Agents of SHIELD - Season 2 Discussion Threads. (Spoilers Likely)

[Christopher]

Gonzales lost my sympathy the moment he referred to Skye as a "thing." But in every other respect, he's an admirable person. It's frustrating. He'd be a great guy if he weren't a bigot about superhumans. Hopefully something will happen to teach him the error of his ways on that point.

Still... Gonzales calls the opposition things and freaks. Coulson calls the opposition good people whose ideas deserve careful consideration. That's what makes Coulson the one who deserves to be in charge.

Then again, Gonzales isn't totally in charge, is he? He has to defer to the will of the council, and not everyone on the council is a bigot. Indeed, assuming Calderon's out of the picture indefinitely, that makes Gonzales the only one left with an irrational fear of superhumans. Mack might tend to vote with Gonzales on that point, but I think he's probably on the fence about it. Weaver is unknown, but is probably more open to scientific curiosity. Bobbi is sympathetic to Skye and probably would be to others like her. And if May joins the council, that would make her a strong advocate in Skye's favor as well as Coulson's and others'.

I think we're heading toward a situation where Coulson and his people join the council. Gonzales has the right idea about that, even if he's wrong about other attitudes.

He prefers "Mike" or "Agent Peterson". I don't fault him his choices on that point.

But he was billed in the end credits as "And J. August Richards as Deathlok."

I too was completely floored to see Skye's Mom alive and well. I thought they said she was dissected?!

She did have regenerative abilities, so I was hoping she'd survived that. Still, it was a really thrilling moment when she showed up in the present, instead of the flashback I'd been expecting when I saw her name in the credits.

This episode convinced me that this group of Inhumans are the low rent version. They must have nothing to do with Black Bolt, so that it's easier to introduce him in the movie. And that isn't The Great Refuge.

Except they did mention taking orders from "the Elders." If the Elders aren't Mr. Boltagon and his family, they might at least be a step closer to that inner circle than the Shangri-Lafterlife crowd.

 

[kirk55555]

This was a pretty good episode. It looks like Simmons has redeemed herself, as long as she doesn't start freaking out the next time she meets a super powered person. Gonzales keeps becoming more and more unlikeable. He's like how Simmons was right after Skye's change, but about 1000x worse. I'm already hating him for being against Coulson in the first place, but being a giant bigot is making his scenes very uncomfortable to sit through. Even if his "council" idea stays around, I don't think he will. That said, I do want to see him interact with Sif while he's leader of the fake SHIELD. He'll start ranting about how she's an evil alien, and she'd throw him through a wall

The inhuman stuff was interesting, although they definitely seem to have ulterior motives when it comes to Skye, and I'm not talking about the secret mom/daughter bonding time. I think Skye knows this, though, and I have the feeling she's going to have to fight her way out when she wants to leave. The Coulson/Hunter stuff was good, and it was great to see Deathlok again. Overall this was probably the best episode since Skye's change, and it will be interesting to see what happens next.

 

[QCzar]

They're really going all in on the inhuman stuff, aren't they? The Black Bolt/Royal Family stuff of the eponymous film is going to have to be some next level shit given all this foreshadowing.

I got a kick out of how Skye seemed all SHIELD agenty in spite of everything. Trust no one Agent Skye. Trust no one.

Coulson was right about the look on Hunter's face. Well done.

Despite my fatigue with all the mole/spy vs spy shenanigans, AoS probably has the most interesting take on it as I've seen in a long while. It's not overly ponderous or unnecessarily dark. More importantly, it's a part of the premise DNA and truly establishes it as something distinct from the wider Marvel pool into which it occasionally dips its toe.

It also seems to be hurdling toward a resolution nice and fast.

 

[Reverend]

You can terigenicize without a diviner?

Thank god.

Although is the culture of supply and demand real?

I'm assuming so few are evolved because they say that it's hard to source terrigen on Earth, more so than a political decision was made to curb their inhumanization, which is also altogether possible.

Remember how well the trill Symbiosis Commission lied?

Their long term agenda and criteria for who get's to transform is a little unclear at the moment. One assumes they're filtering out unstable personalities, but there may be a degree of eugenics involved.

What I found very telling was Lincoln's non-reaction to Skye mentioning she'd spoken with a Kree in the flesh. I suspect someone stayed behind to continue the project and has been quietly and slowly cultivating more stable Inhumans over the course of millennia. Presumably without the knowledge of the Kree Empire's leadership. Also note the use of the phrase "a Kree temple", not "the Kree temple".

If that's the case then casting Kyle MacLachlan was hilariously ironic.

