. And it almost was. The Lady Sif hasn't been given a whole lot of MCU screen time so I was p happy that she was coming to the television to get some face time and some character filler. Also, Jaime Alexander is p cool. And last week we find out that Sif is coming because Lorelei escaped. And now we know why.
Lorelei has the power to compel men to do her bidding. But, apparently, only men because, lawl, they are inherently flawed, amirite ladies? And in spite of the fantastic Asgardian ass kicking that happens throughout the episode, the show some how fucks up an intriguing premise from there.
The first and unbelievable not worst mistake the show makes is handing Ward the idiot ball. Yes, okay, it's not like he's been shown to be mentally competent before, but is it too much to hope for that people actually listen when they're briefed on the powers and abilities of the enemy they are trying to capture? They took great pains to show you that they now have unlimited number and type of the special magic bullet guns (once called nite-nite and now ICER) and when it most matters you don't use it.
And even if the next scenes hadn't happened, nobody seemed to care that Ward was compelled to act as he did. But the next scenes did happen and nobody seemed to care that Ward wasn't just mind-raped, but he was physically raped as well, Ward himself included. It's extra more bad because Lorelei and Ward abscond to Vegas, and I can only assume the writers did it with the express intent of showing this sex scene. It was choreographed and filmed as though it were any other ordinary scene between consenting adults. In fact, it was shown to have more passion than the actual consenting relations between Ward and May.
The show is off for the next couple of weeks, so we'll see what comes of this, if anything.
But instead of wasting our time with dealing with what actually happened in this episode, they spend it by piling on more DUN DUN DUN spycraft and mystery.
The only other thing I liked out of this episode was Simmons standing up to Coulson, forcing him to give a good damn reason for his secret keeping after his big honesty kick.
I hadn't even considered that point of view. There was a big honking blind spot because I totally bought into that patriarchal thing where boys will always want sex, no matter what, so they can't be raped.
If it will make you feel better (and it should), it wasn't readily apparent to me either. 1) Because I'm an idiot and 2) because there were no revelations or ramifications in the story proper. The first article I read discussing the episode mentioned it - and so did the second and then the third and then a majority of the comments on those articles. I'm kinda mad at myself for being so passive to the story through that point. I think I was busy being annoyed for a different reason.
I was actually out of the room for the sex scene so I didn't even know he'd been raped until I read it on here. I think that might be the thing that pushes me over the edge into dropping the show.
__________________
"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'm finally caught up on this show. Random thoughts:
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrotherMan
The first and unbelievable not worst mistake the show makes is handing Ward the idiot ball. Yes, okay, it's not like he's been shown to be mentally competent before, but is it too much to hope for that people actually listen when they're briefed on the powers and abilities of the enemy they are trying to capture? They took great pains to show you that they now have unlimited number and type of the special magic bullet guns (once called nite-nite and now ICER) and when it most matters you don't use it.
Dude. You've specifically been told that the combination of her touch and voice will compromise you. She is too far away to touch you, but walking toward you slowly. Stand your ground? Sure, why not? It's not like you could have, I dunno, backed the fuck up while calling loudly for Sif.
It bothered me that the Coulson Scouts straight up killed a couple of guards who were just doing their jobs, but even moreso that there are apparently no repercussions to completely going off the reservation, disobeying orders, and blowing up what's presumably a very expensive and valuable piece of real estate, including what may have been a unique source of alien material.
And, speaking of, why the shit is Coulson so freaked out about the alien? Two seconds ago, you were all gung ho about Skye shooting up a mysterious unidentified chemical substance, but now that it's a mysterious unidentified chemical substance of extraterrestrial origin, you're having second thoughts? It's not even like he was freaked out (as any human being would be) by the very existence of aliens. He has met aliens! He's all chummy with one in the very next episode!
Where is Fury? Is his absence a lead in to Winter Solider? I am so looking forward to that, and hoping it addresses all the hinky issues with SHIELD.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
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“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith