Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Re-Watch

[Raja]

I didn't realize  how much I had forgotten about the LMD pod. With or without the latest flawed super soldier serum  Director Mace was always the first one through the door. From taking on Ghost Rider to Shockley, the Watchdog field commander who turned out to be an Inhuman bomb.

[Orbert]

Yeah, Director Mace was a pretty cool guy.  His was a nice little story arc and helped bring that season together.

[swanpride]

I can never forget Shockley, because I am still amused over the fact that they basically trapped him into a giant pockeball.

[Llywela]

12 hours ago, swanpride said:

I can never forget Shockley, because I am still amused over the fact that they basically trapped him into a giant pockeball.

😄 I wonder where they stashed him after that...

I'm halfway through S5, Fitzsimmons have just got married, the Principia has fallen out of the sky, next up is Fitz's mental break. I'd forgotten how much Mack annoyed me through S5 with his self-righteousness, holding himself up as the self-declared arbiter of morality for the team and judging everyone else for failing to live up to his standards (but being suspiciously quiet about his own failings most of the time). And yet idealistic characters can be really appealing when done right, but I think they work best when they are struggling to impose those high ideals on themselves, wrestling with the temptation to do things the easy way instead, rather than imposing their own morals onto other people and then judging them for any perceived failure. Mack tries to make every situation black and white and does not acknowledge any murky greys whatsoever - despite the fact that the grey zone is pretty much where SHIELD has always lived. It's a very realistic and believable character flaw, but bugs me nonetheless.

Also, no matter how many times I watch Elena getting her arms cut off, I still can't see how Ruby could possibly have done it, severing both arms in the same place by throwing a blade while Elena was moving too fast to even see. I mean, it's not like she'd have been running with her arms stretched out in front of her to both be chopped off at once. It just doesn't seem physically possible to have worked like that.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Llywela

[Raja]

I was wondering where the data for the Davis LMD came from and while I have not seen him in the helmet yet as far as Daisy blasting The Superior we did show Fitz showing off the Framework independent of Radcliff and Aida.. I can easily hypothesize that Agent Davis went through the test before it was shown to Coulson, Daisy and Mack.

[BaggythePanther]

I’m also about halfway through season five. I watched that scene where Ruby cut Yo-Yo’s arms off a few times because I also could not figure out how both arms were cut off. I don’t think it lines up, but they needed to get to that plot point.

 It seems like Mack gets more self-righteous as the seasons progress. Back in season three he was a generally forgiving guy but by the time you get to season five and beyond he’s a lot more judgmental with a black and white view point of view. It feels like flanderization because there aren’t really any on screen developments that would push him in this direction.

[swanpride]

It's pretty easy to get to Yoyo back then...just aim for the place she just left. She will be back within a heartbeat.

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, swanpride said:

It's pretty easy to get to Yoyo back then...just aim for the place she just left. She will be back within a heartbeat.

But that's not what we see happen. Ruby throws her blade ahead of where Yoyo is running, not back at where she just came from. And even if she had, it still shouldn't have taken both arms off so neatly. With Yoyo moving so fast, Ruby shouldn't have been able to touch her at all, certainly not with such accuracy. The scene simply doesn't track. But as @BaggythePanther says, they just needed to check off the plot point, and that was the best they could manage.

15 hours ago, Raja said:

I was wondering where the data for the Davis LMD came from and while I have not seen him in the helmet yet as far as Daisy blasting The Superior we did show Fitz showing off the Framework independent of Radcliff and Aida.. I can easily hypothesize that Agent Davis went through the test before it was shown to Coulson, Daisy and Mack.

Yeah, we don't have any on-screen evidence for how they got a brain scan of Davis to make an LMD from, and they would definitely need one, to create an LMD that was convincingly him and not just a hoddy facsimile. Getting his appearance right would be easy, because we were told in S4 that LMD!May had taken accurate scans of all the team so that their duplicates could be pre-made, which is presumably also where the LMD!Jemma came from that Fitz uses as a decoy in the final battle with Aida. We can fanwank easily enough that scans of supporting agents like Davis were among the data gathered by LMD!May, harvested somehow from the wreckage. But we never see any suggestion of Davis having his brain scanned, so...yeah that's wide open for us to  make up theories of our own!

