Agents of Shield - Season 4
- Thread starter MarsWeeps
- Start date
So did I and I was even annoyed by how predictable it felt (particularly with the really clunky dialogue when they met up), so the reveal that Coulson, Mack, Mace, and Daisy have been replaced with LMDs was a nice twist.
Question now is why would Aida want to infiltrate SHIELD at this point? She already has the Darkhold.
Question now is why would Aida want to infiltrate SHIELD at this point? She already has the Darkhold.
Aida's scene with Ivanov still under the rubble would seem to suggest that everything we saw did happen the way we saw it, which means Ivanov and his men had no part in it. The obvious assumption would be that Aida herself intercepted them one by one (possibly with the help of the already operating replacements?) and took them out. Mace could've theoretically already been an LMD before we saw him (if they can fake bleeding... but then, maybe that would risk giving Aida's plan away to Ivanov too early). Coulson and Mack certainly can't defend themselves against Aida's speed and strength (especially while carrying Mace, who currently couldn't defend himself against a kitten). Daisy could, but if she was approached by LMD Coulson, she probably wouldn't react fast enough.
I do have to say: A great episode overall, but the fact that this giant Watchdog conspiracy thread all came down to a nutjob who basically just had a personal grudge against Coulson and somehow from there wound up with this totally random anti-alien philosophy was heavily disappointing.
I thought it was a nice dig at conspiracy theorists and how they manufacture these elaborate constructs that are just about justifying their own beliefs and have nothing to do with reality.
Although it kind of makes sense, in a way. Coulson has been a participant in most of the incidents that have revealed alien existence to humanity or brought aliens to Earth -- Thor's hammer, the Chitauri invasion, Malekith's attack (though only for the cleanup afterward), the whole Inhuman saga. Of course, that's just because he's an important member of SHIELD and it's their job to respond to such things. But I can see how Ivanov could mistake correlation for causation, given his existing fixation on Coulson. Gotta watch out for that confirmation bias.
And I don't think his anti-alien philosophy was random. In his first appearance, we saw that he's a traditionalist and is suspicious of anything new -- he scorns human enhancement and AIs like Aida as much as he does aliens. He hates aliens and Inhumans because they're a change from the baseline he's comfortable with, and he hates all such changes. So he already had reason to hate Coulson, and when he began to notice Coulson's association with other things he hated -- superhumans, aliens, advanced technologies -- it felt natural to him that the person he'd hated for so long must be the cause of all these other things he hated.
Add me to the list of folks expecting a Framework revelation. The LMD thing wasn't terribly surprising until the screen said all 4 were LMD's. I love it when you expect a small surprise and get a big one instead. (Though that small voice at the back of my brain says "maybe they still are in the Framework", and that's the same Agents of Shield conspiracy voice that was waiting for everyone to be a Hydra agent in season 1 and everyone to magically turn into an Inhuman last year.)
Can't wait to see where this story takes us next week.
Can't wait to see where this story takes us next week.
What ever happened to the lady Senator's brother. Didn't he re-Cacoon at the bottom of the ocean? Or was that resolved?
Eh. Maybe I'm being nitpicky but that seems rather flimsy and unsatisfying.
Yeah, I found that very disappointing, too, despite the commentary on conspiracy theories. And what happened to Blake? How do these revelations line up with the original implication that he created the Watch Dogs because of his issues with Coulson?
Aida was created as part of a program to keep SHIELD agents safe by replacing them with duplicates. Maybe her goal is still a twisted version of that, to make everyone safe by putting them in the Framework, by force if necessary. Your classic "protective AIs gone wrong" story seen in Jack Williamson's The Humanoids and Star Trek's "I, Mudd" -- the robots enslave us in the name of keeping us safe.
The way politics are going lately, I'm starting to think maybe we should let the machines take over...
I find it random because in his first appearance, he seemed to hate Coulson specifically because of his connection to aliens (which would have been a great send-up of conspiracy theorists) but ever since then, he's be focused pretty much entirely on Coulson himself without the slightest care for all the other stuff he's supposedly against and all because of the deaths of a few secret agents that Coulson didn't even kill in the first place. The worst aspect of it, though, is that this man who created a literal global conspiracy that snaked its way into major world governments ultimately revealed his endgame to be: get Phil Coulson in a room and beat the crap out of him. Because that's supposed to accomplish something?
Coulson should've been a distraction at best. A loose end he couldn't resist tieing up. Not the main event. Especially not after this storyline has been playing out since halfway through last season.
No.
He called Daisy a "genetic cheater", and I'm struck with the feeling that he might be jealous.
Life Model Decoys were introduced in, quite literally, the first panel of the very first Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD story in 1951. As a concept, they're exactly as old as SHIELD itself. Westworld is based on a 1973 movie of the same name. And of course, stories about people being replaced by robotic doubles or other doppelgangers have been around in fiction and lore for ages. The first great screen robot, Maria in Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis (named Futura in the 1925 Thea von Harbou novel it was based on), was a doppelganger for the real Maria. So it's hardly a recent concept.
Heck, the new Westworld show is a remake of a 1973 movie that had previously inspired a (short-lived) TV series. So we're on our second Westworld TV series now.
And, yeah, the SHIELD comic books have been milking the LMD thing for decades now, as noted in this article:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-silliest-life-model-decoy-stories-in-marvel-comics-1790994884
And, yeah, the SHIELD comic books have been milking the LMD thing for decades now, as noted in this article:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-silliest-life-model-decoy-stories-in-marvel-comics-1790994884
The entire premise for the 'Westworld' film sequel, 'Futureworld' was based on replacing certain people with exact robot duplicates. Horrible film, I watched it recently on Netflix.
Similar threads
