AoS series finale - August 14

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about AoS instead. It has ended this week; the series is over for good. Therefore, what can be said about it?

Pathos. The AoS series’ finale had all of the regular flaws that the show had had from S2 onwards, (if not from the very first season), but in this case, it had something else – pathos. The final scenes, when the titular heroes get their happily ever after, were something else – pure Whedon.

Let us elaborate. First, because AoS was never able to leave its’ real-life connections behind, (or at least – under the rug, as ‘Blindspot’ had, for example), this week there were also several articles regarding the AoS’ conclusion, including an interview with the Whedon-son and his wife, Ms. T, (let us call her that, for brevity’s sake). It was a very flappy and overblown interview, doing its’ best to sell AoS as something epic, but what interests us for the moment, is the Whedon-papa, who was notably absent from the interview.

No, really, the interview actually had several photo illustrations; some of them were shots from the set, but one of them was a photo of the Whedon-son, Ms. T, her brother and her dad, but Whedon-father was nowhere in sight. I don’t know whether this is because Whedon-father has left team Marvel for team DC, or because there are regular talks about him being an abuser, a harasser, or someone similar – i.e., he got problems, but no one has mentioned Whedon-dad at all, even though the AoS’ S4 finale, for example, had direct references to his shows ‘BtVS’ and ‘AtS’, eh?

…Let’s paraphrase. One of the AoS’ ‘trademarks’ was its’ attempt to be ‘woke’ and ‘progressive’, while failing to do so – I’m talking about interracial couples. May and Phil were a typical example of this – they were ‘supposed’ to get together, but never did, until the very end of S5, when Phil died soon after, and that was the end of that. Clark Gregg continued to act on AoS, of course, but it were different characters instead; the last one was the second, (or the third?) LMD of Phil, not the real deal.

…In the series’ finale, Coulson, alongside with his trusty flying car Lola, has retired from the active S.H.I.E.L.D. duty. Since he is no more flesh and blood than a car is, this means what, exactly? He and the car will be put into a storage and deactivated? Or has Coulson returned to his flesh and blood self? Cough…

 …Yes, without getting too much into spoilers, it seems that from the S5 onwards the titular heroes had romped around in some splinter universe, not in the main MCU one, (one that has the 1 and a bunch of nines behind it). Yes, the way that Fitz had explained, (he returned for the series’ finale, good for Iain, I say), this is exactly what happened, and so, when the titular heroes returned to ‘their’ reality, nothing of what they did in the last 3 seasons muttered – not John Garret’s death, (derailing the Ward storyline for good, but who cares, right?), not Jiaying’s death, (, so no Daisy, period), not anything else. In addition, Deke, apparently, stayed behind to take over S.H.I.E.L.D. in that dimension – yay! …But Deke, (or rather – his actor, Jeff Ward), did not get along with the rest of the cast, yeah…

…Yeah, that was something of a problem for AoS throughout its’ run, as actors – and not just episodic characters, but the more important, albeit secondary ones, too – tended to leave the show ASAP and not come back. Considering that from S5 onwards AoS tried to reboot itself by various time travel/the past becomes the present/other allusions, this failed. The allusions were imperfect, and felt like throwaways instead…which they were. After the S3, AoS has largely ran out of the fresh, original material with which to go forth, and may have actually planned to end, (as the other Marvel shows did at that time – they ended after the second or the third season). Instead, we got the S4, which was supposed to feature the Ghost Rider, and it did, but the Ghost Rider TV show failed to launch, (for reasons unknown), and so the Ghost Rider is gone from the MCU for the moment, (though his influences were felt in the AoS’ S6) – but that was S4. From S5 onwards, (when the Chronocoms have kidnapped Coulson and his team into their alternate universe or wherever), AoS was a different show, (albeit with a mostly the same main cast), remaining to be Disney’s/MCU’s main representative in the world of TV shows, unchallenged by such entities as Netflix.

…Yes, I am talking about the Sony conflict, which ended with Sony keeping the rights to Spiderman at least for another movie. Back then, it appeared that this fight had threatened the Disney/Marvel juggernaut for real, but then came COVID-19, and everything became reshuffled in real life too. Now, Mulan is hitting Disney+ next month, (i.e. September 2020), so we’ll be talking about it then; for now, let’s just say that this decision is the latest in a number of bad ones made by Disney, (which includes ‘Artemis Fowl-2020’, cough). For now, back to AoS.

…Now, let us get our rant back under control. The truth is that all of the rumbling made a paragraph or two before is pointless, since AoS ended, and now all of the discussion of the show is academic. However, ‘tis the pathos that makes the series’ finale noteworthy; that, and the conclusion is so final. The titular characters have not vanished, of course, but they have gone their separate ways: the team Time Bus is gone, effectively, and will not return any time soon, because the show has ended, Disney, Disney+ and MCU do not need it anymore. Will any of the actors/characters from AoS appear in MCU? It is anyone’s guess. So what about Whedon?

…Does anyone remember the old BtVS comic? It was something of a variant of AoS, (which had its’ own comic series, but they went nowhere fast). One of the main plotlines there was the fact that both Willow’s, and Giles’, (who got rejuvenated into a pre-teen for some reason), love lives sucked, and that the comic writers’ team were subtly maneuvering them into becoming a couple, however long it took.

…And then the deal went through, the BtVS/AtS comic got rebooted in the current Boom version, but before that, the Scoobies had one last hoorah, by defeating a vampire overlord from the future, (don’t ask). What matters to us is that Giles returned to his original age and appearance, and any proto-chemistry between him and Willow vanished. Things returned to their old selves and everything else was abandoned. The AoS finale has the same feeling – the touch of the papa-Whedon, so his absence from the interview of the Whedon-son and the latter’s wife was only more glaring, and that is the point.

…What is the point, you may ask? The point is the AoS tried to be ‘progressive’ and ‘woke’, because the Whedon-son and his wife are supposedly are that. They are not. They are mainstream, and are neither progressive nor woke nor even politically correct. Rather, they are politically stylish, doing their best to fit in, regardless of what the mainstream into which they are fitting into is. In the interview, they talked as to how they could not use LMD’s and the other robots until the Age of Ultron movie was aired. That is Gilderoy Lockhart’s level of bull, and the younger Whedons are the real-life versions of Rowling’s character – smug, arrogant jerks who think that they’re all that, but they’re not. AoS’ S1 introduced Deathlok, a cyborg, and John Garrett Sr. himself was another. No one made a stink, because they were very important to S1, which is why the younger Whedons’ narrative a load of baloney. It is also the root of AoS’ problems – I am guessing few people wanted to work for them for too long, an association with Disney & Marvel or not – and where does it leave us?

In a world without AoS, in a world without a halfway decent TV show that tried to pretend that it was epic. Pathos and posturing do not go well together, I am afraid. Moreover, for now, this is it. See you all soon!

PS: And yes, I know that the Whedon-son mentioned the fanbase of AoS, and that there was a separate interview with Ms. Chloe Bennett as well. But we’ll talk about them another time, I promise!