S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Rise and Shine' - March 31

This week’s episode was called ‘Rise and Shine’. And?

And it was a tense, dramatic episode, focusing on several issues.

One is general Hale’s back history. Apparently though, she was still not given a first name, so let us just call her Catherine, okay? The audience saw her interactions – in a flashback – with Jasper Sitwell, baron von Strucker, Dr. Whitehall and more, which also serves to reintegrate AoS with the rest of MCU. That is important, because a ‘Captain Marvel’ movie is in the works, and it is supposed to feature such already-depicted characters as Ronan the Accuser, and – agent Coulson. In canon, the rest of MCU considers Coulson to be dead, which is fine, since the ‘Captain Marvel’ movie is supposed to be set in the past, before the events set in motion by the ‘Iron Man’ movie series…or some other point in time; we will just have to wait and see how this film fits into MCU-verse.

Back in AoS proper, we had general Glenn Talbot, and it was his time to shine. AoS treats Talbot the same way it treats the rest of its’ characters – without any particular respect, which just muddies the issue. Half the time, Talbot is comic relief and the other half, he is a friend and an ally of Coulson and his S.H.I.E.L.D., and AoS cannot determine which aspect of Talbot is more important to it. The result…for example, in this episode, Talbot acted both heroic and goofy, and the result…he was not convincing as either. Can AoS please pick a theme for him and stick to it?

With Coulson, there is no such issue; he is a hero all the way. Ditto his friends/team, though they got about ten to fifteen minutes out of the entire episode, and Deke Shaw was not even in it. Instead, we had Mack helping Jemma with Yo-Yo, and while this isn’t a problem per se, Mack is still an engineer, not a sturgeon, so can he really help Jemma? Or is Henry Simmons, (who plays Mack), and NCB (Yo-Yo) are obliged by their contracts to be in every ep? That would be interesting to know…

Anything else? AoS is dividing its’ cast into good and bad guys, no more shades of grey here. Coulson and his people are good, everyone else is bad, forget the redemption. Mind you, maybe Creel will reconsider, since he and General Talbot used to be friendly, but one should not count on it. After the failed redemptions of Grant and Kara back in S2, (Grant had had something in S4, but it is uncertain if a framework redemption counts), AoS is done with them. Well, bully – now S.H.I.E.L.D. has to stop Hydra, its’ alien allies, (who are probably Kree, rather than Skrulls or Asgardians or anyone else), and everyone else. Except for Thanos, because the Avengers and their allies will stop Thanos instead. Or not, and half of MCU will die, we will just have to wait until the movie itself is released.

…Well, this is it for now; see you all next time!