Agents of SHIELD (SPOILERS)

[Sardorim]

It all works... if you don't think about it. Look how pretty that Obelisk scene was or whatever.

But this whole season's premise has been about stopping Hydra from using a WMD. If the Obelisk goes into the temple, the world goes boom.
And then at the last moment, Raina's all like, oh no you're all wrong, it's not a weapon. Now excuse me while I turn into a bald, spiky lizard witch.

It was an anti-climatic finale, because the world didn't need to be saved. Raina or Skye could have wiped out all their enemies just by luring them through curiosity into that chamber. Or most of them. Maybe Kraken would have grown an comic-styled exoskeleton when exposed. Moot point now. But Raina was probably smart enough to realize the huge advantage she had. Yet she didn't do anything about it, which made the entire Obelisk story a red herring. All the chasing and carving and drama was for nothing. Not to mention that withholding information is how novice writers wring 15 hours of story out of what should take about two hours at most. Even the Grumpy Cat Movie jokingly admitted that it was stretching its thin plot out for run time. At Marvel it may sell more comic issues but you can't gain television viewership by having your characters stand around and your side-plots go nowhere.

The crew has said that this whole year and a half was about showing the creation of a superhero. And like the Avengers, it turned out to be a creation through lies and deception. The only real hero was Triplett, but no TAHITI for him. I'm still disappointed they pulled that one-off deus ex machina when at this point Coulson is probably one of the least interesting characters on the show. He's certainly no Director, not after this. SHIELD is its biggest threat to itself. Take away the WMD threat, and Hydra suddenly crumbles like a bad joke. There weren't any stakes anymore. So the writers had to make the four little bombs the entire stakes for the remaining run time, and because that just wouldn't be enough, they had to kill somebody, too. Otherwise the episode would have the emotional resonance of a pancake.

This is not good writing. The show didn't get better in the second half of season one. The show just got better at writing badly. The movies benefit so much from the time limitation and the inherent tightness of the medium. And the special effect, of course. But given 20 hours a season to tell a narrative, Marvel can't really hold it together without resorting to dramatic twists and gimmicks.

Sorry, but as a writer I'm just not enjoying this show.

The point is that no one knew what the thing even was. They assumed wrongly on all fronts, so all of their actions are valid as based off what they knew they moved accordingly to try and prevent it.

I disagree, the Agents are all Heroes. Trip may have died but that doesn't mean he's the only Hero, especially since his death will be like Skye's "Uncle Ben" moment in a sort of way that will push her to be better and not to let his death be in vain.

[SpiderByte]

Bye ^ Lemme know how that gamechanger pays off. Can't wait to see how that third season turns out.

Ha, a third season. I guess I've been huffing too much terrigen mist, if I actually believe that has a chance in hell of happening.

Well it has been getting great reviews and has had consistent ratings all season do yeah, it's likely getting renewed.

[emac1790]

This show is crap and I'm done with it. I guess I can use the DVR space to start checking out those reruns of Downtown Abby.

I've been watching it since the start, it's never been good. When The Flash came out on a third-tier network with a modest budget and started making Shield look even more like inept crap, I started losing patience, and now that I've seen the two fall finales side-by-side while eating some late night pizza, I can't even even remember why I bothered watching this awful show to begin with.

Agents of Shield hasn't done a single thing all season that can match Captain Cold derailing a train, and Barry rescuing everyone on board before it finishes crashing. That cheesy little dogfight tonight that mostly consisted of closeups of Mai's face while the camera tilted sideways? Ah.

Today I got to see Professor Zoom duel Barry at super-speed. It was awesome. But it wasn't nearly as cool as seeing Cal transform into the nightmarish Mr. Hyde, and tearing Whitehall into bloody chunks while the camera quickly panned away so that the show could keep its tv PG rating. Oh, wait, that didn't happen at all, my bad.

Wait, why the hell didn't that happen? Why is this show so cheap? All this build up and drama just so we could get a bullet-time effect of Quake breaking some granite and watching a black guy die horribly? Ffffffffffffffff. What are they saving their money for? Oh, right, Marvel studios is extremely el-cheapo, and they'd rather herd people into the theaters for the good stuff than come up with a compelling reason to keep watching. They saved so much money by having Coulson doing etchings on Aluminum. Ha, no ancient hidden city for you, suckers. I bet when they wrapped up for their holiday break, they treated the crew to CiCi's pizza. Because free breadsticks.

