Agents of Shield - Season 4

[LJones41]

I figured that they might be playing the long game and would bring back Ward. I've been saying that this storyline is suited for that.

Ward is now a character in a virtual reality framework. How are they going to pull that off?

And when will this show get over Grant Ward? He must be one of the most overrated fictional characters I have ever come across. Many people and Mutant Enemy seemed to be so "impressed" by his good looks and uber masculinity that they seem blind to the loser that he really was. And he was portrayed by an actor who seemed to have, at best, solid acting skills.

 

[Beagleman]

I liked Lincoln actually but resurrecting Ward once again in yet another different form is just too damn amusing, now they're just having fun with it.

 

[kirk55555]

I know we're getting a six week break after yesterday's episode. Does that mean the LMD arc is over? I have the last two episodes of AoS to watch, but I haven't been liking the LMD arc at all so I was hoping I could just wait until the show comes back and pick it up after the LMD arc. If its still going to keep going after the break I'll just struggle through the two episodes I have to watch, but I can't seem to find out if the latest episode ended the arc or just put it on hold for the big break (I haven't been looking up spoilers in case I do need to watch the episodes, and non-spoiler stuff I've seen hasn't been very helpful).

 

[Turtletrekker]

Wow. That was right up there with "Turn, Turn, Turn" for shocks and twists.

 

[Beagleman]

@kirk55555
LMD arc is still on.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Just like "The Ghost Rider" arc, we get a cliffhanger and a resolution when they return. Then the new arc starts.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'm likin' it!

 

[Christopher]

Here's a thought: If the Coulson LMD's mission was to infiltrate the base, why make him complete with both hands? Wouldn't the fact that he didn't have a detachable prosthetic limb potentially give away that he was an impostor?

 

[kirk55555]

@kirk55555
LMD arc is still on.

Ugh

Just like "The Ghost Rider" arc, we get a cliffhanger and a resolution when they return. Then the new arc starts.

I didn't think about that. If that's the case, I think I'll just not watch the episodes I have and come back when the LMDs are gone.

 

[Beagleman]

I would watch them, personally I'm not the biggest fan of this arc but these episodes have some really wonderful character moments. But not if you plan to have a realy elaborate rant about them.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Stabbing a screaming copy of your boyfriend must fuck with your head. I see many, many hours of couple therapy ahead.

I thought the same thing. That's going to seriously fuck up Jemma's psyche.

When things return to a relative status quo, I hope the show will seriously look at the consequences of that action, as well as the nature of Coulson's and May's relationship. Hell, the same for May's extended period in the Framework.

We saw Fitz-Simmons developing the Framework early in the season, and last week reminded us that they have their own version (remember, it opened with Coulson and Daisy fighting in VR). So Radcliffe is using the same technology. I believe it was mentioned at one point that Radcliffe and Aida's Framework is running in the cloud, on millions of computers all over the world like SETI at Home, because that's the only way it can have enough processing power to simulate the entire planet. So presumably anyone who has the Framework headsets and software can tap in -- or break in, presumably using Daisy's expertise as a hacker.

Thanks for that. I must've missed the mention about Radcliffe's Framework operating on a cloud, which raises technical questions of how a cloud could support such a huge processor. I'm also left wondering why would Radcliffe have that kind of set up in the first place?

Ward is now a character in a virtual reality framework. How are they going to pull that off?

And when will this show get over Grant Ward? He must be one of the most overrated fictional characters I have ever come across. Many people and Mutant Enemy seemed to be so "impressed" by his good looks and uber masculinity that they seem blind to the loser that he really was. And he was portrayed by an actor who seemed to have, at best, solid acting skills.

On the contrary, I would say most people in this forum can't stand Ward. I've certainly disliked him since the beginning.

 

[Christopher]

I must've missed the mention about Radcliffe's Framework operating on a cloud, which raises technical questions of how a cloud could support such a huge processor. I'm also left wondering why would Radcliffe have that kind of set up in the first place?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding and misusing the word "cloud," but isn't the whole idea of it that it isn't one processor, it's information traveling freely throughout the Internet and being shared by many processors? That it isn't in localized storage but is spread out like a cloud of information?

