S.H.I.E.L.D., Love - March 24

And so, the exciting rollercoaster that is the “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” TV series continue! 

First of all, however, my apologies on missing last week’s episode due to a blackout. Pity. Cal Johnson tried to round-up a group of super-villains to stop Coulson and his team, but failed. That is disturbing, and not just for our heroes, who will now have to worry about people with powers going after them on top of regular villains, but also for the fans of the Marvel-verse: are the Inhumans the new mutants? X-Men movie/Marvel franchise is not doing that great – Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Mystique, is about to quit for example – but to replace them with Inhumans role-wise? That does not sound right.

Back to this week’s episode, Coulson and his team are in trouble once more. Contrary to the episode’s title (more on that later), new their problems are not from an external source (like Hydra), but from the inside: a schism is brewing in S.H.I.E.L.D., with Mack and Morse throwing their lot with the schismatics, who think that Coulson is not that good of a leader. Considering how much the “Agents” scriptwriters love to throw curveballs at their audience, maybe they are (the schismatics) correct. Still, considering that their M.O. is turning onto anyone they do not trust (Hunter can been handcuffed in a closet during last week’s episode, for example), and that includes Skye, (who cannot catch a break lately, let us be fair), the odds are set against them, in terms of viewers’ sympathy. In terms of material belongings, planning and the like, however, the separatists are in a different situation: they got, apparently, an aviation carrier with plenty of airplanes to use it upon, and with plenty of crew to run it. True, the Playground, where Coulson currently at, is very formidable, but that will probably not be enough...

On a more personal level, Hunter and Morse have appeared to have broken up over this – Hunter is going pro-Coulson, while Morse is clearly contra-. The actors, of course, have delivered wonderfully upon this, but the scriptwriters haven’t: why is exactly Hunter is so pro-Coulson? ...The problem here is the lack of back-story of Hunter (and Morse): they were an item at one time, then they broke-up and Hunter became involved with Isabelle Hartley, who died in the beginning of S2, (because she was played by Lucy Lawless, and guest stars’ characters tend not to last long on “Agents”), and then, during S2, Hunter and Morse got back. Fine, but why they did not stay together this time? Because Hunter was kept out of the loop by her and Mack? Because he was handcuffed in a closet – or because of Coulson? Some further elaboration would be nice, as “S.H.I.E.L.D.” s2 continues to proceed.

Even now, however, some presumptions can be made: namely that as the ship HunterMorse is sunk, so is the ship SkyeWard: Morse and Hunter have split up, and Ward has given up on Skye, and is doing his best to bond with agent 33/Kara instead. Considering that Skye has shot him, this makes sense. Considering that Ward and Kara have this sort of an Angel(us)/Drusilla dynamic going on as well, the odds of Skye running into Hunter and starting a new relationship with him in the future episodes is very good. 

(Don’t forget – “Agents” got Josh Whedon on their side, the man who split up Buffy with Angel and set her up with Spike, whose British accent surfaced very noticeably in Hunter during “Love...” this week.)

And then, of course, we got the “Love” from the episode’s title – and the episode featured only two couples (as couples): Hunter/Morse and Ward/33, with Skye being the odd one out – but she had a protégé/guru thing going with Coulson himself, so it’s clear that whatever love Skye is going to experience in the future, it won’t be with Ward...

Of course, we also got general Talbot and his wife (as a couple) in this episode as well: Ward and 33 have kidnapped Bakshi from Talbot so that Kara would get closure by subjecting Bakshi to torture. Let’s be honest – she earned it, and Bakshi has officially become pathetic, now that Whitehall is dead, and the immediate Hydra inner circle that was under him, was destroyed by S.H.I.E.L.D. Good riddance to bad rubbish in Bakshi’s case!..

And in case of Talbot, the good general and his wife were this episode’s comic relief: it is not that Talbot is incompetent, his character is, as 33 and Ward were able to fool him easily enough. Talbot is the Sheriff of Nottingham and not even the competent Vaisey from BBC’s series, but the buffoon of the traditional Robin Hood stories instead. Sucks to be him – almost as much as it sucks to be Bakshi...

As for the rest of the main cast of “Agents”? Coulson and May have realized that something is wrong with Mack at least but Mack has learned that Skye was shuffled sideways to clear the air at S.H.I.E.L.D., and in combination with Hunter flying the coup; this has served as a detonator instead. Coulson and May and their team are up to their toughest challenge yet – their fellow agents.

