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

Does anyone else think that Agent 33/Kara Palamas's name is very similar to that of Carolyn Palamas from TOS - "Who Mourns for Adonais?"?
 
^Yes, I gather that it was. The original comics character was a historian with an interest in Greek mythology, so the name was an in-joke.
 
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?
She's in the middle of a peaceful negotiation. The proper response to that is to say "no" and/or kick Gonzales out. It's not to kill Gonzales, and then tamper with the crime scene to make it look like justifiable homicide.

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.
A better comparison might be Doctor Who's novel line. They're equally beholden to what the parent show does, but there's actually been some pollination from the novels back into the show. (Ignoring the obvious straight-forward adaptations, my favorite example is Rose's first visit to an alien planet; the original script for "Boom Town" had a different name, Grajick Major, but RTD changed it to Justicia to reference the novel.)

And possibly the audios, if some of the rumors about the upcoming UNIT series pan out.
 
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?
She's in the middle of a peaceful negotiation. The proper response to that is to say "no" and/or kick Gonzales out. It's not to kill Gonzales, and then tamper with the crime scene to make it look like justifiable homicide.

Especially after her line about how the rest of the Inhumans wouldn't blindly follow her into a war. Implying she was going to do this from the start and was doing so to make sure no one questions her.

Its pretty much pre-redemption seeking Magento's typical assholish provoke the humans so they retaliate and you make them look like the bad guy to justify enslaving or exterminating them.

And I can't help but think its going to end the same why the comics and the films pointed out, with the Inhumans getting screwed in the ass big time.
 
For whoever it was that was wondering about whether those Agents Of Shield art prints would be available on variant covers, I see a bunch of them are scheduled for June.

examples:
STK674249.jpg
STK674358.jpg
STK674589.jpg

and here's one that wasn't part of the Shield art program, but you may like it anyway:
STK671772.jpg
 
Okay, it's weird for the "cover" posters of AoS episodes to be used as variant covers on books that have nothing to do with AoS. I guess the idea is to make them available for people to own, but you have to put up with having an unrelated title printed across the top.

I really love the way they've done "issue cover" art for each episode. That's a great idea. I wish they'd incorporate them into the actual episodes -- add 5-10 seconds to the main title card and show the episode's "cover" illustration there.
 
Okay, it's weird for the "cover" posters of AoS episodes to be used as variant covers on books that have nothing to do with AoS. I guess the idea is to make them available for people to own, but you have to put up with having an unrelated title printed across the top.

That's the way a lot of these variant cover progarms go these days. Each month they'll feature some art pieces with a similar theme, but will usually be completely unrelated to the contents of the comic that's inside. For example, March will be Rocket Racoon month, or June will be Spider-Gwen month, etc.

For example, here are some Gwen covers for June. I doubt Gwen will be appearing anywhere in these boks, just on the covers:


STK674582.jpg


STK674561.jpg


STK674566.jpg


But yeah, you're right, it is weird.
 
I don't have any knowledge on this subject, but any chance Deadpool started the trend? It seems like something he could get away with when others cannot.
 
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?

She's in the middle of a peaceful negotiation. The proper response to that is to say "no" and/or kick Gonzales out. It's not to kill Gonzales, and then tamper with the crime scene to make it look like justifiable homicide.

Oh, I agree. I should make this clear: I am not defending Jiaying's choice. I am explaining it, and explaining why I think she believes that she is not the aggressor.

I do think that SHIELD and Gonzalez mishandled the negotiations; they should not have demanded the right to put the Inhumans on the Index. It is easy to see how an Inhuman, particularly one who survived the 1930s, could look at them and only see Nazis demanding yellow stars.

By the same token, however, SHIELD is right to note that Inhumans have a capacity to harm Humans which far exceeds those of other Humans, and that as such a mechanism for control of potential Inhuman violence against Humans be established.

Jiaying was absolutely in the wrong to murder Gonzalez and frame him for an attack. But, I also think that she believes he was going to be the aggressor and that she viewed her murder of him as an act of pre-emptive defense.

