Agents of SHIELD - Season 2 Discussion Threads. (Spoilers Likely)

[RJDiogenes]

It had crossed my mind that it might be a bluff on Coulson's part, but to what end? Having ones mind permanently altered wouldn't be a desirable fate to most.

He seemed to be acting on his belief, or hope, that Ward doesn't like what he is and wants to be the hero he pretended to be. It sounded like Coulson was saying that he could selectively delete Ward's bad marbles and rehabilitate him. If he was telling the truth.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Really?

Methought that Ward was going to be turned into George Baily and been deposited into some better than life approximation of Bedford Falls.

 

[Velocity]

If he'd never been born, many people would still be alive....like his family and several Shield agents.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Really?

Methought that Ward was going to be turned into George Baily and been deposited into some better than life approximation of Bedford Falls.

Is he in Pottersville now?

 

[RJDiogenes]

Really?

Methought that Ward was going to be turned into George Baily and been deposited into some better than life approximation of Bedford Falls.

That's not the impression I got, but I'd have to rewatch the scene to be sure.

 

[Sci]

The testing on Supers and mention of Von Strucker is hard to miss. It makes it more and more likely that Wanda and Pietro are going to be Inhumans for the film.

Didn't the AoU prequel comic already establish that they were made superpowered by Hydra's experimentations (such as the one we saw at the start of the episode), not because they're Inhumans?

I'm wondering if the sudden shift in focus back to Hydra is tying into the stuff with Von Strucker in Age of Ultron. I'm wondering if S.H.E.I.L.D taking out List, and the Avengers taking out Von Strucker will be the end of (current) Hydra?

I certainly hope not! I don't always agree with the manner in which Hydra is portrayed, but I think they are easily the most interesting villains in the MCU. And I think it's useful to have an antagonist organization as part of your status quo rather than as a temporary thing.

Unlike Ward, who I wish would just go away. He and 33 don't interest me at all.

Ward and Kara interest me. The nature of their relationship is fascinating -- so much of their relationship was portrayed like traditional heroes/victims in this episode ("Mom, I'll call you back!," the talk about how they had liked their house, etc.)... and then it's completely undermined when you remember that they essentially turned Bakshi into their own slave. And when you remember that Kara herself may be, in essence, transferring her mental servitude from Reinhardt to Ward -- that she, in other words, might be as much Ward's captive as Bakshi, even if she doesn't know it.

Ward was conditioned by Garrett to become a loyal attack dog... and here he is, repeating that same pattern on Kara, with himself as the dominator rather than as an equal partner. It's fascinating and sick.

I found the casual mention of using TAHITI brainwashing on Ward to be the first disturbing thing to come from Coulson in all of this.

Another possible instance where some of Coulson's leadership decisions can reasonably be questioned.

The implications are a morally ambiguous hornet's nest that should be explored, not tossed around matter-of-factly. And I'd rather not see Ward "redeemed" by being brainwashed back to the dull-ass character he was in the first half of Season 1

I mean, he was never that character. Rather, he was playing a role for the team -- the Stoic Heartthrob Hero. He has always been a deeply disturbed individual; we just didn't know that yet. So we have no idea what a genuinely heroic Ward would be like -- though I question whether someone who has murdered and abused so many people can be redeemed.

* * *

Mike had a lot to do in this episode, but he spent the entire show basically doing what someone else told him -- either Coulson or Bakshi. I kinda hope we get to see him showing more leadership and agency going forward.

We found out the name of another of Hydra's front companies: Echidna Capital Management. This seems a continuation of the traditional Whedon theme of "the corporation as the fount of evil," seen in Angel's Wolfram and Hart, Firefly's Blue Sun, and in Dollhouse's Rossum Corporation. The fact that Hydra apparently runs a Wall Street financial house makes me wonder if, in the MCU, they didn't have a hand in things like Enron or the 2008 financial meltdown.

It also nicely explains how Hydra has been able to pay for all its toys since its agents revealed themselves within SHIELD and it went back underground.

How is it no one on Agents of SHIELD ever seems to call the local police when Coulson's team get into shoot-outs with Hydra or other villains?

For someone who was allegedly so sympathetic to Gonzalez-SHIELD's anti-metahuman prejudices, Simmons seems to be the only person back at the Playground who is still firmly in Coulson's camp. Though, interestingly, both Bobbi and Mack are starting to have their own doubts about the actions of Gonzalez-SHIELD.