I'm assuming the white guy with no eyes is Karnak, thus fulfilling my dream of seeing Karnak getting played by some old white guy with silly putty over his eyelids. Yeeeeah, I'm out.

Well, when you set your DVR, make sure to look for Downton Abbey instead of Downtown Abby.

[emac1790]

I know I must be crazy or something, but I like Agents of SHIELD AND I like The Flash. I like Arrow too. I like Star Wars AND Star Trek. Playstation AND XBox. DC AND Marvel.

I don't like Gotham though.

You not crazy. This actually shows you're sane.

[Punisher007]

The point is that no one knew what the thing even was. They assumed wrongly on all fronts, so all of their actions are valid as based off what they knew they moved accordingly to try and prevent it.

I disagree, the Agents are all Heroes. Trip may have died but that doesn't mean he's the only Hero, especially since his death will be like Skye's "Uncle Ben" moment in a sort of way that will push her to be better and not to let his death be in vain.

I agree about the first part. But you know you actually PAY ATTENTION to what's happening instead of just making assumptions/presumptions. Unfortunately, not everyone is like that. But I have to say that, while I really like the episode overall, Tripp's death didn't work AT ALL for me. For several reasons:

1. It's yet another example of an annoying/overused/problematic cliché that needs to die already.
2. They already used the "black guy might die first" idea as the emotional look in like the two episodes preceding this one. A few episodes ago: "OMG Tripp got shot, he might die. Nope." Last episode: "OMG Mack got infected by alien mojo, got electrocuted, and fell down a 100 foot hole, he might be dead, nope." Then they ACTUALLY do it in this episode, and it just fell completely flat for me.
3. His death was completely pointless since Skye was never in any danger to begin with.
4. They didn't even let him see Skye break out, and thus know that she's ok, before he died.
5. They picked the MOST OBVIOUS character possible to kill off. The guy that everyone thought might be the one to bite it. So there's no surprise.

It was the one misstep in an otherwise really good episode.

[emac1790]

I'm sure they could find him a better wig nowadays.

Or maybe they can get him better footwear. Seriously, look at an old rerun of the Hulk. The Hulk is wearing slippers.

[evangelionofasgard]

[evangelionofasgard]

"ill see you in another life brotha"

[evangelionofasgard]

ok looking up close with better lighting yeah im thinking tigra also


"What’s supposed to happen? Something beautiful"
yes... this is very very beautiful

[Sardorim]

I agree about the first part. But you know you actually PAY ATTENTION to what's happening instead of just making assumptions/presumptions. Unfortunately, not everyone is like that. But I have to say that, while I really like the episode overall, Tripp's death didn't work AT ALL for me. For several reasons:

1. It's yet another example of an annoying/overused/problematic cliché that needs to die already.
2. They already used the "black guy might die first" idea as the emotional look in like the two episodes preceding this one. A few episodes ago: "OMG Tripp got shot, he might die. Nope." Last episode: "OMG Mack got infected by alien mojo, got electrocuted, and fell down a 100 foot hole, he might be dead, nope." Then they ACTUALLY do it in this episode, and it just fell completely flat for me.
3. His death was completely pointless since Skye was never in any danger to begin with.
4. They didn't even let him see Skye break out, and thus know that she's ok, before he died.
5. They picked the MOST OBVIOUS character possible to kill off. The guy that everyone thought might be the one to bite it. So there's no surprise.

It was the one misstep in an otherwise really good episode.

What do you mean "pay attention"? They literally had no idea what the thing is, even in the end Raina had no idea what would happen. She assumed, like them, that it would act a certain way. The only difference is that it paid off for her. If Hydra or SHIELD had been right than she would be very much dead, so she was gambling on a hunch that it would act the way she believed that it would act despite no real evidence supporting her version anymore than the others.

Pretty sure they killed other characters in the show already. Furthermore who else could fill in for Skye's Uncle Ben moment? Don't say Coulson as he's too big a character to kill... Again.

As far as he knew Skye WAS in danger. As I said, no one knew what was going to happen. When he saw that Skye was being covered up by something, which he didn't even know what it was, because of the crystal in the middle he acted based upon the belief that doing so would save Skye or at least avenge her "death".