...True, Ward, and Garrett, and the others had been fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as well, at least initially, but then they defected over to Hydra (or were Hydra to begin with), so it was easier to deal with them as enemies instead. With Mack, and Morse, and the others things will not be as black and white – but that is what you get when you live in shadows: eventually everything starts to appear grey...

So: Ward has given up on Skye, (while Coulson didn’t), Hunter has given up on Morse, Morse, Mack, and their fellow separatists have given up on Coulson and his loyalists, and everyone and everything is ready to blow on the next episode of Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”!

S.H.I.E.L.D., Who - March 10

And so, having dealt with Hydra in the previous episode, now S.H.I.E.L.D has turned their attention to the sky – and the alien menace. In the case of this episode, the aliens are represented by a pair – lady Sif of the Asgardians, who was already introduced in the last season’s episode ‘Yes Men’ and Thor-related Marvel™ movies – and her current foe, a Kree, an alien who looks like a human, but with blue skin. (Then again, Asgardians do not have even that – they are some of the most human looking of all aliens in Marvel™ world.) Armed with a truncheon, he was likely to be intended a sort of a parody of Thor, a watered-down version of him, so to speak, one that could be defeated by humans, as Morse and Hunter did exactly that – but first...

But first the two aliens gave the back-story to the new plot twist of the series: the Inhumans, like Raina and Skye, were designed to be bioweapons of Kree against their enemies (like the Skrulls, who have not appeared yet on the series). As such, they are very dangerous and must be put down. (A sentiment echoed by agents Mack, Morse and for the moment Simmons as well.) Coulson, being who he is, has refused to put Skye down – or to ship her to Asgard, where she would be contained. 

As a side note the team has also discovered that the Kree had left several Diviners back on Earth and all of them had been misplaced. One, of course, had been destroyed by Tripp, but that still leaves five or six others completely unaccounted for. S.H.I.E.L.D has sunk the temple used to activate the Diviners beneath the sea, but in Marvel™ such actions often have unforeseen after-effects as well...

In any case, lady Sif has returned home, taking the Kree with her, leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. to deal with Skye. This is important, and not just for the obvious reasons: the team is in danger of splitting again. As it happens in the world of “Agents”, as long as the agents work together, they can achieve anything, and defeat anyone using trust and teamwork; when they stop doing that, they gain problems. At this moment in S2, they have problems.

The team is clearly split in their opinion on Skye and the other Inhumans: Mack, and Morse, and for the moment Simmons are clearly against them, while Fitz is firmly on team Skye. Jemma Simmons is clearly upset about this, and so the ship FitzSimmons is acquiring further complications of their own, as well as complicating the general split over Skye and Inhumans for everyone else.

On the other hand, FitzSimmons’ problems pale in comparison to HunterMorse ship and their problems. Hunter and Morse are clearly lovers at this point, but Mack, who is friends with Morse, does not want Hunter to be in on whatever they are doing and in fact has choked him into unconsciousness at the end of this episode. The secret – and plot – of Mack and Morse at this point is something or someone called Backup; their actions are reminiscent of Hydra back in S1...hopefully, this will not be like that in the upcoming episodes, and not just because of the obvious reasons. A big part of “Agents” attraction is that they are unpredictable and capable of unexpected twists in their plot, unlike “Carter”, which was not (except for the season finale, perhaps). A repetition of the second half in S1 in the second half of S2 would diminish this attraction quite a bit. 

That said, Mack had not killed Hunter, which is a plus, and it makes him different from Ward, who had killed agent Koenig #1 back in S1. This suggests that whatever Mack and Morse are in is not too Hydra-like, and it also gives an opening, or suggests one, for a future HunterSkye ship.

Seriously, both Skye and Hunter had been betrayed by their significant others. (Morse may not have been around, when Mack overwhelmed the other man, but she did take his side over Hunter and did not bring him into the loop). And “Agents” are run by Whedon, who has been known to set up complicated love relationships back in BtVS (Buffy/Angel/Spike and Willow and her numerous significant others come to mind) – why not here? And Ward is not around for the moment either as well.

Ward’s absence is interesting. While the rest of the team continues to grow and develop as a team and on their own, he is not. He is out of it, licking his wounds, and bonding with agent 33 in a best-case scenario. When earlier in S2 he had escaped from Talbot’s soldiers and S.H.I.E.L.D. people, he was shown to be more competent than either of these groups, at least on a certain level. Now...who knows?

