C&D, 'Shadow Selves ' - April 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now onto the main event.

We are back. We could not talk about the opening two episodes of C&D S2, so what about this one ‘Shadow Selves’? It is focused primarily on detective Mayhem or, more correctly, on her two halves – the detective and Mayhem. The former is a goody-two-shoes. The latter is a variant Jessica Jones, who herself is a variant Faith the Vampire Slayer from BtVS, as we have talked earlier. Together, the two make a very convincing Ying-Yang metaphor, which is, as people know, two halves of a whole, light and dark. Not surprisingly, C&D corner of MCU deals a lot with this imagery, (and keep in mind, that the halves have dots of contrasting color, to point out that even villains can be redeemed, and heroes – corrupted. Cough, AoS, cough). Also not surprisingly, many of C&D villains have something similar going on, especially with light and dark. We are talking, of course, about the ‘rebooted’ C&D comics. In ‘Shades of Grey’ story arc, Ty and Dy had to deal with their former friend, Grey, who became some sort of a variant vampire with vaguely Killgrave (from Netflix JJ) powers. In ‘Negative Exposure’, they had to deal with a much more better known and established villain – Mr. Negative, who had made a deal with some sort of a Lovecraftian Old One, and helped him to try destroying the world in exchange for Dy. To complicate things, Ty and Dy were on outs in both of those arcs, and got together only at the end of NE. Yay!

By contrast, in the TV series, Ty and Dy are not together yet, (though they already have amazing chemistry together). They have grown more powerful and skilled in mastering their powers, and they need them to manage Mayhem. They do not do a very good job, and ‘Shadow Selves’ introduces (sort of) a further complication – a sex-trafficking ring that C&D should handle, because they are something of New Orleans vigilantes. If they do not, Mayhem will, and Ty, at least, is not happy about her take on things. Yes, Ty and Dy are beginning to squabble, (sort of), but it is either them or having them make out like a pair of horny teens – and if they do that, a lot of fanfic authors will be out of jobs. Metaphorical jobs, but still.

Speaking of jobs, father Delgado was fired – he was shown fired in ‘Shadow Selves’ – and is now a street preacher. Again, he is shown being mostly behind the scenes, but he is playing an important role, as do Ty’s parents, as do his streetwise friends, cough – one of them is in the sex-trafficking ring, and it’s up to Ty, (maybe with Dy’s help), to save him. Maybe. If he wants to be saved, that is. Between his own evil self, Mayhem’s take on things, (her better half still needs to regrow her lost backbone, it seems), and everything else…yes, the survival of Ty’s friend is not very high.

In the background, we got the police investigation into Connor’s disappearance; in the foreground – Dy’s possible corruption by Mayhem and her attitude/take on things…mainly crime. Fun. C&D S2 is shaping to be very interested…and very different from the mainline MCU. There is no mention of the Avengers, or the dusting, for example. Ah well, as we’ve seen from C&D S1 finale, they’re there, maybe the snap has just missed them, or something. It is still going to be a very interesting S2. Hopefully, we will be around to see it too.

…This is it for now – see you all soon!

Shazam and Dora - March 24

…Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and some things appear to be unavoidable in their mass; all you can do is edit the details, so to speak and to soften the blow. The blow will still come, but at least you will have the knowledge that you did what you could, as much, you could, to avoid it; the failure is on you, but unless you want to break the laws of God and Man, you are stuck with what you have. Now where were we?

Ah yes, the new trailer for the new ‘Dora the Explorer’ movie. It works. It already promises to be quite delightful and guarantees the same atmosphere as the new ‘Shazam’ film, so let us talk about it too.

‘Shazam’ might be a part of DCEU, broadly speaking, but it is a very different movie from the previous films: it is a children’s movie. That is natural, since the titular character’s secret identity is that of a high school student, but that is only one element. The other is that like the previous ‘Aquaman’ film, ‘Shazam’ shows a clear departure from the initial DCEU films, directed by Zack Snyder, and has a much more joyous (and less solemnly Gothic) atmosphere in it. The fact that DCEU seems to be finally moving away from Marvel’s ‘Avengers’ formula also plays a role – it is about damn time that DCEU found its’ own voice and stood on its own two feet, so to speak. And ‘Dora’?