All this is a separate question from whether Jiaying de-values the lives of normal Humans or otherwise thinks of Inhumans as superior to Humans a la Magneto. I am not yet willing to conclude that she necessarily de-values the lives of non-Inhumans or views Humans as inferior to Inhumans. A person may be acting in what they believe to be self-defense--even if that belief is not objectively accurate--without necessarily being bigoted.

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.

A better comparison might be Doctor Who's novel line. They're equally beholden to what the parent show does, but there's actually been some pollination from the novels back into the show. (Ignoring the obvious straight-forward adaptations, my favorite example is Rose's first visit to an alien planet; the original script for "Boom Town" had a different name, Grajick Major, but RTD changed it to Justicia to reference the novel.)

I don't think that's a good comparison, though; the influence has, so far as we know, pretty much always been one-way: the films influence (or, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier's case, dictate) the direction of the show, but the show does not influence or dictate the content of the films.
 
A better comparison might be Doctor Who's novel line. They're equally beholden to what the parent show does, but there's actually been some pollination from the novels back into the show. (Ignoring the obvious straight-forward adaptations, my favorite example is Rose's first visit to an alien planet; the original script for "Boom Town" had a different name, Grajick Major, but RTD changed it to Justicia to reference the novel.)
I don't think that's a good comparison, though; the influence has, so far as we know, pretty much always been one-way: the films influence (or, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier's case, dictate) the direction of the show, but the show does not influence or dictate the content of the films.

Well, I doubt that all of the groundwork being laid in the series for the Inhumans movie will just be ignored.
 
Yes and no. Just like in the comics, there's more than one Inhumans community in the world and I'm in agreement this group probably isn't going to appear in the movie. However, they are laying the groundwork in getting people used to things like Terrigenisis. I was expecting them to keep things far more vague than they have.
 
All this is a separate question from whether Jiaying de-values the lives of normal Humans or otherwise thinks of Inhumans as superior to Humans a la Magneto. I am not yet willing to conclude that she necessarily de-values the lives of non-Inhumans or views Humans as inferior to Inhumans. A person may be acting in what they believe to be self-defense--even if that belief is not objectively accurate--without necessarily being bigoted.

They said that her parents were monsters and slaughtered a whole village and a bunch of SHIELD agents to get baby Daisy or Mary Sue or Skye. That sounds a bit like a disregard for human life.

But you're right, it's not conclusive.
 
All this is a separate question from whether Jiaying de-values the lives of normal Humans or otherwise thinks of Inhumans as superior to Humans a la Magneto. I am not yet willing to conclude that she necessarily de-values the lives of non-Inhumans or views Humans as inferior to Inhumans. A person may be acting in what they believe to be self-defense--even if that belief is not objectively accurate--without necessarily being bigoted.

They said that her parents were monsters and slaughtered a whole village and a bunch of SHIELD agents to get baby Daisy or Mary Sue or Skye. That sounds a bit like a disregard for human life.

But you're right, it's not conclusive.

Though not having a problem with dumping Cal near non-Inhumans and pretty much not being to concerned with what he might do and who might get hurt when he figures out he's been ditched does make you wonder.

And while Jiaying might not de-value the lives of normal humans, she's still using the Magneto playbook of assume war is the only option, provoke people to make war happen, believe self to be totally right and as such make sure there is nobody who disagrees with war plans.

Hopefully for this Inhuman group it doesn't go to the usually inevitable conclusion of the Magneto playbook as pointed out by Days of Future Past which is severely underestimate humans, force they to do something stupid in desperation or anger, and get nearly exterminated.
 
All this is a separate question from whether Jiaying de-values the lives of normal Humans or otherwise thinks of Inhumans as superior to Humans a la Magneto. I am not yet willing to conclude that she necessarily de-values the lives of non-Inhumans or views Humans as inferior to Inhumans. A person may be acting in what they believe to be self-defense--even if that belief is not objectively accurate--without necessarily being bigoted.

They said that her parents were monsters and slaughtered a whole village and a bunch of SHIELD agents to get baby Daisy or Mary Sue or Skye. That sounds a bit like a disregard for human life.

But you're right, it's not conclusive.

Though not having a problem with dumping Cal near non-Inhumans and pretty much not being to concerned with what he might do and who might get hurt when he figures out he's been ditched does make you wonder.