No shipperific Fitz-Simmons goodness. Oh well. I loved the bit where Fitz just lost it and went after Ward, though. You can't expect someone who almost died, and has suffered so much, at Ward's hands, not to react that way.

Bakshi at the end... did he actually overcome his brainwashing and betray Ward? Is he operating on some bizarre definition of obeying Ward's command to act as he would have before being brainwashed? Or is this all part of some scheme of Ward's?

Ward doesn't know about the divergent SHIELD factions, though he suspects that Coulson is hiding something since May didn't show up. But now he knows that his being recruited was about finding Skye. Does he have an agenda vis a vis Skye? And if he does, how does Kara feel about it?

 

[RJDiogenes]

Ward and Kara interest me. The nature of their relationship is fascinating -- so much of their relationship was portrayed like traditional heroes/victims in this episode ("Mom, I'll call you back!," the talk about how they had liked their house, etc.)... and then it's completely undermined when you remember that they essentially turned Bakshi into their own slave. And when you remember that Kara herself may be, in essence, transferring her mental servitude from Reinhardt to Ward -- that she, in other words, might be as much Ward's captive as Bakshi, even if she doesn't know it.

Yes, they seem to have settled on the "Daddy's dead, I'm the new daddy" characterization for Ward, which at least makes sense. But he's still boring and so much of what they've done with him has been arbitrary and unfocused, as if they created him to be that shocking traitor mole character and then realized they had no idea what to do next. Maybe they have something good in mind as a goal, but I just wish they'd kill him off and get on with the rebuilding of SHIELD. He seems like baggage to me.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

The testing on Supers and mention of Von Strucker is hard to miss. It makes it more and more likely that Wanda and Pietro are going to be Inhumans for the film.

Didn't the AoU prequel comic already establish that they were made superpowered by Hydra's experimentations (such as the one we saw at the start of the episode), not because they're Inhumans?

I haven't read the prequel comic, but that's what Whedon said was the explanation.

In fact, I'd argue List's experiments show that they haven't figured out how to unlock the powers of Inhumans they've experimented on except for those exposed to Terrigenisis.

 

[DEWLine]

Echidna Capital Management is one of Jonathan Hickman's additions to the HYDRA structure in the comics, specifically from the backmatter flowcharts in Secret Warriors # 1. To be fair, they needed a way to keep themselves funded that didn't depend on everything they'd stolen from pre-TWS SHIELD on their way out that particular door. Having Echidna appear to have been in the background for years or decades between 1946 and 2014 works to that end.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

For someone who was allegedly so sympathetic to Gonzalez-SHIELD's anti-metahuman prejudices, Simmons seems to be the only person back at the Playground who is still firmly in Coulson's camp.

Maybe it had something to do with the whole infiltrating their team for months, storming their base with armed Storm Troopers after icer gassing everyone, and handcuffing her in her own lab.

Not exactly the best way to start a working relationship.

Though, interestingly, both Bobbi and Mack are starting to have their own doubts about the actions of Gonzalez-SHIELD.

Probably because team Gonzalez seems more obsessed with Fury's tool box than dealing with HYDRA.

Plus if they know about Gonzalez's talk with Coulson that gave the impression that Gonzalez is totally convinced that Fury has some info on dangerous stuff hidden in the tool box might also have them wondering how he would react if it turns out there isn't a list of secret powered people or whatever else they're worried about in it.

Also it sounds like team Gonzalez was under the impression that they would just waltz in go through the tool box neutralize whatever threat they're paranoid about and Team Coulson would just be totally okay with it. So the fact that it's not working out that way might be getting some of team Gonzalez to wonder if this was a good idea.

 

[Karzak]

Oh look, HYDRA is a back. Sure would be a shocker if someone on the SHIELD team was a sleeper agent...

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Oh look, HYDRA is a back. Sure would be a shocker if someone on the SHIELD team was a sleeper agent...

Actually no it wouldn't, it would be groan inducing as 1) Its been done, 2) It seems to be the most common thing people are convinced will happen meaning its become predictable.

 

[JD]

Agreed. We've already had 3 team members secretly working for someone else, we don't need a fourth.
It would just end up redundant and annoying if someone else was a spy, even if they were a sleeper and didn't know it.
We already have Ward, Kara, and Bakshi for our Hydra connection.

 

[Christopher]

There's no reason to expect sleepers again. They had a HYDRA sleeper agent in the first season because that tied into the plot of The Winter Soldier, the discovery that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD. That's not what Age of Ultron is about. HYDRA there, in the person of Baron Strucker, is experimenting with superpowers. So that's the tie-in this time, as we're already seeing -- not sleepers, but superhumans.