[swanpride]

Honestly, I am not sure what we are seeing...to this day I am not sure if Ruby actually aimed to hit her, or if she aimed for Mack und Elena just run into her path.

 

I wondered about the Davis question, too, but then, he got badly hurt during the whole Aida thing, perhaps taking care of him involved a brain scan.

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, swanpride said:

I wondered about the Davis question, too, but then, he got badly hurt during the whole Aida thing, perhaps taking care of him involved a brain scan.

Possibly. If so, it was Mike Peterson who did the scanning, as Davis got left behind when the team evacuated the ruins of the old base to escape Aida, and then they basically never went back. They escaped Aida, they went to a diner for a meal before their inevitable arrest, they got flung into the future, and then they returned to their own time at the Lighthouse. Next time we see Davis, he is with a group of SHIELD agents brought to the Lighthouse by Mike, after Deke made contact on Coulson's behalf, and we are told that after the core team disappeared, Mike gathered up as many surviving agents as he could find, got them to safety, and supplied medical attention for Davis after Aida (and the team) left him for dead.

Another one for us to rationalise in our own headcanons. If this were the Doctor Who universe, Big Finish (official audio adventure company) would have a field day filling all the gaps with missing adventures! I would absolutely go for an Adventures of Deathlok boxset featuring an exasperated Mike trying to wrangle a bunch of minor SHIELD agents on the run while also attempting to figure out what the hell happened to the core team. Deathlok and Agent Davis, the mismatched pairing we never knew we needed! It would almost make up for Mike never becoming a regular character because of being so ridiculously overpowered.

Fitz's mental break is really hard to watch but extremely well done. Coulson falls into Hale's clutches in the same episode, and it really bugs me that the gang falls straight into her trap the way they do. Like, they even comment on what poor security Hale must have to allow her phone to be hacked, they know that this woman has been actively hunting them for months, and still no one considers that it may be a trap - and that after Rosalind Price basically pulled the exact same stunt on them back in S3. A crack team of super spies, indeed!

Edited November 9, 2020 by Llywela

[Llywela]

Finished S5 - it was harder going than I remembered. Just about everyone behaves badly, they all make poor choices, they all let their emotions cloud their judgement and forget to work as a team. Not everyone gets called out for it, though. Mack remains self-righteous throughout and is not the slightest bit self-aware about it, he just sees himself as right - and the team seem to agree, since they vote him in as their leader off the back of Daisy calling him the moral centre of the team. And I feel so bad for Talbot, who has been around since S1 and an ally for most of that time, yet was never fully trusted by the team, never really given the respect he deserved, so it is painful but also earned when that slightly antagonistic relationship they've always had with him comes back to bite them in the end, feeding into the choices he makes at the end. A painful yet glorious end to his character arc, must have been an absolute blast to film.

On to S6!

[Orbert]

I agree about General Talbot.  Being bound by what the military is allowed to do and say, he didn't always come off as the helpful ally they might have wanted, but he was a good guy.  His ending was indeed "painful yet glorious".  If you're gonna go out, go out with a bang!

[BaggythePanther]

I just finished 5x14. I have very conflicting feelings about this episode. It’s so well done. It has one of my favorite shots of the whole series- a two minute long continuous 360 degree shot. The way the script comes together after the big reveal is so well written. And I enjoyed the scene where Deke revealed to Jemma that he is her grandson, but I think that’s because their relationship grew on me in season 7.

However, I hate, hate, hate the plot. This whole situation ruins the Fitz/Daisy friendship and for what? And it never gets resolved because he dies. Fitz just, gets away with it, Daisy takes on more trauma and everyone moves on to Fitz 2.0. Such a cop out.

16 hours ago, Llywela said:

Just about everyone behaves badly, they all make poor choices, they all let their emotions cloud their judgement and forget to work as a team.

This is why I hate the second half of season five. I have no idea how I stuck with the show. 

