Agents of Shield - Season 4

[RJDiogenes]

Okay, that was an excellent finale, even if I didn't get what I wanted.

Establishing Aida as a creation of the Darkhold pretty much ruled out bringing any non-physical being out of the Framework-- which was probably a can of worms they didn't want to open-- and eliminating the Framework put the final nail in the coffin. Kind of a shame. It would have been nice to have Mace and Radcliffe back, a good version of Ward, and Hope's daughter added to the mix.

Mack losing his daughter was certainly the most heartbreaking thing we've ever seen on this show-- and the fact that she knew it was coming just made it worse. And YoYo was going to stay with him. I guess she's not just fooling around. And, Mack being Mack, he took it all in stride, with no anger or ill will toward anyone, even though he's now lost his daughter twice.

Radcliffe also turned out to be quite a stoic. That was a sad finale for a fascinating character. Without Agnes, what good is immortality? Ultimately, Radcliffe was not a mad scientist, but a tragic romantic.

And while poor Fitz is still struggling with his memories of the Framework, Daisy seems to have set him straight, or on the path to straight, with her speech, bringing her own character arc this year full circle.

And then there were the shockers: Ghost Coulson! Whoa. He made such short work of Aida that it was almost anticlimactic. But it was clear that she had to go. Perhaps she was ultimately corrupted by the Darkhold, but it was kind of sad that her quest for humanity had to end in destruction. It probably all could have been avoided if she had just said, "Hey, guys, I'm sentient," right at the beginning.

And speaking of Ghost Coulson, what kind of deal did he make with the Ghost Rider demon? That bit kind of reminded me of the end of Sleepy Hollow a bit.

Shocker number two: A shot to the head for Talbot. He's alive, but what will be left of him after taking a bullet in the brain? He may have to go to Tahiti.

"Anybody else hungry?" That, I suppose, would have made a nice ending if the show hadn't been renewed. Still SHIELD, still together, still being unfairly accused of something, still fighting the good fight.

But they're not cancelled, and we got teased by a teaser: SHIELD in Spaaaace. I can't wait.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Sentient World? Like Ego or Mogo?

The Sentient doesn't make that much sense, but, if it helps, it modifies "world observation," not just "world." The organization is Sentient, I guess?

 

[Reverend]

I took it to mean they're concerned with sentient worlds, as in worlds from which sentient (read: technologically advanced) beings come from (as opposed to sterile rocks and primordial life sustaining planets.) It still doesn't make much sense, no matter how you cut it.

They should just go with "strategic". It's only slightly less meaningless, but at least it'd sound more like a direct parallel of S.H.I.E.L.D.. On a similar note I'd also switch "department" with "division" so it sounds like they're on-par rather than one being a subset of the other.
So the Strategic World Observation and Response Division?

If anyone is concerned with faithfulness, remember that the meaning behind "S.H.I.E.L.D." has changed several times. The "homeland" part in particular was very much a post 9/11 addition for obvious reasons. Going way back it was "Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division" then later "Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate" with the "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division" actually originating with the movies.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

S for "Special" sounds good to me.

 

[Christopher]

I took it to mean they're concerned with sentient worlds, as in worlds from which sentient (read: technologically advanced) beings come from (as opposed to sterile rocks and primordial life sustaining planets.)

Yup, that's how I read it. It's to specify that its focus is on alien worlds with sentient life, rather than just the scientific observation of exoplanets.

If anyone is concerned with faithfulness, remember that the meaning behind "S.H.I.E.L.D." has changed several times. The "homeland" part in particular was very much a post 9/11 addition for obvious reasons. Going way back it was "Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division" then later "Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate" with the "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division" actually originating with the movies.

Which is why it annoys me that the MCU retconned that as SHIELD's original acronym going back to the '40s. Not only because it's anachronistic, but because Coulson said to Pepper in Iron Man that they were still working on the name, suggesting that the version he gave was a recent one.

 

[Forbin]

A couple of notable headshots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Giffords
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai

 

[Silvercrest]

Ever since SHIELD was established as being around for a few decades, I've chosen to hear Coulson's remarks in IM as facetious. "We're working on it" being a hint that there's a really obvious name already in play, and "Just call us SHIELD" equating to "If you really need me to spell it out, dumbass."

