AoS S6 is here. And?
Firstly, the obligatory disclaimer: real life can be trying,
but that is real life for you. How does AoS stack up to it?
The season’s premiere, ‘Missing Pieces’, is about Coulson
and Fitz, since both died at S5 finale. Now, though, Team Jemma (her, Daisy,
Davis and Piper) are travelling through space, kicking alien butts and taking
their numbers while looking for Fitz – and there is a giant-ass space ship chasing
them instead. However, never let it
be said that Simmons is not an opportunist – she used the ship’s latest attack
to take her team into a new territory, to continue to look for Fitz, though the
rest of her team are unhappy with her, and there is going to be drama.
Simmons’ issues with Fitz aside - by now everyone knows that
the FitzSimmons make their own drama, and this season AoS just might’ve jumped
the shark with them, pity – what is worth noting is that Piper and Davis have
become proper supporting characters: here’s to them lasting at least to
mid-season, and not just because otherwise the FitzSimmons and Daisy will have
to make a lot of uncomfortable explanations to Davis’ family at least, you
know? Secondly, Daisy is having her own issues – she is channeling either Ward
or Morse, and it does not do her character any favors. And finally – Deke is
pointedly not with them; as Marvel
Entertainment accidentally showed on YouTube, Jeff Ward (Deke) and Iain (Fitz) do
not get along, so they clearly had to do something about it, while keeping Jeff
on the show. Why is another question; they did a half-arsed job of trying to
make chemistry between him and Chloe’s Quake in the second half of S5, but
apparently it didn’t stick, so no Deke in space. Pity, because he and Elizabeth
Henstridge (Jemma) actually had a good thing going-on in the second half of S5…
Back within MCU, Fitz is shown at the episode’s end, being
dominated, somehow, by someone (or something) called the Controller. In Marvel,
it is a man named Basil Sandhurst, who is…an Iron Man villain, actually, but in
MCU, Stark is dead – for now, at least – so it is an open question if this is
going to be a real-life version of the man, somehow. The point is that Fitz is
having his own problems – again…so, it is nothing new. The more interesting
question is – where is Enoch? He was not bad back in S5, did liven up AoS
somewhat, and it would be exciting to see more Chronicoms in the future AoS episodes
too. The fact that Fitz is in trouble, is mentally dominated, does things that
are probably morally ambiguous at best, and needs Simmons and the team to help
him is nothing new – remember the S4 Framework mini-arc, anyone?
This brings us to the other half of the season’s premiere –
Mack’s version of S.H.I.E.L.D. on one hand, and the appearance of ‘Sarge’,
(Coulson’s look-alike) on the other. There are several characters called ‘Sarge’
already in Marvel; the main ones are Nick Fury Jr. (and now that would be an
interested character to introduce to MCU proper), and a mutant for a secondary
universe (earth 2099 A.D.) now more usually called Travesty.
…Yes, in S5 already AoS took its’ characters to the future,
and yes, there are gifted individuals of some sort, working for Gregg’s Sarge
character, so it’s always possible that S.H.I.E.L.D. will be dealing with time
travellers from a new future – the old one got derailed when S.H.I.E.L.D. blew
up the alien space shift and defeated Talbot/Graviton in final S5 episodes,
remember? The time loop is broken, the future is free from grabs – and MCU has
introduced, sort of, the concept of a multiverse in ‘Avengers: Endgame’ movie,
and it might be developing this concept further in the upcoming ‘Spiderman’
movie, just look it up at the IGN YouTube channel. IGN is not perfect, but it
does deliver. What is next?
The main twist here is that as contrasted by a deliberately
misleading clip released earlier, this version of Coulson/Not-Coulson is no
friend of S.H.I.E.L.D. at all; the man he took down was a new S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent instead, but on the other hand, despite their rugged appearances and
crazy behaviours, he and his people aren’t trying to intentionally &
deliberately hurt people, so maybe they’re not
actually evil? In this case, Mack and co. will need to invent a new strategy
beyond throwing armed forces and armored vehicles at them, while dealing with
new drama: Mack and Yo-Yo have broken up, and now Yo-Yo is beginning to flirt
with a new character named Keller, while Mack is with May…yes, because Coulson
is dead now, (so far, Sarge is being set up as someone who’s not S.H.I.E.L.D.),
and because AoS had thrown them together on occasion, especially in S4. What
will come out of that, aside from the generic answer – more drama – is currently
unknown.
…Also, speaking of drama, Mack and May managed to persuade an
old friend of Dr. Garner to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. while the FitzSimmons are in
space. Since Dr. Garner was revealed to be Lash, a killer InHuman, (who got
redeemed, supposedly, by rescuing Daisy from Hive and dying in the process), it’s
possibly safe to take the newcomer’s moral alignment with a grain of salt;
after Radcliffe and the Darkhold disaster it is better to be safe than sorry,
right?
Anything else? Gabriel Luna will return to his role as the
Ghost Rider…this time, on his own show. Since it will be on Freeform, his show
might have more in common with C&D that AoS, so (tentatively) welcome back,
Mr. Luna, to MCU! Hopefully, you will have better luck here than Blood and
Palicki did – by now, they are firmly in the past/recurring character sector of
AoS, alongside Dalton and Campbell; ah well, ce la vie.
As for ‘Missing Pieces’ as a whole, it did a good job by
bringing out the best aspects of AoS – special effects, a decent plot, great
acting and decent dialogue. Now all they have to do is to keep it up and to win
back their strayed fans. Between ‘the Gifted’, ‘the Runaways’, C&D, and ‘Legion’,
(though it is supposed to have its final
season this year, hah), it will be a tough job, even with Netflix’s series
gone, and the Ghost Rider show still being in production…
This is it for now; see you all soon!
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