‘Dora’ is not a part of a DC or Marvel franchise; it is its’ own game/TV show/whatever, and is basically ‘Lara Croft’ for youngsters. So’s her movie version, which does feel inspired by the last ‘Tomb Raider’ films that feature a younger, scrawnier Lara with less curves than the early AJ versions have. (Jolie killed in those films, pity that lately age seems to have caught up with her at last). That said, there’s proportionally less violence in the ‘Dora’ movie trailer than there was in LC; in fact, the trailer already suggests that ‘Dora’ will be going over the top with gimmicks and physical gags – but there will be some genuine action and adventure as well. For an adult film this could be another Adam Sandler movie, but for children? Yes, it will certainly work, (though for their chaperones, slightly less physical gags might be better). What next?

Boots the CGI monkey rocks, (no real life monkey, New World or otherwise, has this shade of fur), and so do the human actors, it seems. Yes, SJW are going to have issues about the ‘racially diverse cast’, yes, it was probably done to appease the politically correct (or progressive) crowd, but so far, it seems to be paying off, so the critics should zip it, and wait for the movie to come out, (yes, the same goes for us), before complaining about the ‘racially diverse cast’, cough. In canon, Dora seems to be Latino-American anyhow, so here she seems to be cast true to her type. Yay? Yes, probably, but also because her actress can act. Anything else?

Well, the same could be said of Zachary Levi who plays the titular hero of ‘Shazam!’ I am not always enamoured, or trusting, of IGN reviews these days, (their review of ‘Captain Marvel’ had certainly been one big kiss-up), but here they are correct, when they point out that, for example, Dr. Sivana, (the movie’s villain), is a clear demonstration of how parents can shape their children, (biological or foster, it doesn’t matter so much), but it’s up to the child, (at least from a certain age), to make the actual choice and to decide just what kind of an adult are they going to be. Now, Marvel has tried to do something similar in its TV shows, but… AoS’ treatment of Grant Ward, (and also of Kara Palamas, though her case is different in this regard), was all over the place, satisfying no one. He never got to be a ‘true’ villain, (Hive was a different character completely), nor truly redeem himself, (the Framework Ward was also a separate entity, and how did Radcliffe include him into his SIMS, cough, or why?). Netflix’s JJ had Killgrave, who did a better job of the sympathetic villain role, but all of Netflix’s Marvel shows are cancelled now, so that point is double-moot, (because Killgrave himself is dead).

On DC’s side of equation, yes, ‘Arrow’ is cancelled, which is a pity, because it was good, but that is life. Sometimes even good things end, plus DC needs to get itself together as well – there are the movies, the remnants of ‘Arrow-verse’, the ‘Titans’ and so on. At least in Marvel everything is part of the same movieverse, as C&D’s S1 finale said so directly. Of course that was before ‘Iron Fist’ got cancelled, (it was the first to go, ouch), but again, that is life. Very often, it sucks, especially in reality – just look at New Zealand, for an example.

Well, this is it for now – see you all later!

Iron Fist S2 - Aug 17

…Back to the topic of Marvel, the 2^nd season of ‘Iron Fist’ is appearing early in September 2018. Yay!

…The problem that ‘Iron Fist’ featured was that it was generic – it was about a single Caucasian male superhero. If he was, you know, Oriental, that would be okay, as ‘Luke Cage’ demonstrates: its’ titular character a single Afro-American male superhero, and that makes it different from ‘Daredevil’. ‘Iron Fist’ doesn’t have that, which gives it an extra need to differentiate it from the older, more established and successful, ‘Daredevil’.

Why is the titular character of ‘Iron Fist’ not Asian-American but instead is Westeros’ Flower Knight? There was never much of a satisfactory answer, but that is okay – there was never much of a pressure to change the actors either, so let us admit that the racial issue is there, but it is not as important as people like to pretend, and move on.