Not everyone gets to see the fruits of their labor and his death will play a big role for Skye moving forward.

Pretty sure everyone thought Mac was going to die.

ok looking up close with better lighting yeah im thinking tigra also


"What’s supposed to happen? Something beautiful"
yes... this is very very beautiful

But the eye color is wrong if she's to be Tigra.

[censorship]

leaving this in HYDRA hands gives them another way to create super-powered beings.

SHIELD needs a threat that big to prove itself again. Ward and Raina and Cal are so morally gray that it was refreshing to see Whitehall go full-on bad guy. An Inhuman Kraken would have distanced him from all his humanity. It would have been the cold, pure-evil villain the audience has been waiting for, and a foil to Daisy, Raina, and everyone like them. He would have been their problem now, even moreso than SHIELD's.

You can't really have a superhero without a supervillain. Kraken would have justified Quake.

Whitehall needed to be front and center in the finale, not lying on his back with an unknown fate. But I'm sure that's why there are more devices laying around. To give Whitehall a second chance 10 or 15 hours from now, now that we've blown 10 hours not getting him to that point in the first place.

The point is that no one knew what the thing even was.

Cal and Raina both knew to varying degrees. But it was never explained why or how. The show spent all its exposition fairy scenes on Ward, most of which we can't even remember now because they only pertained to the episode at hand.
Raina knowing that the Obelisk isn't a weapon and "creates" life? Yeah, not a line you throw out at the very last minute as a justification for what's happening. It goes against everything calling it a weapon, even SHIELD "intel" (episode 9). Why are you hiding in Vancouver, Raina? Can't create life when you're hiding and acting like it's a weapon, too.

Even if you like the story, you have to admit that it's being presented sloppily and in a shock-now-explain-later manner that would not work if it weren't Marvel. They're going to bankroll and run the show as long as they want, because when you can keep pumping money into something, the quality and the audience don't really matter as much. You'll continue not knowing what's going on or who to trust, and that's no way to tell a story.

[Sardorim]

I didn't see it that way. At the moment when things were happening Raina still had no idea what it would do other than a vague statement on what she thought it would do.

Sounds like a crazy lady to me who strongly wanted her version to be "the" version per say. She still had no strong evidence to support that beyond her belief that things would work out. Not to mention that Trip didn't get the whole memo, he simply acted in a way that he thought would save Skye.

Marvel always handles things like that. Heck, they have many comic series right now that have the whole "Explain later" going on for huge plot points even many issues later.

Eh, I trust Coulson and that Skye/Daisy will really step up as a Hero after she gets over Trip's death.

[Cyke]

I love how Ward's hands go up as if she was pelting him with snowballs.

[Jmacq1]

Raina has about as much chance of being Tigra as Skye had of being Ms/Captain Marvel.

Which is to say virtually none.

Marvel has deviated on backstories to varying degrees, but tend to remain true to the essence of the character(s). Making Raina into Tigra would be a huge departure that is in no way Tigra except for her appearance.

Besides, last I checked, Tigra definitely didn't have spines growing out of her face.

[JaggedFel]

I agree about the first part. But you know you actually PAY ATTENTION to what's happening instead of just making assumptions/presumptions. Unfortunately, not everyone is like that. But I have to say that, while I really like the episode overall, Tripp's death didn't work AT ALL for me. For several reasons:

1. It's yet another example of an annoying/overused/problematic cliché that needs to die already.
2. They already used the "black guy might die first" idea as the emotional look in like the two episodes preceding this one. A few episodes ago: "OMG Tripp got shot, he might die. Nope." Last episode: "OMG Mack got infected by alien mojo, got electrocuted, and fell down a 100 foot hole, he might be dead, nope." Then they ACTUALLY do it in this episode, and it just fell completely flat for me.
3. His death was completely pointless since Skye was never in any danger to begin with.
4. They didn't even let him see Skye break out, and thus know that she's ok, before he died.
5. They picked the MOST OBVIOUS character possible to kill off. The guy that everyone thought might be the one to bite it. So there's no surprise.

It was the one misstep in an otherwise really good episode.

Pretty Good Summary.

Honestly, sure Raina was not sure it would have worked better if Raina just said she could read the symbols on the Diviner.