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Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

2. Female superheroes need more coverage

Susan_Storm2.jpg


Sue looks like a classy lady with more coverage.
 
I'm intrigued by the Agent Carter series, because it's a period piece. I'm interested in good characters and good writing, not "huge" storylines. A "huge" storyline has cut the quality of SHIELD in half.
Wait, wait, hold up. You think AoS has gotten worse since Cap 2?! :eek:
 
Huzzah! I don't see Agent Carter being that interesting though. Nothing truly huge can ever happen in it.

Well there might be an interesting story in

They failed to stop Hydra and the assassination of Tony's father
 
I don't expect Hydra to feature heavily in Agent Carter. Remember everyone thought Cap finished it off with the death of the Red Skull, only to discover that in modern day it had survived by infiltrating SHIELD. If Carter discovers Hydra post-WW2 then SHIELD would know it didn't die with Skull. At most you might see something from a villain perspective that reveals that a plot Carter stopped was actually a Hydra plan, something revealed to the audience but not the show's stars.
 
HYDRA as a secret organization (particularly one that infiltrated rival organizations) is a possibility.
 
Agent Carter is going to suffer from extreme prequel-itis since we already know the fates of Peggy and Howard, since we know they'll never find out about Hydra, since we know there's no super heroes back then, since they're probably not going to drastically rewrite history... also,how long is she going to be pining for her perfect man before moving on? We know she's married with kids from the movie right?
 
^ Garrett told the team "HYDRA always comes back" before he was outed, so it stands to reason that, like the actual Nazis in South America, there'll be post-war clean-ups to be done...
 
Carter having no idea that she is fighting... Wait? Carter is unwittingly working for Hydra.

Why would her serpentine masters send their chief agent of good to fuck themselves up?

Carter kicks over a bunch of anthills, and those anthills pay Hydra for intelligence and weapons, who in turn kick over anthills who in turn buy weapons and intelligence from Hydra...

But the mere knowledge that Hypno Beam technology existed back then, means that Carter could discover, fight and lose to Hydra half a dozen times a year... Oh, they had that happening in the Originals with a barmaid knowing and not knowing about Vampires depending specified margins, and it was almost clever.
 
Agent Carter is going to suffer from extreme prequel-itis since we already know the fates of Peggy and Howard, since we know they'll never find out about Hydra, since we know there's no super heroes back then, since they're probably not going to drastically rewrite history... also,how long is she going to be pining for her perfect man before moving on? We know she's married with kids from the movie right?
In the Cap 2 museum interview segment, Peggy says she got married in the 50s, so there's a decade or so of potential field work even before she has any kids.

I don't have access to the link at the moment, but IGN Movies speculated that her show might be a half-season run in the middle of AoS's regular year. I think that'd be a good course; the Bus Kids could start investigating a mystery in the fall, then show Carter first dealing with it in her time, then resolve it all back in the present.
 
Agent Carter is going to suffer from extreme prequel-itis since we already know the fates of Peggy and Howard, since we know they'll never find out about Hydra, since we know there's no super heroes back then, since they're probably not going to drastically rewrite history... also,how long is she going to be pining for her perfect man before moving on? We know she's married with kids from the movie right?

This is just silly. As long as a show has good writing and good characters that people care about, none of what you point out is at all relevant to the quality of the show. I guess shows like Man Men or Downton Abbey or the Americans can't be good because they can't drastically re-write history? Or no reason to watch Rome or Boardwalk Empire or any other period piece that uses historical figures because we already know how their stories end?
 
^ Then he went and got it? Is that impossible to believe in such a deliberately ambiguous scene? Ward is the guy who can shoot from a distance like that. It's also easier to compartmentalize compared to shooting from up close.

Carter having no idea that she is fighting... Wait? Carter is unwittingly working for Hydra.

Why would her serpentine masters send their chief agent of good to fuck themselves up?

Two things. First, SHIELD wasn't controlled by HYDRA, it was corrupted by HYDRA. HYDRA was a secret organization within it. Alexander Pierce was HYDRA (took the job after Fury's recommendation), but I doubt Stark's dad was HYDRA, for example. So Peggy Carter can still fight HYDRA (albeit unknowingly) without having been sent to do so by HYDRA.

Second, what HYDRA cared about was fomenting chaos. Whether this was done by SHIELD, by some other organization, or by the two organizations fighting each other is fairly irrelevant.
 
So the guy who hired Fury and gave Fury orders is Hydra, but S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't?

Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
 
Carter having no idea that she is fighting... Wait? Carter is unwittingly working for Hydra.

Why would her serpentine masters send their chief agent of good to fuck themselves up?

Two things. First, SHIELD wasn't controlled by HYDRA, it was corrupted by HYDRA. HYDRA was a secret organization within it. Alexander Pierce was HYDRA (took the job after Fury's recommendation), but I doubt Stark's dad was HYDRA, for example. So Peggy Carter can still fight HYDRA (albeit unknowingly) without having been sent to do so by HYDRA.