The actual problem that ‘Iron Fist’ may be facing is the lack of originality – according to the rumors, he is facing a bloke named ‘Steel Serpent’ in his second season. So far so good, but this Davos person appears to be mostly an ‘Iron Fist’/’Danny Rand’ turned evil – kind of how Jessica Jones’ mom in her S2 was just like the titular heroine herself – only evil. Come to think of it, weren’t the villains in ‘Luke Cage’ S2 also both sympathetic and evil? Yes, and there was something of a parallel ‘team-up’ – Luke and Misty on one hand, Mariah and Bushmaster on the other? Yes, and we’re probably reading in it too much, but if ‘The Defenders’ are trying to keep themselves original, (with ‘Daredevil’ aside, his situation is different), there’s nothing odd about it either.

As for ‘Daredevil’… look. Not only is his comic base much more solid than the rest of ‘the Defenders’, there were also a couple of ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Electra’ movies in not so recent past. They weren’t very good, especially the ‘Electra’ one, but they did occur, so the crew of ‘Daredevil’ does have more material on which to work with, and it is tested, so they some ideas at least as to where to go with it, and what to do, and what not to do, etc. Thus, they do have an advantage over the rest of the team Defenders, and it shows.

But again, this does not matter to ‘Iron Fist’, not entirely. The current trailer shows that Misty Knight from ‘Luke Cage’ will appear in the series, (just as Colleen and Rand themselves did in ‘Luke Cage’ S2), so the semi-crossovers and the improvement of ‘the Defenders’-verse is still strong, but it is not a wonder-cure either. ‘Iron Fist’ was probably the weakest of ‘the Defenders’ show and it has to work especially hard to catch up to them…and so far there’s no indication that it is doing so. “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce to the gander”… maybe, but with TV shows, and online shows, and so forth it may be different, but we will have to wait until September 2018 to see.

…This is it for now, see you all soon later!

Cloak & Dagger, 'Call' - June 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks on so many levels. With that out of the way for now, ‘C&D’ adventures continue this week, and-?

And in this week’s episode, ‘Call’, T&T, the titular characters, spent getting to know one each other, while – in flashbacks – the audience could see just what their lives are are…normally. Without any supernatural cloak and dagger powers. Shall we discuss it?

Well, we certainly could, there are plenty of topics of discussion, from Tandy’s hypocrisy regarding her condition – yes, her assailant deserves to go to jail, but so’s she, he’s an aspiring rapist, she’s a practicing thief with a drug addiction problem, and detective Mayhem, (no, that’s not her name, but that is what I’m calling her until the show proves that she isn’t that comic character), is an idealist enough to demand that if Tandy wants her help, she’ll need to come clean too. As ‘Call’ showed, Tandy hates that idea, and if she doesn’t, her previous tentative relationship with the detective is over – astrology-wise, Mayhem looks like a Solar Leo, the sun lion, which means that on one hand, she loves helping people, for it feeds her inner ego, and on the other, if she ever suspects that anyone is taking advantage of her, she’ll turn on them immediately, for she hates being fooled more than anything else.  Where were we?

Another theme that rose in ‘Call’ is the role of mothers: Tandy’s mom is a more passive version of Tandy herself, complete with the drug addiction but minus the dagger powers; without her cleaning her act, Tandy will never succeed. …In fact, if it was not for the mom discovering her belongings and went on a binge with them, Tandy would have split and left New Orleans back at the series premiere, as soon as everything hit the fan at once. And, considering that Tandy did take to hide her belongings in the first place, means that her mom was, or is, actively looking for them too, which is a different level of wrongness entirely than just stumbling upon it; and once Tandy figures it out, she’ll…have to be the hero, here, take the moral high ground…or she will lose it, and go directly onto the dark side, Sith-style, (she already got the swords/daggers/whatever). Go team Tandy.

