Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

Can I see the shipyards where they build all their hellicarriers?

 

Episode 2 wasn't bad either - reasonable fun, la commandanta was hot, liked the cameo at the end...

Cast and character wise, Skye's good, it's great to see the underrated (and underplaying) Ming Na Wen in something again - and who'd think she'll be 50 next month? I'm actually surprised they didn't insist on picking a younger actress, even though she looks younger, but I'm also delighted - at least somebody's wising up in TV land. If we can just get Alex Kingston in as well... Um, I don't really get the Agent Coulson fandom - he's OK but reminds me way too much of Steve Carrell's Maxwell Smart. Agent Ward... they could put any pretty boy in there with no change, but given the number of times they've got him in a white t-shirt I keep wishing they'd just cast John Barrowman...

 

I'm going to keep watching but the show hasn't wowed me yet. It feels a little bland at the moment. I really hated the 'x hours earlier' thing, I really wish tv shows would stop doing that.

 

Ming-Na Wen is just so amazing to watch. I had no idea she will be 50 shortly. The cast is very impressive, although I do lament any claims that they're good agents - most of them are TERRIBLE agents, albeit they are good specialists.

I think it might serve them well to work towards having a wider supporting cast, maybe recurring characters that they can bump off occasionally. For now, its silliness is the right side of Warehouse 13 so it's all good.

 

Where was the Shawarma gag?

This scene was obviously just to have Fury, but it did set up that SHIELD knows something about Skye. They weren't just saying "beware because she is an unknown", but that they DO know something. Whether she is a double or triple agent or something else, of course, remains to be seen.

I also like the idea of Coulson being an artificial life form. That's been well-established and could also bring in a possible WWII Torch cross-over thus subverting the FF rights issue for that particular character.

 

In The Avengers -- set up after the battle, paid off at the very, very end of the credits.

 

Jackson certainly has fun with characters. Didn't he ask to be in Star Wars? What's more, when a comic book line basis the image of a major character on you and then proceeds to make movies and television about that character, it must be flattering.

I missed that because the theatre I was in kicked everyone out after the Skrulls.

The premise is though that these are the other guys. They aren't the best agents, but they have other specialties.

 

They build them on the ground in Iowa.

 

I went back and watched that last scene again. I would not be surprised if there is something else going on that we haven't seen yet. Fury's dress down of Coulson was a little off. He was upset about equipment? Also he speaks loudly so everyone hears him until he asks about Skye and then he makes a seemingly throw-away comment about Lola.

It would be more in character for both Fury and Wheadon that this was a cover-up for something else that he was trying to tell Coulson. Is there something placed in Lola for Coulson to find? Is there a double-meaning behind Fury ordering no "upgrades" to the bus?

 

Considering all the trades people there are in a union with security clearance 37 levels above presidential access, you're looking at millions of dollars in labour to fix the damage to their bus before you even start to talk about parts.

Does SHIELD keep the money it takes from HYDRA?

The Punisher keeps the money he takes from crimelords.

Spider-Man doesn't.

 

I would be surprised if they put that much thought into it. The scene felt as though it was largely ad-libbed -- that they just told Jackson "You can go off and rant about whatever you want, as long as you limit the profanity, but be sure to mention something about Skye being a risk."

 

What profanity?

Nick Fury has ALWAYS been a PG-13 version of Jackson in all the MCU movies.

 

^Yeah, but I figure that if you ask Jackson to ad-lib and leave him entirely to his own devices, you're likely to get some bleepable moments. Wasn't that infamous Snakes on a Plane line an ad-lib of his that went viral and was retroactively written into the movie?

 

I disagree. Many sees of Buffy and Angel had seemingly throw away scenes that became important later on. That is a pretty standard Wheadon technique. In fact, on one of the DVD commentaries he mentioned that back in Buffy season one, the fact that they shot the season before it aired allowed him to make edits in the early episodes and he wished he could have been able to do that for later seasons.

 

I think it just quickly became an internet meme based on SLJ's perceived "persona" (largely from Pulp Fiction) so the studio reacted to the movie's popularity on the internet and inserted it in. (As well as pushing for an R-rating to not only use the line to but add in more gory shots with the snake attack(s).)

 

I'm not sure how that's a disagreement, because I'm just describing my impressions about that single, particular scene, which is not meant to say anything about Whedon's proclivities as a general rule. I'm perfectly well aware that Whedon drops hints that become important later on -- and that MCU tag scenes generally do have future significance as well -- but that doesn't prove that this particular scene was an example of that. I'm just saying it had an improvisational feel to me.

 

Fluff can be unexpectedly heavy.

 

Marshmallows on Jupiter just aren't as fun.

 

Heh.

In a little more seriousness...

According to comics writer Jonathan Hickman, there's a place in the Caribbean Islands called "the Dock" where several of them have been built.