…The 5th season of AoS continues… and it the show
continues to recycle old ideas. Case in point – Gryll, one of the new villains,
(a mini-bad), is reminiscent of Robert Gonzales, a semi-rogue S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent, (actually the leader of the ‘real S.H.I.E.L.D.’) from S2, complete with
a walking cane. What gives?
Or take the xenomorphs of MCU. True, they aren’t xenomorphs
from the AVP franchise, but rather some sort of original ‘roach’ creatures,
(whose names start with a ‘v’ and are a proper mouthful, so let’s just call
them ‘xenomorphs’ instead. Potato, po-ta-to…). They, apparently, exist on the
surface of the now-devastated Earth, and-
However, Earth is not really Earth anymore! Rather, it is an
asteroid belt of some sort plus a burnt-out husk, rather reminiscent of Alderaan
from SW4 movie. Maybe not as demolished as Alderaan became, (see the SW4 movie,
duh) but close enough. The damaged husk of the once-blue planet simply cannot
sustain a breathable atmosphere, or even much of life, alien or not,
(especially multicellular – single-cell organisms is another thing), period.
Instead, we have an outmaneuvered ex-henchman getting run down by the roaches
or whatever – and realize that this is the set of Maveth without even any
customization! It is bad enough that the AoS’ team does not respect its’
characters – they do not respect their viewers either!
…Sorry about the ugly, albeit abbreviated rant, but it’s the
truth. In ‘Orientation’, we talked, however briefly, about how the lack of
fresh new ideas keeps AoS sinking deeper and deeper, period. Yes, continuity
has to be observed, but this is not about continuity, it is more and more about
the initial ideas unable to work, well, initially, and about the writers, who
keep returning and returning to them regardless.
And the character-not-quite-assassinations, (for now). In the
past, the fans of Grant Ward complained that the scriptwriters have mangled and
reshaped the character on TV (and in the canon) however they saw fit. Now it is
Jemma Simmons’ turn, instead. I.e., in S4, her character was obtuse – almost stupidly
so; Jemma’s repeated statements – i.e. that the framework wasn’t real – would’ve
gotten even Captain Obvious annoyed; Jemma’s emotional range in the second and
third story arcs of AoS S4 became kind of stunted – so now, in S5, Jemma became
a queen of compassion, leaving her previous agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. training
behind – she has no self-control, she has, seemingly, forgotten all of her
self-restraint and experiences gained during her spying at Whitehall’s branch
of Hydra, (the first half of S2, remember?), and now… she’s a better character
than who she became in S4; she’s just not the ‘original’ Jemma Simmons anymore.
That is not good either, especially since the numbers of AoS’ S5 still are not
very high, especially in comparison with the previous seasons of the show.
Another noteworthy fact is that AoS’ S5 does not appear to
have any specialized mini-arcs that S4 and to a lesser extent – S3, has gone
for. It is not too surprising, the AoS/MCU team went for them back in S3 as a promotional
gimmick to boost the numbers, and it did not work – the numbers continue to go
down, overall. Sad, really, but now AoS may be going for the S1 format –
largely one single story line for the next 22 episodes with all the old
characters; the only noteworthy exception is Deke, who comes across like an
unholy cross of Grant Ward and Lance Hunter rather than an original character –
again.
…One can argue that Deke is also equipped a-la Peter Quill
the Star Lord from the GotG movies – but it seems that by travelling into the
future, (in-universe terms), AoS has severed itself from the MCU movies, seeing
how it was tied into the movies tightly in the S1, but now – it seems to have
gone free of the upcoming ‘Avengers vs. Thanos’ movie and is doing its’ own
thing. That is not bad, in DCEU the TV ‘Arrowverse’ has existed separately from
the movies since the beginning, but even in AoS S3 the TV series and the movies
existed in a shared universe instead, so
this break…it’s just weird. There are some references to the GotG movies,
including the Kree, but they are just surface-deep, as AoS seems to be giving as
InHumans as gladiators of the Kree; the most enjoyable part of that was lady
Basha belittling and humiliating Kasius the Kree military governor whenever she
had a chance.
Yes, the current big bad of AoS has his name starting with
the letter ‘K’; AoS seems to have issues with that letter: in S2 there was Kara
Palamas/Agent 33, whose story got mangled horribly and caused a lot of damage
to AoS; in S3 there was Kebo, a sidekick of Grant of some sort that got killed
by Bobbi Morse so that she would get her mojo back…but she still left the show,
(okay, Palicki did, alongside Blood) – in other words, Kebo’s role in the show
was just pointless; and now, there’s Kasius. What gives? AoS gone back from
WWII RL allusions to the ancient Romans? While it makes sense, it is still somewhat
strange…
Therefore, ‘Life Spent’ got to be a strange, confusing,
conflicted episode. Does anyone have any different opinions? One way or another,
see you soon!
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