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"The Yoko Factor" was an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the baddie used his words to make the Scoobies believe that all their life long friendships were unsustainable, by playing on their insecurities and pride until they thought they were outnumbered, oppressed, and everyone was out to get them.
I didn't get the impression (before this episode) that Jiaying wasn't bothered that Cal was a murderer. She spent most of the second half of this season locking him up, after all.
This episode, though, she seemed far warmer to him than she had. So we'll see.
I think it might be because as far as she's concerned (most) humans don't count. They're inferior and they're a natural enemy and always will be. Right now she's basically Magneto. Even has the lovely first hand experience with Nazis (no, we're not starting that discussion again!)
I'm not quite prepared to assume that Human lives don't matter as much to Jiaying as Inhuman lives. Remember, she becomes hostile to Gonzalez when he says that SHIELD wants to put the Inhumans on the Index -- which is when Jiaying begins talking about having lived long enough to see people persecuted and oppressed because of their differences many times. To her, hearing Gonzalez talk about putting the Inhumans on the Index is the equivalent of hearing that they're being asked to wear yellow stars. (I feel confident I can make this comparison since you already brought up the Nazis. )
And, yeah, I think it's safe to say that Jiaying planned this in advance -- but she did so because she probably saw SHIELD's intention to put the Inhumans on the Index coming. It is notable that she waited for Gonzalez to say so, however; maybe she would have been willing to halt the plan and work in good faith if SHIELD had not make the demand to Index her people?
Either way, in her mind, she is acting to protect her people from persecution and potential genocide. That is not the same thing as thinking that anyone who isn't one of her people is inferior or expendable; it is, in her mind, national self-defense. It's important to remember that. She doesn't think she's Magneto; she thinks she's Mordechai Anielewicz.
Yep! That was indeed Button Bob. Seems that the credits for Avengers: Age of Ultron list his name as being Specialist Cameron Klein, a supporting character from the Captain America comics -- though that may be seen as contradicting the Agents of SHIELD episode "The Writing on the Wall," in which Cameron Klein was the real name of one of the agents who went through Project TAHITI.
Side-note: Button Bob clearly had the best line in CA:TWS: "Captain's orders."
The Kree first appeared in Fantastic Four #65, the Inhumans (officially) in Fantastic Four #45, and Black Panther in Fantastic Four #52. Just because they first appeared in the Fantastic Four doesn't mean the Skrull are Fox property. Many reports I've heard strongly suggest that the Skrulls are shared, but the Super Skrull belongs only to Fox.
Just to add to your list: Wilson Fisk first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #50 in 1967, and didn't appear in the Daredevil title until issue 170 during Frank Miller's run in the early 1980; but that didn't stop Marvel Studios from having the rights to use him in the Daredevil TV series this year.
Entertainment Weekly has the Art of Evolution poster for the season finale (or at least Part 1 of the season finale).
Tiny chance it's spoilerish, so I'll hide it, but it's a brilliant piece of comicbook art, designed to look like a classic cover, probably my favorite of all the Shield posters so far. So I suggest you give it a look.
Speaking of which -- I was very bothered by Simmons's continued bloodthirsty attitude towards Ward. But it occurs to me... she promised to kill him if ever she saw him again. Why?
^Well, I wouldn't say "ignored." That implies contradiction, and the film and the show actually meshed pretty well. Also, the film was written and shot first, so it couldn't ignore something that didn't exist yet. Rather, it did its own thing, and the show was then written to tie into it.
In a lot of ways, the mandate for Agents of SHIELD resembles the mandate for media tie-in novels such as the Star Trek novel line. Though Agents of SHIELD is considered equally canonical with the films, the simple fact is that the films have the "right of way" in setting the story agenda: They're going to do what they're going to do, and the producers of Agents of SHIELD have to write around them and stay consistent with them, while the filmmakers don't really have to keep themselves consistent with Agents. And if the films are going to do something that affects Agents of SHIELD's storyline, they get to do it first and Agents must follow up on it.
Agents's brief, in other words, is to stay consistent with the films and to expand the universe so we see the things the films don't have time for--similar to media tie-in novels.
I still think it's an inconsistency that the movie revealed
the Avengers have been going on Hydra raids for weeks or months when that was never ever mentioned in the show despite them ALSO going on Hydra raids all season
There's no inconsistency. I mean, hell, if you had watched CNN this week, you would get only the faintest notion that the United States is still at war in Afghanistan and is now at war with ISIL in the Middle East. The world is big; no reason to assume we get to hear or see everything that's going on.
There's another factor to consider: Deniability. The Avengers are public heroes. SHIELD is publicly discredited and considered a rogue, even terrorist organization. So the Avengers couldn't be seen cooperating openly with a remnant of SHIELD. Thus, it made sense that Coulson avoided interaction with the Avengers, except through secret contact with Maria Hill.
Also, it is not clear yet that the Avengers know Coulson was revived.
Christopher said:
It's both the strength and the handicap of this show that it's so closely tied to elements from the movies. It's a strength when it gets us guest appearances from folks like Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders and Jaimie Alexander, but a weakness when it compels the show to contort its storylines to accommodate the movies' events. The Netflix shows like Daredevil have it better in the latter regard, since their characters are unconnected to the movie characters and can thus follow their own independent story arcs. Although I wish Daredevil had done a bit better at integrating itself in at least one respect, since there were some shots of the Manhattan skyline where you could clearly see the MetLife Building instead of Avengers Tower.