As for the diviners: I just assume they figured out how to harvest the crystals and have built up a stockpile over the years.

It looks like Skye's mom bears the scars of having been stitched back together...probably Cal's work, without which she might have remained "dead".

I doubt it. If he knew she was still alive prior to being brought to Afterlife I'm sure he would have said so...and been somewhat less bent on avenger her death. Clearly he believed she was dead.

As we discussed a few weeks back, most comic book characters that are long lived/slow ageing have some form of healing factor so it's entirely consistent to have her regenerate. Clearly though given the extent of her injuries it took a while before she was on her feet again.

 

[Ethros]

Good episode. In that part when Gonzales gave May the gun, did anyone else think of this BSG scene?
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyp-xHmhxdA[/yt]

 

[Marsden]

I really thought they were going the twin sister route until I saw the scars on her. I'm happy she's alive, i wonder what Daisy/Mary Sue/Skye will say when she finds out that's her mom?




I hope it's not as simple as Gonzalez! 's wife was killed by a Super, but that seems to be where that's headed.

I'm looking forward to The Cavalry showing up next week.

 

[shivkala]

I just caught up on S.H.I.E.L.D. and I have to admit it's getting good again, but it's basically pulling the same stuff it did last year around this time to do so. Like last year we have Coulson and his team on the run from "S.H.I.E.L.D.", though this year the twist is that this group isn't an evil organization, rather a group of people who have different ideas about how to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D.

Though, to be fair, this year's take on things is interesting, as Gonzales have some good points. First with Fury and now with Coulson, it did seem that loyalty in S.H.I.E.L.D. was to a person, not to the organization. This new democratic style is interesting and has possibilities. Still, it doesn't bode well that they went for infiltration and then a literal hostile takeover, instead of other, more friendly means.

Since it's return last month, it started out slow and that episode with Skye's father's team was dreadful, but the show it now showing potential again.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I've been waiting for Deathlok to return since season 2 started, so I was pleasantly surprised by his return. Hopefully he'll stick around for awhile.

I was also surprised by the sudden appearance by Jiaying, Skye's mother, and how Cal didn't seemed phased by her being alive. Someone in this thread suggested that he might have helped her get patched up, but that doesn't seem to correlate with the specificity of his rage against Whitehall. Maybe someone can refresh my memory: Did he say to Whitehall or Coulson (or anyone else) that he wanted revenge against Whitehall "for killing his wife" or more vaguely "for what he did to her?"

 

[Masiral]

I've been waiting for Deathlok to return since season 2 started, so I was pleasantly surprised by his return. Hopefully he'll stick around for awhile.

I was also surprised by the sudden appearance by Jiaying, Skye's mother, and how Cal didn't seemed phased by her being alive. Someone in this thread suggested that he might have helped her get patched up, but that doesn't seem to correlate with the specificity of his rage against Whitehall. Maybe someone can refresh my memory: Did he say to Whitehall or Coulson (or anyone else) that he wanted revenge against Whitehall "for killing his wife" or more vaguely "for what he did to her?"

Cal did indeed put her back together, according to Jeffrey Bell.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/agents-shield-chloe-bennet-mother-787182

 

[Greg Cox]

She only knew that an alien tech killed one person and transformed another;

And that some sort of alien tech in the buried Kree temple had infected Mack and (temporarily) turned him into an unstoppable killing machine . . . .

Small wonder she regarded all that buried Kree tech as possibly infectious!

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I too was completely floored to see Skye's Mom alive and well. I thought they said she was dissected?!

I think she was technically vivisected.

This episode convinced me that this group of Inhumans are the low rent version. They must have nothing to do with Black Bolt, so that it's easier to introduce him in the movie. And that isn't The Great Refuge.

In the comics, there was more than one Inhuman community, including one that had Thanos's half-Inhuman son. In some of those, they only had a single shard of crystal, so Terrigenisis only happened for the chosen few every so many years. This fits in perfectly with that and, yeah, wouldn't involve Black Bolt.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Gonzales lost my sympathy the moment he referred to Skye as a "thing." But in every other respect, he's an admirable person. It's frustrating. He'd be a great guy if he weren't a bigot about superhumans. Hopefully something will happen to teach him the error of his ways on that point.

Um, what about the whole deciding the best way to deal with Team Coulson was to launch an unprovoked attack against their base and capture them instead of having a chat about their concerns and then blowing it off when the chat option was brought up.

No to mention blowing thing Coulson dis out of proportion, ignoring mitigating factors (aka HYDRA), and refusing to see anything Team Coulson does outside of the worst possible light.

