Agents of SHIELD: Season 3 - Discussion (SPOILERS LIKELY)

[Corran Horn]

You know, it occurs to me that if the gender roles were reversed; if it had been Fitz stuck on that planet for six months with a female astronaut and they became intimate, I don't think anyone here would be raising anywhere near the level of objections.

I don't really object to it happening - I just thought it was unfortunate that they went the way of having a strong woman 'need a man' in that situation. I admit that's a pretty stark representation of what happened, though, and I'm not exactly holding up signs to protest what happened.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

We know that Fury was trying to keep the Monolith from falling into HYDRA's hands on the Iliad, but AFAIK we still don't know whether it was ever in HYDRA's hands prior to that. It's exactly the sort of thing that HYDRA would have been interested in. Was it something that SHIELD had wrested from HYDRA, after HYDRA had captured it from the older organization at the castle, and Fury didn't want HYDRA to get it back, was it something that Fury was trying to keep HYDRA from ever getting their hands on, or what?

I'd prefer to find out sooner, rather than later, how the Monolith got from the castle to the Iliad. Honestly, it's starting to get hard to follow the minutia of arcs like this that are stretched out across multiple seasons and earlier films. It's starting to get somewhat high-maintenance for escapist drama. Wouldn't want it to dethrone Star Trek from that position.

Thankfully, there's a wiki.

 

[Reverend]

You know, it occurs to me that if the gender roles were reversed; if it had been Fitz stuck on that planet for six months with a female astronaut and they became intimate, I don't think anyone here would be raising anywhere near the level of objections.

I don't really object to it happening - I just thought it was unfortunate that they went the way of having a strong woman 'need a man' in that situation. I admit that's a pretty stark representation of what happened, though, and I'm not exactly holding up signs to protest what happened.

There is such a thing as context. In this case, four month in hell is quite sufficient I think.

 

[Christopher]

I don't really object to it happening - I just thought it was unfortunate that they went the way of having a strong woman 'need a man' in that situation.

I'm reminded of what Supergirl said to James in "Stronger Together" -- that part of being your own person, of being a strong individual, is knowing when to ask for help. Isolation is not strength. Humans evolved as a social species. Our strength, as a breed, comes from our ability to cooperate and bond.

Besides, physical affection and sex are a very effective form of stress relief. Dealing with grief and distress by isolating yourself and letting them get worse isn't strong, it's stupid. Dealing with them by engaging in an activity that will reduce your stress and anxiety and enable you to function better is a very smart thing to do. It isn't a sign of weakness, it's a source of strength.

And Will had been alone and hopeless for far longer than Jemma had, so if anything, his need was probably greater than hers.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

There is such a thing as context. In this case, four month in hell is quite sufficient I think.

No kidding, I don't know why anyone is comparing what happened there to her normal MO.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Difference being, Fitz is the one who has made his feelings for Simmons public, but he's basically been friendzoned for the past year. It would be logical for folks to cheer for him to move on.

Whereas Simmons has never committed herself to a more-than-friends relationship with Fitz, so it would be logical for folks to understand how she might fall into an intimate relationship with somebody else under such extreme circumstances.

How is somebody supposed to behave when they've been stranded on an alien hellhole and struggling to survive for four months? Try it out and let me know. Ever watched Naked & Afraid? A lot of people can't endure extreme survival conditions for 21 days, and they're going into it knowing what they're in for.

I doubt it's Hydra. Hydra only dates back to WWII, and the machinery Fitz used to get Simmons back was centuries old. We saw in a flashback that some secret society was sending volunteers through the portal centuries ago. I'd assume the descendants of that society were behind Will's mission. After all, they used a variant of the same emblem.

HYDRA may have roots in this older secret society...that could be what they're setting up. Do we know for a fact that Johann Schmidt founded it wholecloth with no such influence? Maybe he belonged to this society before he formally founded HYDRA under the aegis of Hitler's regime.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

HYDRA may have roots in this older secret society...that could be what they're setting up.

That's an interesting angle, too. Maybe there was a schism in the older society, one part got away with the Monolith, and the other went on to form HYDRA.

 

[Christopher]

HYDRA may have roots in this older secret society...that could be what they're setting up. Do we know for a fact that Johann Schmidt founded it wholecloth with no such influence? Maybe he belonged to this society before he formally founded HYDRA under the aegis of Hitler's regime.

Oh, please, no. That would be so corny.

Why would it be remotely desirable for a single organization to be behind every bad thing in the series? That's classic small-universe syndrome. There's more than one source of evil and intrigue in the world.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Or it could be seen as world-building in a corner of the MCU that the show has some freedom to play around in. It stands to reason that Schmidt's interest in esoteric things like the Tesseract didn't start the day he signed up with the SS.