Second, what HYDRA cared about was fomenting chaos. Whether this was done by SHIELD, by some other organization, or by the two organizations fighting each other is fairly irrelevant.

And three, HYDRA only began infiltrating SHIELD gradually, once Dr. Zola was brought into the organization through Operation Paperclip. We're talking about slowly insinuating HYDRA loyalists into the organization over decades, so that by 2014 there are enough of them within SHIELD's ranks that they can stage a coup and get rid of the honest SHIELD agents like Fury, Romanov, Rogers, etc.

But at the beginning of the agency in 1946, the only HYDRA presence within SHIELD would've been Zola himself. So no, of course Peggy won't be working for HYDRA.

Though it might be interesting if they brought in Toby Jones as a recurring character and showed how he began to earn the trust of the SSR/SHIELD, establishing himself as a mole within the agency and then beginning to formulate his long-term plans for infiltrating and subverting it over the decades ahead.
 
-So when the container with Fitz/Simmons dropped out of the plane from a relatively low altitude, should it have skipped along the surface or contained some sort of forward momentum from the speed of the plane?

Some, but that thing is clearly heavy and has all the aerodynamic characteristics of...well a metal cube. The drag alone should cancel out most of the lateral inertia before it hit the water. Either way, it's got to be a rough ride for Fitz & Simmons unless they somehow managed to strap themselves down in the two and a half seconds they were airborne.

Realistically there should be broken bones and concussions at best...but this is a TV show with killer cyborgs juicing on alien bio-matter, so we can let realism slide in favour of drama every once in a while.

-Funny to see Glenn Morshower playing the general at the very end. Does this place AOS in the same universe as Transformers or X-Men?

Nah that's just the gods of typecasting at work. ;)

Re Glenn Morshower—I guess it’s the closest he’s going to get to 24 (1 day off and another network). My tangent – I wish they could fit an Aaron Pierce cameo. Aaron has been the one character that has appeared in more 24 seasons (other than Jack Bauer; even more than Chloe!)
Ward was clearly a psychopath even before Garrett messed with him, and he had no problem killing the dog and Fitz/Simmons despite having mixed feelings (unless they reveal that it was actually Garrett who killed the dog). But there have been worse characters on TV that have been redeemed-- Spike and Londo, for example-- so who knows? But he's so boring now that I'd just as soon they kill him off. Hopefully this "SHIELD No More" storyline won't last very long anyway.

I laughed at the large file transfer as well.

I'm not so sure Ward killed the dog. He can't have used the gun AND the sniper. Likewise, all we saw was a box fall out from the bus with no idea if Fitz and Simmons were in the box. Looks like Ward's started on his redemption arc.

If Ward was going to kill the dog why wouldn't he have done it with the handgun? Makes little sense for him to fire into the air, leave, then shoot the dog with the rifle.

I figured it was Garrett watching through the scope and seeing Ward hadn't killed the dog. I don't even think there was a gunshot after the scope-shot, was there? Maybe the dog lived.

I figured it was Garrett watching through the scope and seeing Ward hadn't killed the dog. I don't even think there was a gunshot after the scope-shot, was there? Maybe the dog lived.

That's the way I took it too. Garrett was testing Ward, and wanted to see if he would blindly follow his order. I don't think there was a gunshot.

Pretty sure I heard a shot. But here's my theory of that last shot of the dog running away: It was originally filmed without the gun sight to show that yes, Buddy ran away and was safe. Then they changed their minds and decided to superimpose the gun sight and dub a shot, probably to make Garrett more of a bastard. Just a theory, based on too many years of behind-the-scenes stories and DVD extras :).

Earlier in the episode when Ward killed the deer, he mentioned that Buddy would take off runing (to retreive the fallen prey) whenever he heard the shot. Ward fired the pistol knowing that Buddy would run, then finished the job with the rifle because it was less difficult, as Christopher has mentioned. I don't see any reason for Garrett to have shot the dog.
The logic you people use sometimes is truly mindboggling.

That truly is one of the most convoluted and completely-pulled-out-of-the-ass interpretations of a scene I've ever seen around here. And there have been some real beauties, so that's saying something.
Why, thank you. ;)

But I digress. Seriously, that's some ridiculous stretching there, to the point of being absolutely absurd.

And you're right, Garrett had no reason to shoot the dog. Because, you know, he's not a fucking psychopath whatsoever who'd do it just to teach Ward a lesson.
In most well written 48 or so minute T.V. shows there is almost nothing shown that is meaniingless. We see Ward aim the gun at Buddy (looking at Ward innocently) point blank and we see the emotion take over Ward. He can't do it. We are then shown him pointing the gun into the air firing, then we see a shot of Buddy's hindquarters taking off right after the shot. That scene might not make sense without the prior one when we are told how Buddy reacts to the sound of a gunshot. What we are being told is that Ward does have a certain amount of humanity remaing, just not THAT much.