Speaking of personal development, May has acquired some – in this episode, she appeared to be more talkative and humane, especially when compared to Sif. Perhaps all of the proximity to Coulson, and Skye, and even Fitz is paying off. 

And so, May has acquired some personal development, Ward has not. The plot of Morse and Mack is progressing; the relationship between Morse and Hunter is deteriorating, as the relationship of Fitz and Simmons. Lady Sif has arrived, fought with Vin-Tak the Kree and left. The agents have remained behind, and with Skye currently staying in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s holding cell in isolation, things are certainly looking bleak for them, even if one looks away from the rising infighting. We will just have to wait and see as to what will happen next.

S.H.I.E.L.D., Aftershocks - March 3

And so it happened that “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” have come back. No offense to “Agent Carter”, but her show just was not on par with this one.

Where are we standing with “Agents”? When we last saw them, Skye/Daisy and Raina had activated the Obelisk/Diviner, which transformed them, but with different effects. Raina was transformed...into a chupacabra, (no, seriously!), while Skye remained the same externally, yet gained the power to manifest vibrations, powerful enough to shatter glass (and that is just a start!). Her biological faster, Dr. Johnson (a super-villain in his own right), is enthusiastic about this (despite the fact that he is probably bipolar), and plans to involve his former cohorts at the Index to get his daughter to come to him. 

Now, let us leave Skye for the moment (she spent this episode recuperating in the quarantine, so she needs her rest), and turn to Raina. She was not a really sympathetic character, but rather one of the opponents of Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. Yet, as some of the earlier (last year’s episodes) had revealed, while Skye had her friends and extended family to support her, Raina had no one; if Garrett had survived the end of S1, things might’ve been different, but he hadn’t so, Raina ended up on her own by the mid-S2 finale, with nothing but her faith in the Diviner to keep her going, and that backfired on her in a big way. Until this episode, Raina may have been ugly on the inside, but she was beautiful on the outside, and now she is ugly (or, at best, exotic) on the outside...and on the inside?

Raina is in quite a fix, but she has been given the opportunity to start a new life – literally. It will be up to her now to decide whether she can be beautiful on the inside, or not. Of course, she can also die, but now that her fellow Inhuman (forget spoilers, let us call them what they are) has saved her (from the lesser agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), literally swept her off her feet and called her beautiful, she is likely to hang around for another episode or two yet, before she makes her choice or has it made for her, or something.

If the Inhumans are on their way in (Jemma Simmons has already used the word in yesterday’s episode), then Hydra is on its way out – Ward and 33 (Kara Lynn) didn’t even appear in “Aftershocks”, and other Hydra bigwigs were either killed by S.H.I.E.L.D. or by their own, due to an elaborate plot/provocation staged by S.H.I.E.L.D....in a manner similar to how people died in the beginning of S2 due to the Diviner, so some residue of late Whitehall’s involvement with the alien artefacts has seeped down Hydra’s echelons...to their sorrow. Hydra, probably, is not finished per se, but its danger to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the rest of the world has become much lesser... probably. Given the fact how much S.H.I.E.L.D. scriptwriters and producers like twists, Grant Ward might arrive in a nick of time, for example, and revive Hydra at someone else’s expense.

And how did S.H.I.E.L.D. get the better of Hydra in this instance? By teamwork, cooperation and mutual trust. Their team bonds have enabled them to flawlessly fool Bakshi, (though let us not forget that they had him only thanks to Ward), as well as the rest of Hydra. As always, whenever S.H.I.E.L.D. team works together, they are invincible, and as always, they are suffering from internal problems. Nowadays, it Bobbi Morse the Mockingbird and Mack. They may be in some sort of a support group, but Mack has also determined that Coulson has “Fury’s toolbox”, and whatever plans he and Bobbi have up their sleeves, they probably are not benign...

And we also got new fractions (or factions) in the main team. It is Simmons’ turn to befriend Mack over their mutual and new distrust of alien artefacts and technology. Interestingly, in S1 Simmons was all for using alien technology (and anything else) in order to make Earth a better place. Now, she has apparently undergone a 180 degrees turn and wants to destroy it all - including Raina. Skye, has also become someone alien, is less than enthusiastic about this, and has Fitz’s support for some reason. (You would think that Leo would support Mack and Jemma in their new anti-alien enterprise, but no. The ship FitzSimmons has sprung a leak that is more serious than what it looks like at a first glance.)

