Friday, 31 May 2019

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Code Yellow' - May 31


…Obligatory disclaimer: real life is weird sometimes – in Mother Russia, the ministry of labor has rearranged the holidays, to shorten the New Year celebratory period but to ensure that the amount of holiday days in the Russian year remains the same. Hashtag what gives, and this brings us to AoS’ episode ‘Code Yellow’.

In this episode, we re-meet Deke, who seems to have started his own Fortnite 500 Company or whatever, centered on a VR game that is named ‘the Framework’, and whose existence – Hell, the entire existence of the Deke Shaw plot line in ‘Code Yellow’ – was almost to mock AoS’ S4 and S5, as Deke kind-of recreates some of the elements of those seasons for personal glory.

Here is the fact: in this episode, we learn that Deke Shaw is greedy, self-centered, and shallow. He is also loyal, competent (at least to a certain degree), and smart. He is brave too, especially when it comes to other people, so he’s a mixed bag, and ‘Code Yellow’ really takes what we’ve learned about him back in S5, (especially in the first half), and does its’ best to run with it and to develop Deke further. Sadly, it does this with a typical American humor, so the result is bizarre and absurd and funny mostly to Americans, and the viewers in the other countries just roll their eyes and go along with it.

On the other side, we get to see Yo-Yo and Dr. Benson deal…with an alien space bat of a parasite who infested agent Keller and then killed him. Yeah, AoS keeps on killing its characters off; Yo-Yo appears to be devastated, (fair enough, she and Keller were just beginning to have something between them), but the problem is that in the script she and Dr. Benson have kind of…dithered most of their time while Keller’s immune system was trying to fight-off the alien infestation and he was still alive; the actors’ acting here is simply unconvincing, period. What next?

Sarge and Isis have captured May, but lost the other two members of their team, while Keller is dead, his body converted to some sort of crystals, (like the ones that we have seen in AoS S6 promo) and Yo-Yo is devastated…but the bad acting has ruined that tearjerker of a moment. C&D may be cancelled now that their S2 is over, just as ‘the Gifted’ had been back in April, but…

But the truth is that with the ‘Dark Phoenix’ moving airing in June 2019, this incarnation of the X-Men universe is most likely coming to an end, which means that the entire franchise is likely to be re-shuffled, and now that Disney/Marvel have taken over the X-Men franchise from Fox, that is even more likely; plus ‘Legion’ is also ending, (after three seasons total), so there’s that. Was ‘the Gifted’ S2 rushed? No, though it did have its’ problems, as we’ve discussed it back in winter 2019, but that is done and gone; ‘the Gifted’ didn’t deliver high enough numbers and so it was given the ax. C&D’s S2 numbers were not that great either, so there is that. In addition, the potential suspicion that their time together is ending might have given C&D’s cast and crew motivation to rush through things and even cut their screen time and plot development because hey, they no longer care about it so much. Just look at GoT S8 and see how well that approach has turned out for them.

…Could Got S8 deliver the same plot developments that we have seen by now and satisfy a greater amount of fans/viewers than it did in real life at the same time. By now, the talk of the petition to reshoot the S8 has died, as it was going to, obviously, (petitions don’t amount to anything, they’re as effective as scaring a hedgehog with your bare naked ass is, and ditto for sanctions – just look at what Russia is doing in Eastern Europe regardless of them), but the bitter aftertaste remains and it just might sour the next generation of viewers from watching the GoT sequel. Ah well, as the ancient Russian epic poem, ‘The Tale of Prince Igor’s army’ says, ‘No matter how badass are you, you may even be able to fly as a bird does, you still will not escape God’s judgement’. Incidentally, this echoes the biblical statement of Ecclesiastes, that ‘God’s mills mill slowly but exceedingly small’ and that everything turns to dust. Thus passes the fame of the world, and in time, GoT will be forgotten just as ‘the Gifted’ are, or ‘Time after Time’ and ‘Powerless’ have been. It will just take GoT a lot longer to reach obscurity; a lot longer. Back to AoS?

No, not really. ‘Code Yellow’ was focused entirely on the S.H.I.E.L.D. team back on Earth, as they are beginning to realize just what they are fighting against – only not. Not unlike at what the script writers tried to do in S2, especially in the first half, when Gonzales’ faction of S.H.I.E.L.D. had infiltrated Coulson’s, in AoS S6 we’re seeing two groups of ‘good guys’ coming to blows with one another because of misunderstandings, and because in case of people of Coulson/Sarge, they’re crazy and pointedly unlikable. Ah well, you can’t win them all, and for the next two weeks we’re going to be AoS free, for better or worse.

This is it for now; see you all soon!

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