On the other hand, we got Ty and his mother, who pulled him and his father out of squalor and ensured that they are people to be respected and reckoned with, at least by material standards. Materialistically, Ty is better off than Tandy is, but this does not change the fact that he is still angry at the world for its unfairness… but then again – off topic – the world is unfair, it always is unfair, and all the attempts in real life to change it into a fairer one did not work, but rather backfired. The USSR was one of those events. The current version of USA is another…only now the backlash is beginning. You can rush headfirst into a utopia and think that everything will work as planning and that everyone will be happy, but the actual result? You can see it in contemporary real life America for yourself – just read the current news.

Back to ‘C&D’? Ty is trying to overcome his innate fears of cops as he goes to meet detective Mayhem in regards to Tandy’s case, (without knowing all of the details, mind). Judging by the promo ad at the end of ‘Call’, it will be a mixed success, at least initially. Considering that Ty is still cautious around cops, this can still go south, and considering that his arch nemesis the crooked cop will probably be around the precinct at just the right time to overhear him for plot progression, and…we’ll just have wait for the next week’s episode to see if it happens.

Anything else? ‘Luke Cage’ S2 is airing today on Netflix™, and compared to ‘C&D’, it is the better Marvel™ show. Why? Because it is.

Facepalm. Phrasing. But! If ‘C&D’ was supposed to address the various ills of the contemporary American society, and show it in all of its’ glory, then the various Marvel™ Netflix™ shows did it too, and for much longer; all of them have at least one season under their belts, they have more experience than ‘C&D’ does, and it shows. Plus - Marvel™.

It may sound like something uttered by Captain Obvious, but part of the reason why the viewers want to see all of these shows and movies is because MCU is building upon the well-established comic franchise. People already know Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, the Runaways and so on, and they want to see them live on TV too – and Marvel™ obliges, on its own, or in partnership with various other companies, including Netflix™, and now, in case of ‘C&D’, Freeform™. Only, in case of ‘C&D’ and Freeform™, where is the Marvel™?

Oh, it is there, to be sure, but so far? It is more of a salad dressing, as the ‘C&D’ cast and crew are concerned, apparently, but that is not what the viewers want…as the numbers show. They did get better after the previous episode, ‘Stained Glass’, but are still very low, lower than for AoS’ S5. Considering that we are talking about a seriously low bar here, the failure here sucks even more. Anything else?

Again, ‘Jessica Jones’, for all of its’ own problems, began to tackle the gender inequality problems in the U.S. society before ‘C&D’ did; ‘Luke Cage’ does the same for racial inequality, and as its’ S2 shows, the folks at the Netflix™ and Marvel™ tandem took notice of ‘Jessica Jones’ S2 problems – lack of a coherent villain, lack of ties with the general ‘Defenders’ universe – and fixed them. Good for them. And ‘C&D’? So far we got nothing specifically Marvel™ aside from the titular characters, (and maybe detective Mayhem, cough), and that is not what the viewers want. Not from a technically Marvel™ show, anyhow. If they wanted something else, there is plenty to choose from on TV, and that is what they do – they watch something else, which is not what ‘C&D’ needs, after all…

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon, hopefully!

S.H.I.E.L.D. S3 finale revisited - May 18

After the recent events, let us talk about the S3 finale in greater detail.

Firstly, Daisy Johnson. In many ways, DJ seems to have become whom she had hated the most – Grant Ward; maybe now she understood what it means to be him, at least to a point: unlike Kara, Grant hadn’t been brainwashed by the Faustus’ method, but conditioned and trained in a more old-fashioned way: for all of his flaws, he admitted to Skye that he hadn’t been brainwashed and had his free will (at least to a point). Leaving aside the fact that how does a person know that he had been brainwashed, it makes the show’s treatment of Ward only more hypocritical and the treatment of Daisy – only more prejudiced – in a favored, positive way, but still prejudiced and flawed. (Hell, Coulson did not treat Lincoln all that fine too – but this is a different plot line, we will talk about it when we get to Lincoln.) Yes, Daisy had been ‘swayed’ by Hive, but that doesn’t make it okay – yet Coulson and the others try to be nice to Daisy, to pretend that it is okay and to sweep it under the rug, so in the end it’s May who gives her former protégé some direction in which to go from – to make it up. This makes Daisy a ‘Black Widow’ kind of character, and one wonders why the writers didn’t do the same to Grant, but let’s just accept that they had designed him as a villain of some sort since S1, and then messed it up by making him sympathetic…perhaps more sympathetic than they have intended. Grant became a controversial character… but we will get to him later on.