[Raja]

On 11/16/2020 at 5:55 AM, Llywela said:

Finished S5 - it was harder going than I remembered. Just about everyone behaves badly, they all make poor choices, they all let their emotions cloud their judgement and forget to work as a team. Not everyone gets called out for it, though. Mack remains self-righteous throughout and is not the slightest bit self-aware about it, he just sees himself as right - and the team seem to agree, since they vote him in as their leader off the back of Daisy calling him the moral centre of the team. And I feel so bad for Talbot, who has been around since S1 and an ally for most of that time, yet was never fully trusted by the team, never really given the respect he deserved, so it is painful but also earned when that slightly antagonistic relationship they've always had with him comes back to bite them in the end, feeding into the choices he makes at the end. A painful yet glorious end to his character arc, must have been an absolute blast to film.

On to S6!

On thing to keep in mind was that most were fresh, just hours, out of the Framework where they lived a life as Nazi's or collaborators.  And going to the Lighthouse they were trying to be extra righteous  and could not see the long game being played out as their blunt efforts caused deaths left and right. And coming back there still was no slowdown to process that trauma until we hit the break and came back to a big S.H.I.E.L.D at the beginning of season 6.

[Llywela]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

On thing to keep in mind was that most were fresh, just hours, out of the Framework where they lived a life as Nazi's or collaborators.  And going to the Lighthouse they were trying to be extra righteous  and could not see the long game being played out as their blunt efforts caused deaths left and right. And coming back there still was no slowdown to process that trauma until we hit the break and came back to a big S.H.I.E.L.D at the beginning of season 6.

True. I enjoy S6 a lot more, in general, I think at least in part because we are back to a Big SHIELD. I just really love that dynamic, where our core team is part of something larger and we get more of a sense of them having a daily life around all their mad adventures, with a broader SHIELD staff around them. I enjoy watching Mack being the Director, running operations from the base while the rest of our core gang are off leading teams of their own - I think Mack and Elena's relationship ends up being all the better for taking a break from each other, as well. I enjoy the space shenanigans, and the expanded roles for Piper and Davies (poor Davies, he deserved better). Through the second half of the season, I enjoy seeing Deke actually bonding with Fitz - it makes Deke so very happy, and Fitz is so nonchalant about it, because he doesn't have any of the baggage his other self brought to that relationship.

I agree with Deke, though, that Daisy is a hardass whenever she has to step up into the hot seat, and I have decided that I don't enjoy her management style. She was right to refuse the directorship when it was offered to her. She has a lot to learn about personnel management before she's ready to make that leap. Whenever she's in charge, she's like a bull at a gate, relentless, and that kind of pressure is bad for the team. A good manager knows how to mix it up to get the best out of their staff, even in times of crisis. Daisy's not there yet.

Also, I'd forgotten how early May's eventual career change was seeded. She's talking to Mack about building a new SHIELD academy and taking up a teaching post there way back at the start of S6, and the initial seeds were sown even earlier than that, with her injury in S5 and the whole arc with Robin driving home the point that she can't remain on the frontlines forever and is, in fact, a natural teacher and caregiver, even if she hadn't ever really realised it about herself.

[swanpride]

May has my favourite arc in the whole show.

[Llywela]

I'm into S7 now. So much fun. I don't even care about the plot holes. I'm charmed by the whole Sousa-on-board thing all over again.

Observation about Mack's parents, in that episode we spend with them. The actress is well cast as Mack's mom, facially there's enough of a resemblance for the relationship to be plausible. But they are both so short! I spend most of the episode wondering where the hell Mack's height came from!

I might skip the Mack-and-Deke-in-the-80s episode, though. I don't recall being overly fussed on that one and I don't want to start being annoyed with Mack again when he's just lost his parents and all.

[BaggythePanther]

I think season 7 feels fun because for the first time in a while the characters are outside, on different sets interacting with new people. And they try new things, film noir, 70s theme song, 80s slasher flick, time loops. It felt like Legends of Tomorrow and their ‘why the fuck not?’ attitude.

I fast forwarded through the 80s episode on my rewatch and didn’t feel like I missed anything. 

[swanpride]

Yeah, that episode is easily the worst of season 7 (and one of the worst in general, at least imho). Naturally "worst" is relative when it comes to AoS.

[blueray]

I didn't actually hate that episode. However Mack's attitude was kind of hard to get through. I get he is sad but it's like "they weren't your parents" it's an alternate timeline where another version of him lost his parents.