And ever since I heard what SHIELD (any of them) stood for in the comics, my question has always been: Division of what?

 

[Tuskin38]

Which is why it annoys me that the MCU retconned that as SHIELD's original acronym going back to the '40s

Wasn't it still the Strategic Scientific Reserve in Agent Carter? Plus the base they've been in for most of the last 2 seasons?

Or did they retcon it somewhere else?

 

[Star Wolf]

Wasn't it still the Strategic Scientific Reserve in Agent Carter? Plus the base they've been in for most of the last 2 seasons?

Or did they retcon it somewhere else?

If I remember it right they were teasing the actual US reorganization from War Department to the Department Of Defense when Agent Carter was cancelled. Just as the OSS would become the CIA I just assumed the SSR would become SHIELD if we got a third season

 

[Reverend]

Yup, that's how I read it. It's to specify that its focus is on alien worlds with sentient life, rather than just the scientific observation of exoplanets.

I wouldn't even go so far as to assume that "worlds" specifically refers to planets but *anywhere* outside of earth, in our universe/dimension or otherwise.

Which is why it annoys me that the MCU retconned that as SHIELD's original acronym going back to the '40s. Not only because it's anachronistic, but because Coulson said to Pepper in Iron Man that they were still working on the name, suggesting that the version he gave was a recent one.

First off, I'm not certain it was ever established that was the meaning of the acronym from the get-go.
Even if it was, it's not as if the word didn't exist until the turn of the century, it's just that Americans just so happened to start using it a lot. Over here it wasn't all that rare prior to 9/11. Indeed I'm pretty sure the word (the whole word, not just the constituent words) predates Modern English.
Indeed the similar "home front" was a very common term in British WWII era propaganda, so it's not much of a leap given the period.

Ever since SHIELD was established as being around for a few decades, I've chosen to hear Coulson's remarks in IM as facetious. "We're working on it" being a hint that there's a really obvious name already in play, and "Just call us SHIELD" equating to "If you really need me to spell it out, dumbass."

I get the sense that the full name is at least partially designed to baffle so as to just sound like bureaucratic word salad to the uninitiated, which seemed to be Coulson's initial intent with Pepper as he was posing as just some nondescript government suit.

 

[Christopher]

Wasn't it still the Strategic Scientific Reserve in Agent Carter? Plus the base they've been in for most of the last 2 seasons?

The SSR was the agency that preceded SHIELD. What I'm referring to is the sequence in Captain America: The Winter Soldier where Steve and Natasha went to the abandoned SHIELD bunker where they encountered Arnim Zola. That bunker was used by the SSR during the war, converted to a SHIELD asset in 1949 when SHIELD was founded, and abandoned in the '70s, I think; but the SHIELD emblem on its wall depicted the modern "Homeland" version of the full name. So that means that version dates back at least several decades.

 

[Silvercrest]

I get the sense that the full name is at least partially designed to baffle so as to just sound like bureaucratic word salad to the uninitiated, which seemed to be Coulson's initial intent with Pepper as he was posing as just some nondescript government suit.

Works for me.

 

[Gaith]

(Still a week behind/haven't seen the finale, apologies.)

Well, as I said, I think it's dramatically uninteresting and an ethical copout if you blame a character's actions on an "evil spell" or a "curse" rather than some relatable motivation that comes from within themselves or is a response to their life experiences.

And I think those two paths aren't mutually exclusive. Indeed, I find the ambiguity inherent in deeming AIDA's/Madame HYDRA's actions a fundamentally unmeasurable mixture of both Darkhold-induced madness/corruption/evil and a justifiable yearning for freedom to be more interesting than either explanation by itself.

And in this particular case, since Aida is motivated by a desire to escape from slavery, I think there's a very, very ugly implication in the suggestion that it is evil for a slave to seek emancipation. Although her actions are wrong, I do not think her motives should be condemned or dismissed.