 

[Karzak]

Hmm. First it was all "We're done with HYDRA!"

I dunno, I think the writers have moved beyond HYDRA at this point. Ward and 33 have become free agents, all the HYDRA leaders except Bakshi have been killed off, and Bakshi's being brainwashed to serve Ward and 33 now. Sure, Baron Strucker's still around, but he's off in Age of Ultron doing whatever he's doing. I think the show is more about the Inhumans issue at this point than it's about HYDRA, so I think it's likely that the real motive of Gonzales, Calderon, etc. is exactly what it seems: mistrust of "gifted" or "enhanced" individuals.

All the North American leaders, anyway. von Strucker's in Europe, and we don't know about the rest of the planet.

Not the point. What I'm saying is that the plot developments suggest that the show's writers don't want to focus on HYDRA anymore. Sure, in the abstract, there are bound to be more HYDRA leaders surviving (and we know Strucker's still around), but we won't see them on the show unless Whedon and Tancharoen want to deal with them, and the story developments of recent weeks suggest to me that they don't want that, that they're more interested in exploring the Inhumans now than just rehashing HYDRA yet again.

But I guess it's a good thing you were right, Christopher. We never heard from HYDRA again!

My mistake.

 

[Christopher]

^I never said HYDRA would never appear again; come on, it's always been axiomatic that the show would tie into Age of Ultron, and it's been clear how they'd do that since the moment they first mentioned Baron Strucker. What I said was that it didn't appear to be the showrunner's primary interest anymore where the evolution of the show's overall arc was concerned. Obviously they're doing a movie tie-in with HYDRA, but they're doing it for the sake of the movie tie-in, as a response to something external to the show. Where the show itself is concerned, it's a side issue to the Inhumans stuff and the future-of-SHIELD stuff.

 

[Captain Craig]

The testing on Supers and mention of Von Strucker is hard to miss. It makes it more and more likely that Wanda and Pietro are going to be Inhumans for the film.

Didn't the AoU prequel comic already establish that they were made superpowered by Hydra's experimentations (such as the one we saw at the start of the episode), not because they're Inhumans?

I haven't read the prequel comic, but that's what Whedon said was the explanation.

In fact, I'd argue List's experiments show that they haven't figured out how to unlock the powers of Inhumans they've experimented on except for those exposed to Terrigenisis.

Thanks for the update. I hadn't read the prequel comic either.

 

[Reverend]

Didn't the AoU prequel comic already establish that they were made superpowered by Hydra's experimentations (such as the one we saw at the start of the episode), not because they're Inhumans?

I haven't read the prequel comic, but that's what Whedon said was the explanation.

In fact, I'd argue List's experiments show that they haven't figured out how to unlock the powers of Inhumans they've experimented on except for those exposed to Terrigenisis.

Thanks for the update. I hadn't read the prequel comic either.

There's really not much too it. It's just an explanation as to how Hydra got their hands on the sceptre (it's about how you'd think, nothing really interesting) and a scene where the twins are recruited literally off the street.

For what it's worth, there's no reason why they *can't* be of Inhuman decent. It's possible the staff managed to unlock the same potential that the mists would have, just by another route. But at the same time, aside from the whole Inhumans are replacing mutants thing, there's nothing to say that they are Inhumans either. Except perhaps the fact that they're non-identical twins and they both manifested abilities. So in that sense at least there's evidence that their potential was inherited.

Agreed. We've already had 3 team members secretly working for someone else, we don't need a fourth.
It would just end up redundant and annoying if someone else was a spy, even if they were a sleeper and didn't know it.
We already have Ward, Kara, and Bakshi for our Hydra connection.

We're already had a fourth. Remember how May was secretly reporting to Fury behind Coulson's back? So yeah, *another* sleeper would be simply trite at this point.

 

[Gaith]

Okay, I'm a bit confused as to why Ward was allowed to pack heat and be unrestrained on the jet. What possible good would that do? And surely Coulson intends to rescue Agent 33 at some point, and undo her brainwashing? She isn't Ward's doll by right, after all.

The whole brainwashing stuff has also been shown to be a bit too effective, I'd say. But, that's just, like, my opinion, man.

Also: looks like Fitz found the one parking garage angle in all San Francisco from which there are no visible hills... cough, cough.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Has anyone seen Joss Whedon's comments about AoS and it not being apart of the MCU?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/27/why-the-marvel-movie-guys-are-annoyed-with-joss-whedon