And while Jiaying might not de-value the lives of normal humans, she's still using the Magneto playbook of assume war is the only option, provoke people to make war happen, believe self to be totally right and as such make sure there is nobody who disagrees with war plans.

Hopefully for this Inhuman group it doesn't go to the usually inevitable conclusion of the Magneto playbook as pointed out by Days of Future Past which is severely underestimate humans, force they to do something stupid in desperation or anger, and get nearly exterminated.

Yeah, not being concerned with what Cal does provided that he does it away from her people was for me a big red flag.

Though he make a much more concerted effort at self control when she's around, obviously Jiaying can't control his temper indefinitely and his presence is a political inconvenience. So exiling him makes sense, but that it never occurs to her to send him somewhere where he can't do anyone any harm (like say an uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean.) Indeed, Jiaying more or less tells Skye that she doesn't care what happens to the people outside Afterlife.

It's worth remembering that we don't actually know how old Jiaying is. She could be centuries or even millennia old. To someone like that, normal humans must seem like mayflies their time is so brief and there is an ever increasing supply of them. To such a one, the Inhumans must seem like diamonds amidst the clods of dirt and pebbles. Precious things to be sought out and brought out of the muck. Indeed, for an immortal, it must be difficult *not* to undervalue human life.

Then there's her attitude to what happened in Bahrain. He take away from that seemed to be that the real tragedy was that SHIELD killed two of her people, not that those two were responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocents. That however misguided the mother of that child was and whatever darkness she saw in the child herself, Jiaying saw them as worth more than the people they killed. Her regret is that they didn't get them back. It didn't seem to occur to her that it was her responsibility to deal with those two before anyone was hurt.

The only saving grace I can see is that she did (and seemingly still does) genuinely care for Cal, who when they first met was a "normal human". Still, even that doesn't preclude her being uncaring about the masses. One can after all love a person but not fully respect what they are or where they came from. People can be contradictory like that.
 
So in the interview today about ABC renewals and such, the network president mentioned that taking Bobbi and Hunter off of AOS would be detrimental to the show, and that's a big part of the reason their spin-off isn't going forward right now. Though it did sound like such a show could still happen in the future.

That will be something to keep an eye on in season 3. Will they introduce a few new characters that connect with the rest of the cast and audience well enough that the show could get by without Bobbi and Hunter? I mean obviously they're going to introduce some new characters next season, it's just a question of whether or not any of them will stick.
 
Okay, about 2 hours away from the finale. Anyone with some last minute predictions? I'll say:

These are just my guesses, but I'll say that Cal, Kara, and Mack will die. I'd be shocked it all three of them make it through the finale. Kara is going to be betrayed by Ward, Cal is going to be put down by Skye's friends, and Mack is going to be done in by some alien stuff he doesn't trust.

I think Ward will live and continue to be a pest/helper in season 3.

I think Fitz and Simmons will both live, but could you imagine the guilt that one would feel if the other died? But it wouldn't seem right for Cal to kill one of them, it could only be Ward, and he seems to be elsewhere, so they should be safe.

Coulson, May, and Skye seem to be untouchable, so it's almost not even worth mentioning that those three will live.

Not sure about Gordon, Lincoln, and Raina. Gordon has some pretty cool powers, so for that reason alone I hope he lives. Lincoln seems like a decent guy, so he may stick around too.

Raina is a great character, but they may finish her off as she tries to clean up Jiaying's mess. A final heroic turn for her character. And speaking of Jiaying, I'm not sure about her either. Based on her powers alone, she'll probably live, though Gonzales may get some posthumous revenge with whatever that thing is on his ship. And that may be enough to finish her permanently. That said, somebody has to lead this group of Inhumans going forward, so presumably either Jiaying or Raina will be around to do that.

And of course Mockingbird and Hunter should be perfectly safe, thanks to all the talk about a spinoff show for them. But wouldn't it be great if all that talk was a big fake-out so we didn't see their death coming? What a twist! (Not that I want them to die, of course.)

And if Cal, who many of us have grown to love this season, really does die, I'd be thrilled if the final line of the season is "No, my name is Daisy."
 
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