As I mentioned, the analogy they actually used was to SETI at Home, where the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence draws on a little background computing power from each of millions of volunteers, collectively analyzing a volume of data that would take immensely longer for a single supercomputer to sift through. Since there are so many of them, each computer only needs to contribute a small amount of processing power/runtime.

 

[Commander Richard]

Ward is now a character in a virtual reality framework. How are they going to pull that off?

Guess we'll have to wait and see. Wouldn't surprise me if he walked out with an LMD body.

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[Lyon_Wonder]

I guess Hydra running framework earth with Ward also opens the door for John Garrett, Daniel Whitehall or even Gideon Malick too. Actually John Garret would make since since he was Ward's Hydra's superior and Ward might be working for hydra in the framework too.

 

[The Old Mixer]

But then the world would've been conquered by Loki and the Chitauri. The divergence point would have to be sometime between then and The Winter Soldier.

This:

Or Gideon Malick's plan worked and when New York got nuked and it stopped the invasion

This:

and since he wasn't around for Thor being exiled to Earth (and Loki knowing about our planet), then, maybe there was no invasion to begin with.

Also, it's not an alternate timeline, it's a simulation taking its own liberties with its occupants' histories...it rewrote the circumstances of May's moment in Bahrain, for example.

I think we're liable to get some "Tapestry"-style story beats in the upcoming arc...characters realizing that the moments they regret played an important role in shaping them into the people that they are...and/or that the world would have turned into Pottersville without their contribution to it.

When things return to a relative status quo,

From the buzz around here, it sounds like the relative status quo will be cancellation.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

From the buzz around here, it sounds like the relative status quo will be cancellation.

Yeah, I know but I'm pretending it's not true.

 

[Tuskin38]

https://twitter.com/MarkKolpack/status/834306086995779586

So that was the same Triskelion CG model ILM made for the Winter Soldier, they didn't make a new one. Neat.

 

[DrCorby]

Also, it's not an alternate timeline, it's a simulation taking its own liberties with its occupants' histories...it rewrote the circumstances of May's moment in Bahrain, for example.

Exactly! There may have been a main departure point from reality, but it's a reality "fixed" by Radcliffe for each of the prospective inhabitants of the Framework. And since we know that Radcliffe has demonstrated a... "flexible"... morality (like having no trouble working with Hive as long as it got him what he wanted), that altered reality could be quite warped.

And if Coulson never joined SHIELD, a lot of things change in the MCU. Maybe the Battle of New York never happened. Heck, Thor's first visit to Midgard might have gone quite differently, giving Loki no reason to bring the Chitauri to Earth in the first place. Certainly, Coulson would never have died and "gone to Tahiti", so would have no compulsion to find the Kree city, and Skye would not have undergone terrigenesis (sp?). So in the Framework, Skye might not be Quake, just an agent of SHIELD/Hydra.

So many possibilities for the writers to play with! This should be fun!!

 

[DrCorby]

Here's a thought: If the Coulson LMD's mission was to infiltrate the base, why make him complete with both hands? Wouldn't the fact that he didn't have a detachable prosthetic limb potentially give away that he was an impostor?

I think Aida told Radcliffe there wasn't time for adding complexities to the LMDs, like the layered programming that the May-bot had, believing they were real but with hidden programming. They knew what they were from the get-go. So probably no time for a fake fake hand, either.

 

[Christopher]

Exactly! There may have been a main departure point from reality, but it's a reality "fixed" by Radcliffe for each of the prospective inhabitants of the Framework. And since we know that Radcliffe has demonstrated a... "flexible"... morality (like having no trouble working with Hive as long as it got him what he wanted), that altered reality could be quite warped.

Actually I don't think this is what Radcliffe intended. Remember, he wanted a paradise free of death and suffering. More specifically, when Aida brought him out in the beginning of this episode, he was disturbed to learn that Aida had restarted the simulation several times in order to adjust it to remove the captives' regrets. He was concerned that doing so would've altered the simulation in unpredictable ways. So I think that's probably what happened. In the course of undoing the team members' regrets, she accidentally undid the events that led to the downfall of Hydra.

Or maybe she thought they'd be happier if they joined Hydra and profited from the fruits of its victory? If Hydra won and ran the world, the oppressive order they brought would be free of conflict for those who got with the program, so to Aida's emotionless logic, that might've been a preferable way to live.