SI, 'Beloved' - July 12

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and SI… continues to underwhelm, ditto. This week’s episode, ‘Beloved’, has Talos, (the male Skrull that impersonated Fury in Tom Holland’s 2^nd ‘Spider-Man’ film), killed, and whoever gives a damn about that? Whereas AoS at least tried to build its’ characters up so that their death would matter and/or impact the audience, SI does not. Pause?

Let us try again. As it was said the last time, AoS appears to overshadow SI in quantity at the very least, but still, as Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man 2’ movie showed, SI has the advantage of having its’ characters appear in the rest of MCU’s franchise; unlike AoS, SI is an official part of MCU and as such it can use this status to ‘pull out’ characters from other corners of MCU to flesh itself other. Indeed, it appears to do so with the character of Rhodes, (War Machine)… who appears to become mostly AWOL himself since the CA: CW film, (the ‘What If?’ cartoon series do not count, as they are more of an alternative to the main MCU plotline)… The point here is that SI is also underwhelming on top of its’ other issues; it has its’ own advantages vs. AoS, which is does not use, or rather does not use them very well… or very much at all. AoS did not have them at all, or at least – not very many, but it still used them…

Ok, to be fair, what AoS also did was cannibalize/assimilate discarded plots of such discarded Marvel shows as ‘InHumans’ and ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Most Wanted’ in order to keep itself going. But, again, both it and SI were TV shows, not RL – Disney/MCU could abort them instead of running them full time, or else get rid of them before they aired – but no. Disney/MCU went through with AoS, even though there were multiple behind the scenes issues in it, and it is going through with SI, even though there are multiple issues with it as well. The result is that S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone from MCU on one hand, and SI is going to join it too, it looks like on the other. Sad, but that is real world politics for you – like the rest of reality, they suck.

Moreover, speaking of reality… It is only mid-July here, in the southern Canada, (which may sound like an oxymoron, but is a reality fact instead), and already fruits, berries, nuts and seeds are ripening, the leaves are turning red, and the flowers are going away. The insects are still out in force – we are talking pollinators here – but squirrels, grey and red, as well as their cousins the chipmunks and marmots, are already preparing food for winter. Guess living in the north – and not being a human – has its’ restrictions and rules overall. The local cicadas, however, are singing, meaning that it is mid-summer here after all…

(Oh, and the carrion is all gone now, washed away by the heavy summer thunderstorms – the vultures and condors are out of luck after all).

This is it for now. See you all soon!