Doesn't bother me, honestly. On some level, I almost don't want Daredevil to be set in the MCU. The MCU's fare is mostly relatively light/moderately dark middlebrow stuff; but Daredevil is Marvel Studios doing prestige television fare, dark and higher-brow. Its creative conceits are so fundamentally different from the rest of the MCU that I'd almost rather it be in its own continuity away from everything else.
(Of course, Agents of SHIELD's more espionage-driven ethos is different enough in tone from the films that I often feel towards it as though it were set in a different universe, even if it is not. But I digress.)
(I also think it would be great if some future season of Daredevil could bring in Black Widow in a recurring role, given the connection between the characters in the comics.)
Scarlett Johansson is an A-list film star. Getting her to appear as a recurring guest star on a TV show is not impossible, but it seems highly improbable. Though, to be fair, a lot of A-listers have been doing prestige TV the last few years -- House of Cards, True Detective, etc. -- so it's not impossible. But I still think it unlikely.
As for the current set up, its interesting. I'd argue that emulating the Fury/World Council dynamic is a bit iffy, since the World Council tried to murder every person in New York with a nuke (I wonder what the US Government had to say about that, since they had to have learned about it eventually),
1. The general principle that an executive officer should have his power checked by a legislative council is not negated by the actions of the World Security Council in The Avengers. There is, after all, a reason that Presidents must work with Congresses, and CEO must work with Boards of Directors: Unaccountable power is not a positive force.
2. It is entirely possible that the U.S. government knew about and approved of the World Security Council's order to destroy Manhattan in The Avengers. Granted, that would be a controversial thing -- but the logic was understandable, if misguided. Though I question whether a U.S. President who sanctioned a SHIELD attempt to destroy Manhattan would survive re-election, even if it was to save the planet from an alien invasion.
As for Mockingbird, I obviously still dislike her. She's still a traitor, and her "side", even if they ended up not being totally horrible, was still in the wrong compared to Coulson, and were still less legitimate than his SHIELD.
Nope. Neither faux-SHIELD faction had any legal legitimacy whatsoever. Had they any such legitimacy, they would have surrendered themselves to the legitimate democratic governments of the states in which they were operating upon SHIELD's dissolution. They're both cabals of vigilantes who have taken it upon themselves to exercise the powers of the state without any accountability to the peoples they allege themselves to serve.
I'm also wondering if, based on what Agent 33 was saying last episode, Mockingbird handed 33 over to Hydra when 33 was still a sane SHIELD agent, probably so Mockingbird could keep/establish her cover in Hydra.
An interesting possibility--though I doubt Coulson would have allowed her to turn Kara in but protect Jemma.
If that ends up being how 33 was captured and brainwashed, and that seems likely based on how Agent 33 has been reacting to Mockingbird, that's just another reason to hate her.
I think Kara's line implied that she felt that Bobbi's attempts to bond with her in "The Dirty Half-Dozen" were false, an attempt to earn her trust in order to evaluate her. Nothing in Kara's line implied that Bobbi had turned Kara in to be brainwashed. This seems to be a reaction to being locked up after being released from the infirmary.
Also, Jemma's brain scans of Kara seem not to have picked up on the fact that she's completely unhinged if she thinks Bobbi deserves to die. Poor woman must have suffered greater neurological damage than realized. That, or the Hydra programming is still in place (with Ward replacing Reinhardt as the subject of loyalty), and Jemma didn't pick up on it.
.... or Jemma did pick up on it, but let it pass, because Jemma was also brainwashed.
I recognize that she and the other members of her organization were doing the right thing with the information that they had. But despite that, I feel that if I were in Coulson's place I would have a much harder time forgiving the deception and welcoming them to the fold than he seemed to.
One of the signs that Phil Coulson can be trusted as a leader is that he is willing to set aside enough of his ego to see things from others' POVs, to recognize when he has made mistakes, and to make himself accountable to someone else. He does not let his ego get in the way of being willing to create trust and goodwill.
If that ends up being how 33 was captured and brainwashed, and that seems likely based on how Agent 33 has been reacting to Mockingbird, that's just another reason to hate her.
I think Kara's line implied that she felt that Bobbi's attempts to bond with her in "The Dirty Half-Dozen" were false, an attempt to earn her trust in order to evaluate her. Nothing in Kara's line implied that Bobbi had turned Kara in to be brainwashed. This seems to be a reaction to being locked up after being released from the infirmary.
Also, Jemma's brain scans of Kara seem not to have picked up on the fact that she's completely unhinged if she thinks Bobbi deserves to die. Poor woman must have suffered greater neurological damage than realized. That, or the Hydra programming is still in place (with Ward replacing Reinhardt as the subject of loyalty), and Jemma didn't pick up on it.
.... or Jemma did pick up on it, but let it pass, because Jemma was also brainwashed.
Didn't she say something like 'You were just trying to see if I remembered.' And then, 'I do remember!'? It certainly sounded to me like she was referring to something that Bobbi had done to her (or at least something that someone had done to her, and she just thought or assumed it was Bobbi).
I don't even feel like Grant really wants to kill Bobbi. Only Grant really knows what Grant is doing. Kara seems to just be a pawn for him, not really sure how much he actually cares about or loves her like she does him.
Simmons's brain scan of Kara only revealed that she was no longer under the control of HYDRA brainwashing. That just means that Kara's choices are her own, not that those choices must be benevolent. She's working with Ward because she sincerely wants to, not because she's under mind control.
The telling thing is the easy to miss exchange between Simmons & Kara. Kara rather pointedly asked Jemma if she was with Bobbie when she infiltrated Hydra, which Simmons of course offhandedly denied. The implication here is that Kara feels Bobbie is somehow responsible for her capture and she was probing to see if Simmons also had a hand in that.
