…And so, for better or worse, we are back with AoS. Real
life being what it is, I can make no guarantees that we are going to make it
through the S6 finale – did I mention that I hate my life and especially my
family lately? Life itself isn’t so bad, every once in a while you get
something unexpected, like an overly arrogant red-winged blackbird male singing
almost in your face and almost not giving a fuck about you, but family is
something else, something that is much harder to stomach even on a good day; and
as for a bad one…
Yes, I am aware that that feeling is likely to be
reciprocated – I just do not care. A man has to be honest at least on his own
blog, so there is that, and if people have issues, that is tough. Now onto AoS?
…Honestly, I would rather rant some more, maybe even much
more, about real life, about how there’s some shaman going across practically
the entire Russian Federation on foot so that he could exorcise either a demon
from Putin or Putin himself from Kremlin, (the two concepts are interchangeable,
really), and how nothing similar in the U.S. regarding the Donald is taking
place. The Russians’ claim of a socio-political stability in their country is
fake, but they’re doing their best to uphold it anyhow…but the same is going on
the U.S.A. – the media might be rocking the boat, the proletariat, (or the plebeians,
if you want to go all ancient Roman empire instead), but the patricians, the
elite? Yeah, they are about just as detached from the rest of their people as
their Russian counterparts are – and that brings to AoS, sort of.
First, let us start with the upcoming ‘Little Mermaid’
remake of Disney, which will feature an Afro-American Ariel. People are divided
about this already, but what matters to us is that it brings us to MCU’s
Michelle Jones, who is based – partially – on the more traditional Mary Jane
Watson, who, just like the 90s’ Ariel, is a Caucasian redhead, unlike MCU’s
Michelle Jones, as played by Zendaya. There were many complaints about her
playing the new MJ in MCU, but what do you know? People have accepted her, and
they will accept the new Ariel too – Americans are good at this sort of thing;
the problems of Disney with SW are not really about race or gender, and more
about Disney & SW pissing off the original SW fan base from the beginning
of their merger – but we have digressed.
One of the reasons as to why MCU is succeeding where the
latest X-Man movie – for example – has failed, is because of interconnectivity:
where ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ existed in a vacuum, not connected to any other X-Men
films, not really, not even the ‘Apocalypse 2018’ film, ‘Far From Home’ is very
much a part of MCU, properly connected with other MCU films, especially the ‘Iron
Man’ movies, making ‘Far From Home’ a part of a team, metaphorically speaking.
This gives ‘Far From Home’ a greater material range than ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’
had, even though it wasn’t as bad as people claimed that it was – but we’re not
talking about it anymore, we’re talking about AoS.
One of the plot lines of AoS’ S6 is that Sarge is really an
AU version of Coulson who acts nothing like him, and does not really appear to
care about his alter ego’s life – all he cares about his mission to stop Izil,
aka the Beast. Leaving aside the fact that this is the most blatant material
appropriation of BtVS and AtS, (but mostly BtVS S5 and Glory), this character
is supposedly that Meso-American goddess, mostly of war and the like, but here she
is utilizing the alien space bats that we have met in the past episodes
already. Sarge is planning to stop her, no matter what is the cost, but what is
the catch? People, i.e. the audience, no longer appear to care about AoS in
large enough numbers, and what is more, the chemistry between the actors
appears to be gone too, unless you are talking about FitzSimmons…but for the
moment the FitzSimmons are separate from the rest of the crew, acting as an unwitting
part of an alien Trojan horse of Izil. It sounds exciting, and yet it appears
to have nothing in common with the rest of MCU; at least in S3 the writers did
try to connect AoS with MCU, and Coulson’s appearance and (relatively minor)
role on ‘Captain Marvel’ the movie was supposedly a similar effort too. Sadly,
it does not appear to be working; Gregg’s new character is pointedly detached
from Coulson, and AoS itself appears to be equally detached from the rest of
MCU again, which is not good. MCU isn’t without its’ flaws, but it still is
better, proportionally speaking, than AoS is – and that’s before we’re even
talking about the reboot of Deke’s character, for example, or the complete lack
of chemistry between Gregg and Chloe Bennett (Coulson and Daisy/Quake), Gregg
and Wen. AoS really does not do couples anymore – there are the FitzSimmons,
(who are the token couple on AoS these days, really – and to a lesser extent,
on this episode, a comic relief), and also Mack and Yo-Yo. At least those two
are back together again, yay!
Yes, we have talked how AoS is recycling, with the emphasis
on re-cycling, its’ old material repeatedly, so it is a good thing that they
are going for something completely new now. Sadly, this ‘newness’ got ruined by
the disjointedness of the S6 instead. In S4 AoS showed that they can bring new
material and not recycle old one – well, actually, they could do both – quite effectively.
Here and now in S6 – not so much, which is a pity. Ah well, real life still has
it worse.
…This is it for now, see you all soon!
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