The entire Grant/Daisy dynamic aside, there is also the matter of… Jessica Jones, which is another part of MCU. If you put Grant out of the brackets (the man is finally dead…one hopes), then Daisy became Jessica, and Hive – Killgrave. Seriously, watch JJ S1 on Netflix (or from other sources, of course) and the similarities between JJ and DJ will be obvious, while Mack, (on AoS) became a Luke Cage like character from JJ. The difference here is that in JJ, the titular heroine had saved…well, everyone that Killgrave had enslaved through his spores, while in AoS it was Daisy who had to be rescued – by Andrew/Lash in ‘Emancipation’, and then helped by Mack (not that Daisy/Mack is a bad ship, but still), and May, and finally, it was Lincoln (i.e. another man) who had to save everyone. How nice and…conservative. Whedon and co. tried to present Grant as some sort of a misogynist from time to time. One cannot help but feel that Whedon is a misogynist here instead, much more so than Grant ever was.

Flashing forward? More of the same. Daisy has apparently became a vigilante, just as Jessica became at the beginning of her show…which does tie into the Civil War theme – registration and co. Now AoS will have their internal conflict, and also a way to present the same situation from different angles…just as they have used Grant in S2 and the first half of S3. Fair enough, and hopefully they will not kill off Daisy in S4, because there are only so many ways one can go with her character now – they will either make a her a part of ‘the team’ once more…or not, in which case she will probably fall, alone, or…join the Avengers, perhaps?

This brings an important point: MCU is continuing to deviate further away from the comic canon. Hydra is gone, (well, for now – as Grant had shown in the beginning of S3, all you need to resurrect it are some thugs and a stencil of a stylized portrait of Hive), for example, and Rogers is alive. The movie’s producers gave some decent reasoning for Steve’s continued survival, but it is still a deviation, and the transformation of Daisy’s character, is another deviation. Just read ‘Secret Warriors’ comics to see the differences.

One can ask, what is the problem here? It is not so much of a problem, as a complication: some people will just go with the flow and enjoy the show… or they will not and stop watching it altogether, perhaps precisely because of this deviation: as far as ratings went, the S3 season finale managed to beat ‘Watchdogs’ by 0.02 million viewers, but it still quite a bit lower than the S2 finale was, for example. Now that Blood (Lance Hunter) and Palicki (Bobbi Morse) have left the show, the ratings have recovered, some, but they are still lower than they were even at the end of S2 – and the staff of AoS knows it. In the future, AoS will be running at 10 pm, rather than 9, and be darker and edgier. Again, this makes it different from AC, but ‘Agent Carter’ was cancelled. Pity, perhaps it could have been better than AoS.

Take, for example, the S3 finale – the fast pace of the double feature was very exciting, but also quite exhaustive even for the audience. Does it work to keep up drama and excitement? Yes, but it doesn’t quite replace the content: for example, May’s mourning of Andrew/Lash was reduced to a single shot in ‘Emancipation’, and as for the S3 finale proper? The entire attempt to defeat Hive with its’ hosts’ memories was kind of pointless and went nowhere, in no small part because Hive wanted to be captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. so that he would unleash havoc and ‘Primitives’ upon them. Couldn’t something else, something that did not tie onto Grant, had been used?

Well, maybe not. Ever since Grant’s turn to dark side back in second half of S1 the show’s writers had tried to introduce an ‘anti-Grant’ onto the show, as Daisy’s love interest, perhaps. First, there was Trip – but then he died in the S2 mid-season finale…just because. Maybe AoS couldn’t handle two Afro-American actors in its cast? Mack took over as Daisy’s partner (and potential love interest?) in S3, but it was not the same, especially once Slingshot appeared as his love interest, especially since she did not die in S3 finale. That said, Trip never became Daisy’s love interest in S2, and neither did Mack, not really – that role went to Lance, and then – to Lincoln.