And I don't accept the equally cartoonish notion that changing one major aspect of our various heroes' lives would so thoroughly pervert the real world (or its Framework approximation) to the degree that we've seen. It's a place suffused with evil, and Aida's path to self-actualization is littered with the suffering of sentient NPCs. Yes, once she gained sentience, likely in large part via the Darkhold, she had every right to claim basic sentient rights, and to apply for asylum from SHIELD. But instead of straightforwardly petitioning for the same, or indeed giving any indication of her growth, she pursued an elaborate plot enabling her to enslave, experiment upon, and mutilate countless Framework Inhumans on her way to murdering a whole bunch of people in the real world. That's more than mere wanting to be a Real Woman; it's a kind of madness at the very least.

Anyway, absolutely incredible penultimate episode. From the very start (the Superior-bot noting that the Darkhold has humorous passages - amazeballs), a rollercoaster ride, culminating in the birth/awakening of a very angry god. I'd wondered why the plane with our heroes was under attack the previous episode, having watched these things weeks and weeks apart, so the revelation of Talbot being after them as well as the Superior's forces (he has jets, too?!) was a great reveal, and made total sense. And then Talbot and his men stay behind, to try to confront a being of unknown and terrifying power, when, as Coulson noted, running was the smart move - he may not be the brightest, that general, but he's a damned hero regardless. Fantastic character.

Also, farewell to Powers Boothe - Malick's line "I never thought my last rodeo would be with SHIELD" has taken on new meaning.

See you all when I watch the finale! It'll be available for free streaming on ABC's site tomorrow.

 

[Christopher]

And I don't accept the equally cartoonish notion that changing one major aspect of our various heroes' lives would so thoroughly pervert the real world (or its Framework approximation) to the degree that we've seen.

I don't accept that notion either. My premise was exactly the opposite of that -- I believe Aida/Ophelia consciously manipulated the outcomes of the history changes in a way that benefitted her agenda. Where we differ is simply that I believed her agenda to be motivated by the desire to escape enslavement, and therefore to put herself in a position of absolute power in order to be able to direct all the Framework world's resources to her own ends. It's not an evil curse, just machine logic: Find the most effective way to direct an entire civilization's resources toward a single individual's needs. Totalitarianism is the most logical way to do that, and the history of the MCU provided an easy way to create a totalitarian system by preventing the fall of Hydra. Great evil is more often done as a result of amorality, a lack of concern for the consequences to others, than out of deliberate immorality and malevolence as an end in itself. The industrialists whose choices were responsible for poisoning the children of Flint, MI weren't specifically intending to poison children; they just wanted to make more money and didn't care how they did it.

But instead of straightforwardly petitioning for the same, or indeed giving any indication of her growth, she pursued an elaborate plot enabling her to enslave, experiment upon, and mutilate countless Framework Inhumans on her way to murdering a whole bunch of people in the real world. That's more than mere wanting to be a Real Woman; it's a kind of madness at the very least.

Countless victims of abuse have gone on to become abusers. Children who are beaten by their parents grow up to beat their own children, because that's the example they learned from their parents. Aida learned from Radcliffe's example, which was to use and manipulate people in order to achieve a desired goal at all costs.

Evil is not some external force that we can invoke to dodge blame for our own actions and choices. Evil comes from people, not from magic books. People are evil to other people, and that damages those people and makes them more likely to pay the evil forward.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Season four to hit Netflix on June 15.

 

[LJones41]

It's too bad that Glenn Talbot is still alive. After four seasons of him, he has become a great annoyance. And he's not funny anymore.

 

[Forbin]

As someone who respects our military and has friends who are vets, I never cared for the way the military are treated as cartoon characters in a lot of TV shows.

 

[Star Wolf]

It's too bad that Glenn Talbot is still alive. After four seasons of him, he has become a great annoyance. And he's not funny anymore.

There is always room for the annoying government overseer, whether a suit or a uniform. Gen. Talbot being alive does open all sorts of possibilities. All the way from another real world corporate trade making him a shape shifting alien infiltrator to a LMD

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

I actually really enjoy Talbot when he's not being used as an antagonist. When he's working with Coulson the two have great interactions. I'm always waiting for some new hilariously cringe-y Talbot-ism. He's like Shield's answer to TWD's Abraham.

 

[Reverend]

Just throwing it out there: Talbot as Mandroid.

Come on, the comedy value of the name alone would be worth it!