Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

[Shawnster]

^
3. Possibly, but I'm not sure. I'm still having a hard time believing the Clairvoyant has legitimate precognitive abilities. If he did, he wouldn't need to read Coulson's mind to find out what happened, he could read Fury, the Doctor, Agent Hill, etc.'s mind.

You are confusing telepathy and clairvoyance. The Clairvoyant can see people's action (accept Coulson) but I don't think he can read people's minds. Which brings up an interesting point. The Clairvoyant must have seen SHIELD's resurrection technology but it seems there is the more to Coulson's return than simple tech.

Update, Just watched "The Magical Place" and Raina implies that Clairvoyant can read minds or at least sees people's dream. Either the Clairvoyant has multiple powers or the writers don't know the difference between reading minds and seeing the future.

Planets are detected indirectly - their influence on other celestial bodes are noticed and their existence inferred from there. If Coulson cannot be directly detected by the Clairvoyant, his presence could still be detected based on the actions of the people around him.

There can be a third option regarding the Clairvoyant either having multiple powers or the writers not knowing what they are doing - The Clairvoyant could intentionally be giving misinformation to his followers like Raina. Or she misunderstood the Clairvoyant's abilities.

My guess is that her hacking skills are somehow related to whatever it is she can do. I guess we'll have to find out.

How would a newborn baby demonstrate hacking abilities out in the middle of nowhere? Even if that were the case I just can't see that as a credible justification for wiping out a whole village and hunting down the Shield agents that took her.

In the Marvel Role Playing Game, Reed Richard's abilities at invention and creating new tech was a super power in addition to his stretching abilities.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Honestly, both he and Melinda May are technically equally expendable

May is technically a much more interesting character.

 

[Greg Cox]

Honestly, both he and Melinda May are technically equally expendable

May is technically a much more interesting character.

Oh, yeah, May has a lot more attitude and personality. She's one of the best parts of the show.

 

[Mr Light]

I find Agent May to be intensely uninteresting, mostly from the actress, who I normally like... she's just standing there like a pud. Compare it to Officer Diaz in Brooklyn 99 who has a similarly humorless role, yet she manages to convey a lot more personality and character. (obviously, drama vs comedy is a bit unfair...)

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Honestly, both he and Melinda May are technically equally expendable

May is technically a much more interesting character.

Partly because she's aloof and doesn't say much. If she had to take on Ward's role, it's hard to say what would happen.

 

[The Old Mixer]

It is what it is....If they have to replace one of them, Ward is the obvious choice, IMO. People here have been complaining from day one about how bland he is.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Then again killing off a character merely because of unpopularity is lazy writing. You want to kill off a character that will cause an emotional impact. Although, really, I don't think any of the characters are at that point.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I like all the characters. I don't really understand the criticism of any of them.

 

[The Old Mixer]

It could be seen as fixing the show rather than lazy writing. And they've set things up so that it would likely have a particular impact on May, which would make her even more interesting...certainly more interesting than I could see Ward being if the roles were reversed.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I was looking at this screencap of the Wall of Valor, and was wondering if that was supposed to be an accurate representation of every fallen S.H.I.E.L.D./S.S.R. agent. With the kind of business S.H.I.E.L.D. deals in, you would think it'd be a lot higher.

Maybe the walls at each campus have different names?

And I wonder-- Is Phil Coulson named on the wall?

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ That's a good question. It would be a weird moment for him if he saw his own name.

I like all the characters. I don't really understand the criticism of any of them.

Same here. The characters are what I tune in for.

 

[Tosk]

And I wonder-- Is Phil Coulson named on the wall?

Isn't it supposed to be a big secret that he really died for a few days? You'd think that people who die for "a few minutes" wouldn't usually get to be on the memorial wall.

And even then, the "Wall Guy" would have to be quick on the job to get him on the wall before he came back.

 

[ITL]

[Wall Guy] *grumble, grumble* I dunno, you get called out at all hours to put a name on a wall and for what? Paint over it a few days later? Make your bloody minds up....*grumble, grumble* [/Wall Guy]

 

[FreezeC77]

And I wonder-- Is Phil Coulson named on the wall?

Isn't it supposed to be a big secret that he really died for a few days? You'd think that people who die for "a few minutes" wouldn't usually get to be on the memorial wall.

And even then, the "Wall Guy" would have to be quick on the job to get him on the wall before he came back.

At least he can apply his wall name removal skills he learns there for when the next shield agent who's "dead" returns back to life. Bucky Barnes is on the wall afterall

 

[Reverend]

I wonder if Steve Rogers is still on that wall too. After all up until a year or two ago (in-universe) he was considered KIA and that was after Bucky's "death." From a deleted scene in Avengers we know that all of the Howling Commandos are deceased, though I don't recall if you could tell if they were KIA or just died naturally over the years after going back to civvie street. Should Howard Stark be on there? I mean we don't know for *sure* his death was an accident, do we?

I'm still curious what all the different badge designs signify. Now that I have a closer look one of them is clearly the same as the Academy's own seal* albeit with the black and whites inverted. One looks like a version of the show's logo inside a CIA style shield/badge, one is clearly the old SSR badge which leaves the show's logo and the main Shield logo from the comics and the show's logo.

As for the number of people listed, at a quick count it looks like going by the number of names listed that SHIELD looses on average about 4 people a year. Obviously that can't be the sum totality of everyone they've ever lost in the last 70-odd years, so I'm thinking it's restricted to full Field Agents lost in the line of duty.


* - which if anyone noticed features what looks like an identical wreath design as the United Earth seal from 'Enterprise'.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Perhaps the SSR logo and logos for each of the three major departments of SHIELD (which they made a big deal about discussing in this episode)?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I like the thought they put into the wall, but they seemed to run out of money/lose patience at some point, making it smaller than it ideally should be. That being said, if the majority are either sci/tech or data processing people, they aren't likely to be killed in action.

I guess we'll have to see if The Winter Soldier adds to that list.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Who says the Wall is just this small bit? Maybe there are more pieces of it spread around somewhere instead of one big one.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Sure, but there's a bit of an odd coincidence that the person who rescued her is on this specific part of the wall.

 

[DEWLine]

Guessing that the SSR people end up on every SHIELD base's Wall, because they're considered the Founding Parents of the Division. After that, each Wall has names specific to that base/branch of the organization...?