Seriously, if you watch the opening episodes of S2, then Daisy’s attitude towards Lance was like that she had with Lincoln for the second half of S3. Lance could’ve made a good ‘anti-Ward’, but then along came Bobbi, and the possibility of their own show, so Lance’s romance with Daisy vanished, and instead along came Lincoln, who died at the end of S3, just as Kara died in the end of S2, leaving Daisy devastated, as Kara did for Grant. …Yes, Daisy/Quake will not become a new Grant – i.e. a villain, hopefully, especially since she already did this in the second half of S3, thanks to Hive, but the similarities are there. Moreover, they are blatantly obvious: AoS disrespects its’ characters, unlike ‘Blindspot’, ‘Quantico’, or even ‘Killjoys’ – maybe that is why the ratings are falling? Who knows?

 Back to Lincoln? He became the ‘anti-Ward’, more or less, especially after Lance (and Bobbi) left the show. For, for as long as ‘the HuntingBird’ couple were on the show, Lance apparently got some of Lincoln’s lines and plotlines – AoS always had problems balancing out its cast, especially when it became large (10) in the S3 beginning, so it isn’t really surprising that ‘the fat’ was ‘trimmed’.

(Also – Palicki is more of a movie actress than a TV one. Ditto for Blood. That may too have been a factor in why ‘Most Wanted’ failed to launch – twice).

It is not likely that they will return to the series, especially since Palicki/Bobbi did not become ‘The Mockingbird’, no matter if she had been called this unofficially on various sites – the AoS itself did not call it this. Instead, Melinda May, Ms. Wen, became ‘The Cavalry’ – perhaps Bobbi/Palicki was supposed to star on Coulson’s team since S1? This could have made Ward much less sympathetic from the start, but instead things worked out in canon as they did, (May, Morse and 33 may have done something of a musical chair in S2), and Morse came out as a somewhat controversial character, at least for some viewers – and MCU does not like controversies. Nowadays, Hydra is gone, Grant is gone, and so’s Bobbi, alongside Lance.

The same goes for Lincoln/Luke. Just as in S2 were signs that Morse was supposed to be with Coulson from the start, and May – with Gonzales, S3 has signs that Brett wasn’t supposed to become Hive in the second half of S3, but remain Grant, albeit with powers of his own, all the way until the end. Brett, however, probably had it with character assassination, so Grant died in mid-S3 finale and Brett became Hive instead, making some of his best acting performances in AoS. Also, his last, (most likely), because not even Hive can survive a nuclear explosion in space. Yet…

Yet Grant Ward has appeared in AoS comics – as a double agent of Hydra for S.H.I.E.L.D., perhaps? He is certainly more redeemable and likable than how the show tried to present him. What gives? AoS show and comics are diverging further apart themselves, and making it all more confusing.

And as for Lincoln, then yes, he did become some sort of an ‘anti-Ward’ – and then died. As a hero, yes, but on his own. He was not part of the team, not ‘a piece of the puzzle’, which goes against the show’s own canon. Why?

Well, probably because Luke (i.e. Lincoln) did not want to be a part of the show anymore? Certainly, the twist where Lincoln decided not to stay with Coulson, despite his love for Daisy, was unfounded, but this is typical of AoS twists – they are not just unnecessary, but they are also unfounded. It is unknown, just who decided to keep AoS and let AC go, but it was a dumb idea. The AoS S4 is in the works. Just how successful it will be, and whether there will be a S5 is another story.

So. Skye/Daisy had experienced character assassination of her own and has come out broken. Lincoln is dead. AoS continues with plot twists, and has added episode pacing to them – some episodes go much faster, others – much slower, than the rest. Just like the plot twist idea, this idea is ambiguous and can go either way.

Finally, the old idea – of ‘Daisy and her men’, which was one of the major elements of the S2 and 3 plot – has been thrown out, and Daisy’s career and her relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. got restarted completely; AoS probably got restarted completely, with a brand new plot, just as it was supposed to do in S3, but instead it became an extension of S2, with plenty of old S2 ideas recycled for a newer, S3 season. Good luck to AoS with the upcoming S4 – it will most likely need it.

