Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

[Kosh Naranek]

So, when Garrett orders Tripplett to hit Deadlock with icers, was Deadlock shown just to throw suspicion off Garrett or was Deadlock there to kill Tripplett and failed?

Ward killed 3 agents in cold blood after shooting a man confined to a bed/chair for years. I can't see him getting back on the bus with happy shiny people after that.

They made Tripp seem just squicky enough and the actor has way more personality.

This ep drove home how much I have come to like Fitz/Simmons. At first I thought the geeks were a waste of space and could not tell them apart. Last night I was really worried about the wonder twins, and poor ole Fitz got me with the tears.

 

[Reverend]

Actually, when you think about it, there isn't much that this episode spoiled that you couldn't have gotten one way or another from the movie's trailers.

I saw nothing in the trailers about Hydra or about Sitwell's true nature...both genuine surprises for me in the movie theater.

Hydra's presence could be inferred by the simple deduction that it's a Captain America movie. I certainly expected them to crop up one way or another.

As for Sitwell...meh. Like I said, it didn't spoil much.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Did anybody else notice that Ward did not say, "Hail Hydra," at the end, which would have been the Awesome Thing™ to say? Does that mean that he doubts his allegiance to Hydra, now that he came out in the closet* to his true love? Maybe he'll double-cross Hydra for Skye.

I thought about the possibility that Hand and the other two were Life Model Decoys, but that would (I assume) be detectable when they arrive at the Hydra base, so it wouldn't work.


* - @ The Old Mixer: You did good in coming up with that.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^Thank you.

Now that I've had a chance to think things through a bit more, allow me to suggest an alternative that falls somewhere in-between what I've been suggesting and the rebuttals....

As many have suggested, Ward is and always was a Hydra sleeper. He is loyal to Garrett and Hydra, and has no qualms about killing SHIELD agents in general when necessary to the mission...e.g., Hand. Note also in that case that Hand was looking to execute Garrett then and there, whether or not Ward was the one pulling the trigger. Given a choice between Garrett and Hand, he chose Garrett.

But...his time with Coulson's team has compromised him. He has feelings about that particular group of people (especially Skye)...thus his closet confession to Skye this episode isn't meaningless. To that end, he intends to try to operate on the inside to intervene on their behalf where possible (especially Skye's). That is, he would attempt to keep them out of harm's way where possible...NOT to help them succeed.

The obvious place for this to go, however long-term the show's plan may be, would be that eventually, he will face a hard choice where he has to take out either Garrett or Coulson/Skye, and he chooses our heroes, possibly at the cost of his own life.

Whatever the theory, I am not for a moment suggesting that Ward is a squeaky-clean good guy who will be back on the Bus eventually as if nothing had happened.

 

[Christopher]

^Now, that I can buy. It fits with what Dalton has said in interviews, that he's with HYDRA but he's been affected by his time among the team.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

That was awesome. It does feel with this episode and the last one that the showrunners are enjoying being let off the leash. I liked the twist with Hand not being the Clairvoyant, and I didn't see it coming that Garrett was. Ward was acting very suspiciously though so I wasn't surprised when he revealed himself at the end, although it is a shame to lose Hand. The really big tip-off was when Skye gave him the hard drive.

I loved all the other stuff with Coulson & May, and the tear rolling down Fitz's face. I know the characters were bland at the beginning but the show has done a really good job at developing them over the course of the series.

I really want to go and see CA:TWS again now.

 

[doubleohfive]

Egads, finally the show is doing something interesting with boring-ass Ward. That alone made these two episodes worthwhile.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Spoiler: x returning

Cobie Smulders to return - episode airing April 29

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^ That's a spoiler and should be in spoiler code.

 

[The Old Mixer]

A variation on my last suggestion would be that Ward's loyalties are strictly personal, not ideological, and are currently divided between Garrett and Coulson's team. He went with Garrett to save Garrett's life, again having no qualms against killing Hand and her people. The rest might play out pretty much as I described before, with the added benefit that if Ward wasn't previously affiliated with Hydra per se, his status as a recruit would give Garrett and company an excuse for exposition to the audience via Ward.

I'm also thinking that Triplett may still be loyal to Garrett but hasn't blown his cover in order to serve as a mole on Garrett's behalf. Thus each faction would have somebody on the inside of the other to some extent. But we'll see....

 

[bbjeg]

So is the shield team absolved from killing those two guards for Skye? Garrett and Ward shot them (and Ward shot the cameras). True, Fitz hacked the door but when two out of three senior agents say go, you go.

So, when Garrett orders Tripplett to hit Deadlock with icers, was Deadlock shown just to throw suspicion off Garrett or was Deadlock there to kill Tripplett and failed?