Next, we are shown Buddy lined up in the scope of Ward's rifle and then (I believe) we hear a shot.

Now, it is possible that Garrett shot the dog, but until we are told that and given a reason for it (and if we are told Garrett was the shooter, I think we'll get a reason), it doesn't make sense. My ead on Garrett is that he is a cold blooded killer when he needs to be, but doesn't kill when he doesn't have to. If Garrett did kill Buddy, then I will have to reassess my view of who Garrett is.

So unless you think the scenes with the deer and the dialogue about Buddy's reaction to gunfire and the scenes which show Ward trying to kill Buddy were meaningless, then please give us your interpretation of what those scenes and dialogue meant.

I think Garrett killed the dog as mental/emotional insurance against Ward for later.


At that point, ward was obedient enough that Garrett could supervise him at SHIELD and see how he develops. During that time, he might have done something to continue Garrett’s trust (like killing someone who should have lived).

Ward killing Hand recently enforced Garrett’s trust.

However, with his attachment to Skye, that resurfaced some doubts. Garrett didn’t have a problem with a “harmless” attachment (he implied he would have spared Skye had he known the attachment). But when it starts becoming a liability, he’ll do a new test.

I can imagine this scene:
“Remember when you had to kill buddy?”
“yeah”
“It was really hard for you kill him .”
“Except you didn’t. *I* did. And if you don’t believe me, you can check the cabin.”
“I told you attachments are a liability. Say goodbye to Skye.”

And then either Ward or the team will save Skye from near doom

If ward doesn’t die for Skye and/or the team next week, then he will be lonelier than a (now former) Agent of Shield – he will be hunted by BOTH sides. And then LATER he’ll sacrifice himself.

Also,
The pod that Pitz/simmons was in – surely that was also an escape module. Why else would it be so easy to dump out the Bus? And at such a low level, I think Ward knew they would have a chance to live…just like Buddy. Buddy COULD have died being on his own in the forest, but Buddy had a chance. Ward gave fitz/simmons a chance. I'd have to check the Fitz/Ward buddy episode...but i think by the end Ward respects Fitz enough to know that Fitz wouldn't punk out, but use his brains to help get he & Simmons out of it.

we MIGHT see a slight smile/smirk when he sees them alive.
 
Also,
The pod that Pitz/simmons was in – surely that was also an escape module. Why else would it be so easy to dump out the Bus?

Oh, I can think of a reason or two why an aircraft might need to reduce its weight by dumping its cargo pods.

And at such a low level, I think Ward knew they would have a chance to live…

Again, though, Ward did not choose the situation. Fitz and Simmons chose to lock themselves inside. Ward tried to get them to come out, but he was unable to get to them. Dumping the cargo pod was the only way he had available of even trying to kill them. So it does not remotely prove that he wanted them to live. It proves that the writers want them to live -- that's all.

And it's not like there were windows. We could see that the Bus wasn't high above the water yet, but that doesn't mean Ward knew that. For all he knew, he was dropping them from a thousand feet at that point.

And -- one more time -- he doesn't know they have a homing beacon. It looked to me, too, like the cargo pod sank like a stone. As far as he knows, there's no way anyone could possibly find them in time to rescue them. So yes, as far as he knows, he was killing them, period. He has no reason to believe otherwise.
 
I call for an immediate Congressional inquiry into Buddygate. Just what is ABC hiding from us?!
 
^ Then he went and got it? Is that impossible to believe in such a deliberately ambiguous scene? Ward is the guy who can shoot from a distance like that. It's also easier to compartmentalize compared to shooting from up close.

Garrett could probably shoot like that too, he taught Ward, didn't he? Plus, why would writers show him without the rifle? To leave us to assume after he shot his pistol, he ran back to the rifle, then ran to the side to get a side angled shot before Buddy was out of sight?
 
Why? Look at the reaction. Shooting unsuspecting soldiers in the head we giggle, shoot an innocent animal fade to black
 
After going outside & getting fresh air, i thought about this...if either Ward or Garrett fired a shot, the other would know something is up. If wrd did the 2nd shot, he'd show Garrett he was weak (i.e. having 2nd thoughts; explaining how he could miss Buddy the first time). If it was Garrett, Ward would know that Garrett knew of his deception.

I now think Garrett was watching the situation on the scope. He wanted to see if Ward would actually do it. He was Ward's SO, so he could further develop him.

We'll see next week what Ward was thinking, i think. Like mentioned, they expressed/answered fans' concerns through Fitz.

And as for Triplett, Garrett still needed to maintain his guise of being a loyal & trusted SHIELD agent, one that Coulson still respected (and had no suspicion). So he trained Triplett as an unsuspecting SHIELD agent, and would have dumped him his first chance. Triplett seems to be a loyal agent who follows orders, so Garrett, pre-Hydra revelation, would just have Trip do his SHIELD thing.
 
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