 

[Mr Light]

We also thought SHIELD was a brand new organization at the time of Iron Man, then we found out the SSR existed back in WWII...

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Or it could be seen as world-building in a corner of the MCU that the show has some freedom to play around in. It stands to reason that Schmidt's interest in esoteric things like the Tesseract didn't start the day he signed up with the SS.

Yup.

 

[Christopher]

We also thought SHIELD was a brand new organization at the time of Iron Man, then we found out the SSR existed back in WWII...

But that's no different from the OSS being the forerunner of the CIA. It's only a difference of a few years. At least they haven't made SHIELD some millennia-old secret society like the comics did, and I'm glad of that. It's just a very corny idea. Not everything has to be some ancient conspiracy stretching back to the dawn of time. Ancient, enduring conspiracies don't even make sense, because the bigger a secret is, the more inevitable its eventual exposure becomes.

Besides, I feel the Hydra story has run its course. It was exposed in The Winter Soldier, most of its remaining cells were brought down in AoS season 2, and Baron Strucker was defeated in Age of Ultron. Hydra is effectively defunct. Ward is trying to rebuild it from the ground up, but that's just to give him a reason to continue being part of the story. I'm not even convinced Gideon Malick is with Hydra. He may have some other agenda of his own. I mean, if he were already a senior man in Hydra, then wouldn't he, rather than Ward, have been the one leading the effort to rebuild? The fact that Ward is only coming to him months after he started building his own garage-band Hydra suggests that he's something else altogether, that he's got some other source of power and influence that Ward wants to draw on. Ward and his organization may end up being subsumed into something new, with the whole Hydra-startup angle being a misdirect.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Ancient, enduring conspiracies make about as much sense as super-heroes and spy organizations with unlimited funds and flying aircraft carriers.

 

[Reverend]

Pretty sure Hydra was an outgrowth of Hitler's Thule Society, which I doubt would have any direct links to anything other than a bunch of nerdy German sociopaths getting all over excited over Teutonic mythology.

So, what secret societies are there in the Marvel comic lore? The Hellfire club maybe? Or is that tied to the X-Men rights? It would fit with the whole "sending people to hell" thing and that Asgardian bloke's line about "half-baked satanic cult".

Could it be linked to the Attilan Inhumans? (I doubt it.)

Perhaps it has something to do with whatever group was protecting the Tesseract in Norway in the 40's? They certainly had a history of possessing *very* powerful alien artefacts.

Anything to do with the Steven Strange comics that could come into play?

The Hand? Spider Society? K'un-Lun? Ten Rings?

*Anything* but Hydra, basically.

 

[The Old Mixer]

They could get a good moment out of it. When they do their big, dramatic reveal that the ancient secret society is the forerunner of...HYDRA!...Coulson deadpans, "Who didn't see that coming?"

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Perhaps it has something to do with whatever group was protecting the Tesseract in Norway in the 40's? They certainly had a history of possessing *very* powerful alien artefacts.

I'd be really surprised if they were tied into it. That seemed like just one guy, and maybe an apprentice or helper of some kind.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I'm not even convinced Gideon Malick is with Hydra. He may have some other agenda of his own. I mean, if he were already a senior man in Hydra, then wouldn't he, rather than Ward, have been the one leading the effort to rebuild? The fact that Ward is only coming to him months after he started building his own garage-band Hydra suggests that he's something else altogether,

I still think there's another HYDRA group in the background that will probably pop out in Civil War and Ward just got the cast offs. I mean they did kind of show up in Antman despite supposedly being crushed, and Ward described HYDRA as fractured not dead.

I figure Malick is working for that group, the fact that he was supposed to be at a meeting that foreshadows the Superhuman Registration Act implies a connection to the film. And HYDRA probably would jump at the chance to influence the measures to control superhumans or outright take control of the whole thing.

 

[Christopher]

They could get a good moment out of it. When they do their big, dramatic reveal that the ancient secret society is the forerunner of...HYDRA!...Coulson deadpans, "Who didn't see that coming?"

If the characters themselves are calling attention to how predictable it is, then, no, it is not a good moment.

 

[Skywalker]

In the comics, Hydra's history goes all the way back to Ancient Egypt, though that precursor group apparently disappeared around the Renaissance, then Hydra was resurrected after World War II. They could have the people behind the Monolith be connected to that pre-Hydra group, though I would prefer they be something completely different.

 

[Christopher]

I'm remembering last season's thread, in which people were making predictions that Mack or Gonzales or Simmons would be part of Hydra. Just because the show has used Hydra before, that doesn't mean it's the only thing they can do.