It's Deathlok BTW.

I assumed he failed but I think the Clairvoyant's goal was to get S.H.I.E.L.D. on "his" tail, so technically, Deathlok completed his mission.

 

[ALF]

Ward will make a much finer baddie than a goodie.
Not sure if we were supposed to have seen Winter Solider before or after SHEILD episode 17 though. Any (non spoilerish) thoughts on that?

 

[FPAlpha]

Damn.. that's what Shield should have been from the start!

I now can't wait for next week's episode and they really outdid themselves with this one. Fortunately i had seen Cap 2 on opening weekend so i had a pretty good guess where things would end up after last week's episode but they still managed to surprise me and i didn't see Ward turning out to be a traiter.. thought about the possibility during the episode as being one possible megatwist (how can people work close together for years and not be influenced?) but when it happened i was still surprised.. also because of the finality of it. Ward killed 3 agents including a very high ranking one, there's no coming back from this easily if at all and it's something that's been lacking in many shows.

Captain America 2 is a game changer for the entire MCU (really didn't expect Shield to be disbanded as it was kinda the glue that bound all movies together) and it was transferred very well for Agents of Shield.

I hope the viewing numbers reflect that because they really earned it.

A few things about the episode itself:

- Garret is the Clairvoyant, so far so good. Is he then also psychic?

They claim that the Clairvoyant is merely a high level Shield member able to draw information from the vast Shield database but Coulson never told anyone about the full events with the Lady in the flower dress which is how he deduced that Garret must be it. Was there still a report file somewhere or did Garrett get the information from Coulson's mind?

- Ward is still in the possession of The Bus harddrive, correct? If so the team is really busted.

- Timeline seems a bit wonky when compared to Cap 2.. they go from learning about Fury's death to the reveal about Hydra and the battle for Shield within the day whereas in the movie it takes at least 2 days if i remember correctly.

Nevermind these nitpicks.. it was the best episode so far and i am now really curious to see how the show deals with these events.

One thing i wonder is if the influence goes the other way too? The events of Agents of Shield were "dictated" by Cap 2 events so they followed suit and continue the storyline.

Now disregarding Guardians of the Galaxy which may not have big (or any) Earth/Shield connections that means Avengers 2 next year will be the next Marvel movie that can potentially field Shield again so this gives Agents of shield more than a season to continue the storyline.

Would that mean that Avengers 2 will take up events from the TV show and incorporate it in the movie? Would be a bit jarring for the movie audiences if they see Shield destroyed in Cap 2 and then up and running in Avengers 2 with Coulson back in the mix.

Or maybe Kevin Feige and Whedon have really planned a very long game and set Agents of Shield up in a way that it can work without hindering the movies or vice versa.

 

[Masiral]

- Garret is the Clairvoyant, so far so good. Is he then also psychic?

They claim that the Clairvoyant is merely a high level Shield member able to draw information from the vast Shield database but Coulson never told anyone about the full events with the Lady in the flower dress which is how he deduced that Garret must be it. Was there still a report file somewhere or did Garrett get the information from Coulson's mind?.

The Lady in the flower dress works for the Clairvoyant, so Garret got the full story from her.

 

[Christopher]

So is the shield team absolved from killing those two guards for Skye? Garrett and Ward shot them (a Ward shot the cameras).

Oh, good catch. Maybe that was another clue that they were really not nice people. It'll be fun to go back through the season and look for such clues.

Not sure if we were supposed to have seen Winter Solider before or after SHEILD episode 17 though. Any (non spoilerish) thoughts on that?

I think it was designed so that it could work either way, since both Cap's Kooky Quintet (Cap, Widow, Falcon, Fury, and Hill) and the Bus team discovered the HYDRA infiltrators independently and in parallel. So in either order, you'd see one side of the discovery and get some hints about what would happen in the other. Although I do think it works better to see the movie first. In the film, the HYDRA reveal is the midpoint reversal, but in the episode, it comes almost at the start. So it's meant to be more of a secret in the movie. Not to mention that the episode would need to take place entirely during the third act of the movie, so from a chronological standpoint the movie would come first.

- Timeline seems a bit wonky when compared to Cap 2.. they go from learning about Fury's death to the reveal about Hydra and the battle for Shield within the day whereas in the movie it takes at least 2 days if i remember correctly.

That bugs me too, but it's possible that the news of Fury's death was kept on a need-to-know basis. SHIELD was not an organization known for its transparency, even within itself.

One thing i wonder is if the influence goes the other way too? The events of Agents of Shield were "dictated" by Cap 2 events so they followed suit and continue the storyline.

