Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

"Not just national security. Planetary security. Seriously, guys, you don't ever wanna find out how scary this gets."

 

I'm not saying they wouldn't have had questions. I'm saying that she'd established enough authority over them that they would've been afraid to defy her no matter how bizarre her requests were. That's how people in authority get away with all sorts of crazy and immoral stuff: because most people are afraid to challenge authority.

 

Exactly. And it's not that she was in authority. She wasn't! It was a straight up con. They fell for a con artist.

 

What was it I remember reading about hackers and social engineering skills?

It's a bit of a stereotype, but there's been coverage that reaches to truth.

 

This occurred to me, too.

Which incidentally raises another question I have: Why did Coulson do a Houdini out of the back of the doctor's car? That's the sort of thing someone does when they are angry. Did something come back to Coulson?

Anyway, I'd be mad if I were just a guinea pig!

 

What Phil should be mad about is looking at his bank balance and seeing all the money he spent in Tahiti, which S.H.I.E.L.D's forensic accountants invented to create the complete illusion of his fauxcation.

 

I'm not sure what stereotype you mean, but my understanding is that real hacking is less about typing really fast on keyboards and more about conning people into giving you their passwords or letting you into the building containing the servers, or something. So it's often more about being a con artist than a programmer. Which is pretty much what we got here.

It belatedly occurred to me that Skye's car-crash gambit to get into the guy's house was really a stealth commercial for OnStar and its accident response services. But it worked in the context of the story, so it didn't feel like a product placement. Which is the best way to do a product placement.

 

Best way for an ad to be done. Subtle. Doesn't make the customer look like they're headed for mental health/addiction wards.

 

No it's definitely about typing real fast.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8qgehH3kEQ[/yt]

 

^Key word, "real."

 

Well, now we know part of what was done to Coulson-- and, more importantly, he knows. But we still don't know how Fury "moved Heaven and Earth" to resurrect him. I wonder if that phrase implies using Asgardian technology. And we still don't know why. I like the idea that he was saved because of his good character; it would be nice if the thing that makes a character vital and irreplaceable is their integrity, rather than them just being the Chosen One or something.

 

I think Fury made a deal with supernatural/mystical forces to ressurect him, and Dr Book was brought in after that happened so he doesn't know about it.

BTW, was that stock footage of Fury watching over dead Coulson or was that newly filmed?

 

Writers sometimes use figures of speech as hints for a more literal interpretation. Book also said it was "ungodly". We'll have to wait and see.

 

Just had an odd thought, although it is somewhat shaky as theory.

That second written language from the chalkboards in "Eye-Spy" vaguely resembles Ogham.

 

It reminded me of the scene in The Avengers where Fury was crouching over the dying Coulson. It could've been from there.

 

Watched it on my DVR, very good episode. The reveal with what happened in "Tahiti" was certainly an interesting one and horrifying. It does leave a lot of questions open, though, on how the resurrection itself took place particularly in reversing the brain damage from Coulson being dead for "days."

Great use of Skye in this episode and she got her lojack bracelet off.

Unless you're a My Little Pony cartoon.

 

I think so too. I actually thought it was a flashback to that moment, and not intended to be Fury looking over Coulson during surgery.