S.H.I.E.L.D., The Team - April 19

And so, lo and behold – the revenge of Grant Ward from beyond the grave, bitches! Coulson had killed him – and Hive took over from where he had left off and delivered in style. Last episode, he had Guyerra beat the shite out of everyone, including Mack and May and Coulson; in this episode, he uses Daisy/Skye to do the same thing to S.H.I.E.L.D. Go Hive! The next promo shows him alongside Daisy, while Lincoln is intent on getting her back, so odds are that within the last four episodes of S3 Lincoln will do this – just in time. He has already showed quite a bit of character growth, staying with S.H.I.E.L.D. (though he had zapped the shite out of Coulson, so the two of them may be good because of that too) despite Daisy’s seductions, and-

Moreover, the problem is not that the writers (or so some people think) are trying to assassinate Grant’s character, or to make him into someone like Killgrave from JJ…well, actually, that is the problem. They are unoriginal and are constantly rehashing the material from the first two seasons – anyone who had seen the last few episodes of S1 in particular will recognize the parallels (and John Garrett is laughing his ass off in Hell as he is enjoying the view of Daisy quaking S.H.I.E.L.D.’s HQ from his personal rack or cauldron of tar or whatever), but it doesn’t mean that they’ll enjoy it. They just may want original material, not more rehash of the same old. (Including the Clairvoyance/the sight of the future bit after 2-3 seasons it is getting old, if AoS will return for a 4^th season they will have to come with something original…hopefully).

On the other hand…there is little to no other hand. The show is still limited by the matters of cast (and cash): yes, the Secret Warriors kick ass, but, apparently, their tenure as regulars on the show is still not established: Joey wants officially out of it all, and Elena has her own doubts. Malick, speaking of outs, is dead at last, so Coulson had just shot his mouth to the deceased head of Hydra for nothing.

Well, maybe not for ‘nothing’ – maybe Malick had told him about Hive, something important (and how does Coulson know about Hive to begin with? Randolph from 3x02?), but he was the head of Hydra: WTF Coulson trusted him in the first place? The man believes anyone, it seems, except for Grant Ward – at least he has manned up enough to admit that Hive is the one enemy we had made, but he still gives speeches, like the one that he had given to Daisy in the last quarter of this episode…only Daisy was under Hive’s ‘sway’ this entire time, Coulson’s speech was wasted, just as his time with Malick had been, most likely: here he was, trying to trick Malick into selling Hive out for revenge – and along comes Daisy and kills Malick dead. And then she also blows him up to confuse her teammates, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Secret Warriors. Coulson and his people seem to be reminiscent of Kerensky and his failed democratic regime in the pre-U.S.S.R. Russia.

To elaborate, after the Romanov royal family had resigned from their rule (no, seriously, this is what they have done) and before the Bolsheviks had seized power, the Russian elite, aristocracy and intelligentsia tried to establish a democratic government in Russia. The result was not unlike what happed about 70 years later, during the Perestroika and Yeltsin’s regime: anarchy, but for a shorter chronological period. That democratic regime in Russia lasted for a very short chronological period, and it remains a sign of incompetence, political and otherwise, in the Russian culture to this day. S.H.I.E.L.D., in ‘The Team’ and ‘Spacetime’ seems to have become just as incompetent, with its members liable to turn upon each other easily: the InHuman Secret Warriors may be infected by Hive, according to a Hydra head? Let us hide it from them, make it an unnecessary mess, and turn upon them – with sleeping gas and whatnot. Great teamwork, DC; I hope that Hive beats the shite out of you in Grant’s body the next time you meet.

So: S.H.I.E.L.D.’s feud with Hive (in Grant’s body) seems to be reaching its’ peak, and right now the agents appear to be incompetent hypocrites, and with 4 episodes to go, it gives plenty of time for the writers and similar staff to further assassinate their characters. I can hardly wait. Not.