Now disregarding Guardians of the Galaxy which may not have big (or any) Earth/Shield connections that means Avengers 2 next year will be the next Marvel movie that can potentially field Shield again so this gives Agents of shield more than a season to continue the storyline.

Would that mean that Avengers 2 will take up events from the TV show and incorporate it in the movie? Would be a bit jarring for the movie audiences if they see Shield destroyed in Cap 2 and then up and running in Avengers 2 with Coulson back in the mix.

Or maybe Kevin Feige and Whedon have really planned a very long game and set Agents of Shield up in a way that it can work without hindering the movies or vice versa.

The usual way of these things is for the smaller components of the franchise to follow the lead of the larger ones. The movies are the bigger moneymakers, the more important parts of the franchise, so they're the ones that will always set the course, with the shows following their lead. The films will be designed to stand as the core continuity, perhaps alluding to elements of the TV shows here and there, but never depending on them for story direction. The job of the shows' producers will be to support and/or work around the films' continuity, find stories that can be told in between and alongside what the films are doing, but not to push the films in a certain story direction. The films are the elephants going wherever they please, and the TV shows are the birds living on their backs.

 

[Marsden]

I really thought Victoria was going to be Madame Hydra.


I guess it's possible that Ward didn't kill her, I remember an episode of Mission Impossible where the whole team was inflitrated and Barney ( I think) killed everyone with fake bullets.

 

[FreezeC77]

So is the shield team absolved from killing those two guards for Skye? Garrett and Ward shot them (a Ward shot the cameras).

Oh, good catch. Maybe that was another clue that they were really not nice people. It'll be fun to go back through the season and look for such clues.

Not sure if we were supposed to have seen Winter Solider before or after SHEILD episode 17 though. Any (non spoilerish) thoughts on that?

I think it was designed so that it could work either way, since both Cap's Kooky Quintet (Cap, Widow, Falcon, Fury, and Hill) and the Bus team discovered the HYDRA infiltrators independently and in parallel. So in either order, you'd see one side of the discovery and get some hints about what would happen in the other. Although I do think it works better to see the movie first. In the film, the HYDRA reveal is the midpoint reversal, but in the episode, it comes almost at the start. So it's meant to be more of a secret in the movie. Not to mention that the episode would need to take place entirely during the third act of the movie, so from a chronological standpoint the movie would come first.

- Timeline seems a bit wonky when compared to Cap 2.. they go from learning about Fury's death to the reveal about Hydra and the battle for Shield within the day whereas in the movie it takes at least 2 days if i remember correctly.

That bugs me too, but it's possible that the news of Fury's death was kept on a need-to-know basis. SHIELD was not an organization known for its transparency, even within itself.

I think it was done this way just to show the connection on a lesser level (in the tv show) and for the sake of the story/audience. Logically it may not make too much sense that they allowed a bottom rung agent like Skye to know this, but it's kind of like when you're playing a video game.

Why are you as some random character able to meet Elrond or Gandalf or whoever in a LOTR game? Or able to meet Kings/Queens/Emperors/whatever in World of Warcraft? You always know what's happening at the highest levels of action, but it's for the sake of your game-playing and not presented as what would actually happen in a realistic setting.

Some guy on Seal Team Six doesn't know what Obama is saying to Biden in the oval office.


BTW, for Ward is there any chance he was Loki'd?

 

[bbjeg]

... BTW, for Ward is there any chance he was Loki'd?

Or Sif'd.

 

[FPAlpha]

The usual way of these things is for the smaller components of the franchise to follow the lead of the larger ones. The movies are the bigger moneymakers, the more important parts of the franchise, so they're the ones that will always set the course, with the shows following their lead. The films will be designed to stand as the core continuity, perhaps alluding to elements of the TV shows here and there, but never depending on them for story direction. The job of the shows' producers will be to support and/or work around the films' continuity, find stories that can be told in between and alongside what the films are doing, but not to push the films in a certain story direction. The films are the elephants going wherever they please, and the TV shows are the birds living on their backs.

Sure but it then leaves Agents in a kind of limbo having to twist its own story to that of the movie. Now with Hydra it worked because it was planned from the beginning to lead up to this but i wonder what kind of stories Agents can tell for an entire season safely so as to not step on movie continuity?

Is hunting down Hydra enough mass for an entire season of Agents of Shield or will it get to a point where it becomes stale and stagnant.

I hope they have also planned for this and pull off a seamless handover to Avengers 2 and back to Agents when the time comes in a year for the movie.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I imagine that the TV people would be informed by the movie people as to how the state of SHIELD will be depicted in the next Avengers film, such that AoS could tailor their storyline to get to that point.

They also have an out in that SHIELD was never terribly open in the first place, so what Coulson and company have been up to in the meantime may not be known to the characters in the Avengers 2.