Let us sum up. Hydra is out. (Except for Ward and 33/Kara Lynn). The Inhumans are in. And S.H.I.E.L.D. is beginning to be split between Mack & Simmons, Fitz & Skye, and Coulson & everyone else. Plus, Mack, and Bobbi, (and maybe Lance Hunter) seem to be following their own agenda – which may belong to another group (i.e. Hydra, AIM), but it may foreshadow, instead, an internal split in S.H.I.E.L.D. rather than an external invasion: Coulson can be toppled and kicked out of power from the inside as well – we’ll just have to wait and see.

Until the next time!

Twilight Sparkle vs. Godless Communism

And so, the fifth season of MLP: FIM is coming upon us in 2015. Already, a trailer has been released (in a manner of speaking). In it, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of her team are about to face-off with... the Godless Communism.

Well, no, it will not be denounced directly as that, not on a children’s show, but otherwise... In the trailer, the Elements will come to another pony settlement, whose inhabitants have given away their cutie marks (marks of their individualities) in favor of monotony – the sign of equality (two parallel black bars). They all behave distinctly brainwashed too, even in the trailer, so whatever this town may stand for, it isn’t democracy; and the fact that it is run by a mayor Marx (who is probably a villain – or one of them – of the episode), it probably doesn’t stand for  Nazism either (not on this occasion). 

What can be said? Yes, propaganda is an appropriate federal tool for the USA as well as for any other country, and yes, since the third team of president Putin the relationship between the RF, the EU and the USA have become strained, so some anti-communism slathering is just what the politicians have ordered. But!

Firstly of all, the US is supposed to be better than Them. Do Americans really have to drum the concept of “individuality good, indistinction bad” as such an early age? What, or rather – whom do they expect to raise with such an approach? A variant breed of Orwell’s sheep? “Four legs good, two legs bad”. No, wait – “four legs good, two legs better”! Yeah, that did not work as expected, but that is the only way indoctrination works, whether it is done by the Russian state, the American, or some private company, firm or sect. 

And second, lately the propaganda war is not being waged too successfully by the US. Setting aside the already-established fact that the individualistic Americans tend not react in a positive way when the American government tells them what to do directly – they go and begin to act in a clearly contrary manner – the thing is that lately the American propaganda didn’t work all that well.

As an example, Deadliest Warrior (DW) tried its best to present the States as unbeatable ever since their S1 episode had the American Green Berets lose to the Russian Spetznaz. Naturally, the Americans became upset, and by S3 DW did its best to show the Americans as unbeatable. The result?

A series of rather crude propaganda pieces, and not very successful either – i.e. NKSOF was defeated by the US Rangers only by 0.5%. 0.5%! Keep in mind, that this was some time before the end of 2014, when in connection with “The Interview” movie North Korea had almost put the global community in its place. Ouch!

Needless to say, DW did not fare so good – it was cancelled after the 3^rd season and has not been renewed. Oh sure, the various games that were inspired by it still hang around – if you like playing a bloke fighting other blokes to establish their hierarchy that is the game for you; and if not, there’s always Deadliest Battle, where Rogue fights Wonder Woman, Batman – Captain America, and Gaara – Toph. No political subtext there, no indeed!..

Getting back to propaganda, that discrepancy with reality has plagued the American world for quite a while now. The Punisher and Rambo can kick Vietnamese arse in films and comics as much as they want – in real life the Vietnam War was lost by the USA. DW – that was already discussed above; “The Interview” – that did backfire on Sony very badly, and it was only some real-life Western backbone that the rest of the world was not hit as well; and now – MLP: FIM. Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the elements vs. the Godless Communism in its’ child-friendly incarnation. Ayn Rand and her novella Anthem are spinning in her grave, most likely.

Sigh. On the theme of propaganda, Anthem was a fine piece, completely detached from reality and dedicated to fighting the evils of indistinction in the name of godly individuality and ego. It did not use any colorful ponies to get its point across. It was not trying to adapt to the current global situation either, unlike “The Last Ship” the TV series (the original novel is something). Twilight Sparkle? With the beginning of S5 of MLP: FIM, you just might have been had.

On the theme of MLP: FIM villains. In the first three/four seasons, the elements of the stable and unchanging Equestria fought and defeated villains who were much more malleable: Nightmare Moon, who could turn into fog or other ponies; Discord, who is pretty much protean in shape; Chrysalis and her Changelings, who made change or metamorphosis into their trademark power; and Sombra, who alternated between a unicorn stallion and a cloud of darkness. See the theme? The arrival of Tirek shook that up, and so yes, Twilight Sparkle’s upcoming battle with Godless Communism, Equestria-style, is also a change – now we will only have to see if it is for better or worse.