And don't get me started on the pretentiousness of calling the their group the "Real SHIELD", or the kind of arrogant position that everyone on Team Coulson should just magically forgive the whole armed assault and will just turn on their boss becuase Team Gonzales is nice to them afterwards, not to mention the whole being more concerned with Fury's stockpiling or Coulson than the terrorist organization that still running around.

Not to mention the hypocrisy of calling for a united SHIELD after the current schism being a result of them deciding to treat Team Coulson like an enemy to be vanquished and captured than fellow SHIELD agents.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I think she was technically vivisected.

Stripped for parts in a chop shop?

 

[The Old Mixer]

I still want to see somebody ask Gonzales who his "Real SHIELD" is supposed to be transparent to. Themselves?

Gonzales lost my sympathy the moment he referred to Skye as a "thing."

Glad to hear it. That was a definite red flag-raiser.

Mack might tend to vote with Gonzales on that point, but I think he's probably on the fence about it.

I don't know, he seems pretty outspoken in his convictions on the point lately.

I think we're heading toward a situation where Coulson and his people join the council. Gonzales has the right idea about that, even if he's wrong about other attitudes.

I still think they need an executive who makes the calls in running the organization. He can be accountable to the council as Fury was to his. But you can't run an organization like this calling for a committee vote on every decision.

The inhuman stuff was interesting, although they definitely seem to have ulterior motives when it comes to Skye, and I'm not talking about the secret mom/daughter bonding time. I think Skye knows this, though, and I have the feeling she's going to have to fight her way out when she wants to leave.

I'm definitely getting a cultish vibe off of them...like they're expecting to indoctrinate her into becoming one of them whether she wants to be or not.

I doubt it. If he knew she was still alive prior to being brought to Afterlife I'm sure he would have said so...and been somewhat less bent on avenger her death. Clearly he believed she was dead.

On the contrary, I got the strong impression that he knew she was alive. He certainly didn't act like he was seeing her for the first time after thinking she was dead for 30 years. And I think there was even dialogue to suggest that they'd previously discussed Skye.

As we discussed a few weeks back, most comic book characters that are long lived/slow ageing have some form of healing factor so it's entirely consistent to have her regenerate. Clearly though given the extent of her injuries it took a while before she was on her feet again.

But regeneration in her case might have involved needing to put her pieces back together, since Whitehall took her apart. And the scars definitely speak of some surgery...if she could heal from being cut into pieces completely on her own, presumably that wouldn't leave such specific scars suggesting that she'd been stitched back together.

...
S.H.I.E.L.D.
...
"S.H.I.E.L.D."
...
S.H.I.E.L.D.
...
S.H.I.E.L.D.
...

You might enjoy the show a little better if you stop typing all those periods.

Cal didn't seemed phased by her being alive.

See? This!

Someone in this thread suggested that he might have helped her get patched up, but that doesn't seem to correlate with the specificity of his rage against Whitehall. Maybe someone can refresh my memory: Did he say to Whitehall or Coulson (or anyone else) that he wanted revenge against Whitehall "for killing his wife" or more vaguely "for what he did to her?"

I think he'd have plenty of cause to be angry at Whitehall for what he did to her. It couldn't have been a pleasant experience finding his wife cut to pieces and left in a ditch, and then having to put her back together.

 

[kitik]

How long has it been since we've seen Patton Oswalt? Maybe about 10 episodes ago?

 

[Turtletrekker]

^We last saw him in the mid-season finale.

 

[shivkala]

You might enjoy the show a little better if you stop typing all those periods.

T.H.A.N.K.S. for the S.U.G.G.E.S.T.I.O.N., but I'm a stickler and Marvel/ABC uses the periods in the title, officially, so I will, too.

Though, I do propose we use S.H.I.E.L.D. to refer to one of the two groups and SHIELD to refer to the others. In addition to clarifying which one we're talking about (siding with Coulson, et. al. in this one, I refuse to call the other team the "Real" S.H.I.E.L.D. And Gosalves' group is a misnomer, too, since it's run by a council), it would force you guys to use the periods.

 

[cylkoth]

R-SHIELD?

C--SHIELD!

Settled.

 

[Christopher]

Well, the one that Captain America endorses should be called "Mighty SHIELD."

And the other one would be kind of on the defensive after that, so maybe they'd be "Deflector SHIELD."

 

[Turtletrekker]

When Fitz favorite sandwich was first described in "The Hub", it immediately made me want to drop everything and go to a sandwich shop. However, this time, the description ("Prosciutto and mozzerella") had no effect on me at all. Something was missing.

So I went back to "The Hub" and checked how it was described the first time. Oh. Prosciutto and buffalo mozzerella. OK, now I'm hungry...