Tuesday, October 1, 2013

'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' 102 "084" Review

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Last week our newly-formed S.H.I.E.L.D. special team dealt with a powers-related incident--one of the many fallouts from all that has occurred in the world since the Battle of New York changed the rules forever. There was a tease at the end of the episode regarding their next case, a 0-8-4 aka an object of unknown origin down in Peru. The team’s greatest challenge this week had less to do with this object than with the team still trying to put aside their vast differences in personality and training level in order to save the day. 



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Before Agent Coulson could even utter the words to his former associate and current adversary Commandant Camilla Reyes, I think most people could get a sense of how important it was that the team came up with and executed a plan together. Having Reyes and her men take over the Bus was this show’s version of Coulson himself taking one for the team so that The Avengers had a common event to motivate them to quit bickering and start being a lot more heroic instead. Establishing that our motley crew of science geeks, trained field combatants and a hacker extraordinaire are the small screen version of the aforementioned super-team. Without powers, magic, or any other abnormal advantage this team’s skill sets are really about the best the human race can get. 

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Especially with Agent Melinda ‘do not call her the Cavalry’ May on board. Two episodes in, she remains a mostly stoic extremely lethal field operative with a dark past. It doesn’t get more stock character than that. The show still manages to present the mystery of her past (the events before she wound up a desk agent) in such a way that, action cliche or not, you truly do want to know more about her. Speaking of show mysteries, we weren’t given any follow-up on the nature of Coulson’s so-called recovery period. The only moment that can be added to the pile of speculation is that once again when triggered, Phil said the exact same phrase about Tahiti. I’m putting my money on it right now, he’s a clone. He’s Cloneson, and they have a whole stockpile of them in some secret off the charts S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory ready to go in case anything happens to this one too. If only because this man has the kind of connections (before Reyes turned on him it was her association with Coulson that led to the team being able to obtain the 0-8-4 when rebel forces showed up) that help to get the job done as smoothly as possible. That’s an asset that an organization like this one can’t so easily lose forever.

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 It’s also highly suspicious just how sentimental he is. It seems more like it’s better for the illusion of being the original to uphold itself if Cloneson is surrounded by objects that carry special meaning to him, up to and including Lola. I wonder when the mystery will be solved and if it will make this long-time company man start to question and perhaps even rebel against his own organization. In the comics it’s constantly a thing that people are with, against, and with S.H.I.E.L.D. again. Hell, even Nick Fury has had times where he was against them but we’ll see how things shake out as the season goes on.

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Speaking of Mr. Fury, the cameo by Samuel L. Jackson in the end of the episode was just the perfect final touch on the proceedings this week. It’s good of them to establish that such cameos in the future don’t require something big and flashy to happen in order to justify them. No, everything is the same world as the Marvel Cinematic Universe so Jackson’s Nick Fury bitching Coulson out about how quickly the Bus was damaged after it was given to him to use was an appropriate way to keep things connected without feeling contrived. With that being said, I don’t think it’s a well that they’ll draw from too heavily in the first year lest it lose the special appeal and the surprise (at least when it’s not spoiled completely by the media days beforehand). 

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Right now my only real complaint about how this series is developing has to do with the character of Skye. Chloe Bennet is a charming actress with a good sense of comedic timing and the ability to pull of deeper emotional scenes but there’s something that remains off about her character.  Unfortunately, now her story seems to be that of the double agent, a most thankless role in a show like this. Either she truly does go ahead and betray the team that will train and trust her, or she’ll be the one that comes through and saves the day at the last second after a season’s worth of double-crosses, sabotage and other such acts that will alienate the team from her anyway. It’s my hope there’s some third option here for the writers to pull off as I think Skye can still become a necessary member of the team. 

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Perhaps that's part of the problem is that her skillset was shown tonight to not be quite so necessary as the rest of the team. Tonight’s mission had no need of her computer skills and it turns out they were fine enough without. That sort of thing would tend to happen when dealing with alien or cross-dimensional tech few humans have so much as laid their eyes on--perhaps she’ll stumble her way into a power and then she can contribute more frequently. As it is, all she offers is a different ideology than her peers which provides fodder for ship-worthy tension (I can see Agent Ward and Skye fanfics being written after tonight) but little else at this time. 

I have a certain level of confidence in what Joss Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jed Whedon will come up with next. Joss has practically made his bones in the genre world by embracing stock characters in order to subvert and transform what they're capable of being. This team has already achieved what many thought was impossible by being able to bring such big-screen theatrics to the small screen while still making it feel as though both mediums truly share the same world. Now they just have to keep it up as the team continues to be tested and challenged by the strangest show on Earth. 

1 comment:

  1. If they have a stockphile of Phil Coulsons, could I please have one of my own?

    ReplyDelete