End

Agent Carter - general remarks

And so, with LG taking a midseason hiatus (never mind that it is the last season of the show, so there really is not any need for a hiatus), things are rather slow in the TV land. True, there is Marvel’s Agent Carter airing, but despite it being the same solid piece of work as S.H.I.E.L.D., there is something missing from this show, some sort of a spark.

Let us rewind: Howard Stark, (the father of Iron Man), has been framed, (supposedly) into being a terrorist of some sort. He gets Peggy Carter to clear his name and to recover his stolen inventions. Peggy has to outrun both the bad guys (communists rather than Nazis here), and the SSR (the prototype S.H.I.E.L.D.) with the help of Jarvis, Howard’s human butler (unlike his son’s version, which is an AI). 

Sounds exciting? It is, yet despite all of that, plus historical accuracy of the series, plus a rather lively cast of actors, plus the show’s address of such important issues as gender equality back in the early Cold War era, the show somehow remains less exciting and interesting than S.H.I.E.L.D. was. The characters, they go through their motions, yet the audience does not get touched by them – not really. The fanbase remains largely untouched – Carter is barely more popular (as a show) than ‘Naturally, Sadie’ or P: NW are, even though both shows have been finished, done, ended. Even the online Wikia, or rather – the ‘Fanbrain’ section of it – have gotten somewhat disenchanted with the show, reducing its’ intake of the Carter episodes down to the bare basics: i.e., this is Junior Juniper, who died thusly on the show, while in the comics, he has died thisly – etc. 

So why does this happen? What has gone wrong?

Unlike LG, for example, or Primeval, Carter does not suffer from such problems as continuity, consistency of the cast, or even common sense – everything is solid with her, the character development, as well as the plot, develops and progresses as it is supposed to, one step at a time and no further.

The historical accuracy, the feel of the historical accuracy, rather, is also present in the series without any deviations or inconsistencies. The actors act too just fine, without any over the top or hammy acting, as it happened in other shows, such as Primeval or IP version of Sinbad, for example.

And yet, it is not enough. There are no surprises in Carter, as there are in S.H.I.E.L.D. – you just know that Sousa will figure out that Peggy is a double agent of sorts; that Thompson is going to become more respectful of Peggy, as will chief Dooley; that Peggy will be able to retrieve all of Howard Stark’s missing inventions; etc. There are no surprises, save that Dottie Underwood is an undercover Leviathan or Red Room agent; since she’s also female, odds are that she is going to be the one to have one final showdown with Peggy before the miniseries end. Of course, it’s also possible that Peggy will convert Dottie into a good guy, but unlike Whedon’s earlier series, BtVS and AtS, S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t big on redemptions; odds are, neither is Carter.

There are no surprises, but there is a rush – sort of. Carter is not a hackneyed job and there are not any plotholes, but neither there are any secondary plots; even Sousa trying to figure out if Peggy is the blonde or isn’t, is part of the main plotline: Peggy seeking to outrun both Leviathan and SSR in a race to recover Stark’s stolen inventions. There is Angie, Peggy’s waitress friend, who appears to be somewhat aware that Peggy’s more than what she seems, but because Carter is a mini-series without much time to waste, Angie appears to be largely comic relief for now, as are Peggy’s other neighbours (except for Dottie).

Then there are the special effects and CGI – there almost isn’t any. Carter is very historically realistic, but it is based on a comic series, so historical realism and accuracy is not that important to it. There are no super villains either, not yet, so the comic book element of Carter feels rather downplayed as well.

And the show is predictable, unlike S.H.I.E.L.D. or even LG. You just know that Carter is going to kick the villains’ ass while looking good in it. Some of the good guys are going to die, including SSR agents in the process – and that is another thing.

Because Carter is a mini-series, all of the characters present there are either episodic roles (literally), or main cast, who will likely last until the end. There are no secondary characters, and while the same is largely true for S.H.I.E.L.D., the fact it is a longer, multiseason show, gives it some leeway in that department, for example the Koenig brothers, making it different from Carter, and more exciting too.

And so, Agent Carter does not quite fall short of being a great series, it just is not one. Period. It is a very good series to watch, less so to review, so do not expect too many reviews of it here.

Cheers.