Sunday, May 18, 2014

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 1 Review/Final Sum-Up

(WARNING: SPOILERS (!) for both ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ and ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ ahead!!)


After 22 episodes, the first season of Marvel’s ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ has finally come to an end and boy what a run it has been. In just one season, this spinoff of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was able to establish itself within the continuity of the films and provide an intriguing look into the world through the eyes of normal people, without the need to have the series be centered around a superhero… but then again, that may be the reason why, early on, this show experienced a bit of a struggle critically. It did get fairly good reviews from critics, but it seems as if most audiences weren’t too thrilled by it and from what I kept hearing about online, the word ‘disappointing’ was brought up quite a bit for the first few episodes. But, as the season progressed, those rather negative reviews began to disappear and this show really started to get good once ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ hit theaters, a film that really left quite an impact on both the whole universe and, more importantly, S.H.I.E.L.D. This of course played a huge part in the last few episodes of the show though in the end, I will always defend the first half of this season as being far better than what many were initially saying about it.

First off, I have to address the following sad truth; just like ‘Star Wars Episode I’ and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, this show was WAY too overhyped and as I’ve noted before in the past, overhyping anything will result in it never turning out as well as we all want it to be. I will admit that I too was really anticipating the show, but this was more a case of me not knowing what we would be getting from this show. We knew that it would revolve around Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), returning after apparently dying at the hands of Loki in ‘The Avengers’, and a team of agents as they investigated all of the strange occurrences that went on following the ‘Battle of New York’ but we really didn’t know how this show would handle that scenario and for what it’s worth… I found myself really enjoying the show on a whole. I really liked the idea of a show that explored an established universe further and that we would be able to spend more time in this universe than we would normally get from a two-hour film and while it would be nice to see one of the superheroes from the movies appear from time to time, the show would be able to work if the characters were compelling enough to follow.


But on that note that was sort of the problem that a lot of people apparently had with the show; that it didn’t really feel like it was taking place in the same world as the MCU films and that, aside from Coulson, the other characters were rather bland… well, that’s where I highly disagree because the six main characters in this show were the main reason why I loved it so much. Why would I even be watching this show if I hadn’t cared about the characters so much? To quote Coulson from Episode 14 (T.A.H.I.T.I), they were a ‘family’ and that is why I found them all to be very compelling characters because they had such a great ‘familial bond’. In my review of the pilot episode, I mainly focused on Clark Gregg and Chloe Bennet as the standouts of the cast and over the course of the season, I really liked the connection that Coulson and Skye had, sort of like a ‘father-daughter’ bond, which would make sense considering that the main reason why Skye joined S.H.I.E.L.D. so that she could look for her parents (and it’ll be interesting to see who they are because, in the penultimate episode of the season, it was revealed by one of the main antagonists Raina (Ruth Negga) that Skye’s parents were ‘monsters’ and in the finale Raina visits a man who is apparently Skye’s father). But of course like with pretty much every Whedon production, the whole cast is fantastic with each member standing out in their own unique way. That family dynamic was so strong that when a key twist happened revealing the true nature of one of the characters, it was genuinely surprising and also gut-wrenching at the same time.

This twist occurred in Episode 17, ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’, the first episode following the release of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, the film where we learned that the organization HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., and by the end of the film, S.H.I.E.L.D. was in disarray. In this episode of the show, Coulson and the team learn about this and by the end of it, Coulson sums it up perfectly by saying that their next goal is to ‘survive’, because they know that HYDRA is now a major threat once again. Throughout the season, the team has been investigating into the identity of a mysterious figure known as ‘the Clairvoyant’ who has been seeing ‘everything’ and in this episode, that character was revealed to be John Garrett (Bill Paxton, an excellent addition to the cast for the second half of the season), a S.H.I.E.L.D. revealed to be an agent for HYDRA. While he is taken in custody at the end of the episode, we learn that Agent Ward was also a HYDRA mole as he frees Garrett, setting the stage for the rest of the season. I’ve heard a lot of people say that Ward was a ‘dull’ character up until this point and while I disagree with that (I feel that Brett Dalton was very charismatic in the role), this was a great turn of events and helped establish a great character arc for Ward, who was only arrested in the final episode so I’ll be interested to see what happens after that for him and if he will still play a part in the show.


I will admit that in the first few episodes, some of the six main leads weren’t really given much to do, specifically Fitz and Simmons. While Coulson, May, Ward, and Skye were all given solid screen time  and character development for the first five episodes or so, Fitz and Simmons were just really stuck in the background just doing their jobs and nothing else. Thankfully, that changed with Episodes 6 and 7 (‘F.Z.Z.T.’ and ‘The Hub’ respectively) where the two of them really shined and by episode 8 ‘The Well’ I had become completely invested in all six members of the team and I think that it was that episode that really got me invested in the show as a whole as well… even though this was still around the time when most people weren’t too fond of the show. So when did the show itself start to get really good? Well, I think it was right around the time ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ came out, ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ to be exact, the first episode in the series that really felt like a continuation of the films and giving us a really well-written episode where Coulson and his team deal with the fact that HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and having it end with us learning that one of the six characters that we had grown so attached to was actually with the bad guys. This made for one of the best hours of television this past year.

But no matter what, I will still stand by the first few episodes of this season, when most people were saying that the show was either disappointing or that, to be frank, it just sucked. I just feel that the show was being unfairly criticized for not living up to the lofty expectations that we were all setting for it. Sure, it would’ve been nice to have seen a few more superheroes from time to time, but to me this show is a great example of how you can do a show within a pre-established universe, and a superhero universe at that, and not have it focus on certain characters if you have great writing and I feel that this show fit the bill for that. I didn’t mind the whole idea of them doing a ‘baddie of the week’ thing for the first few episodes and I wasn’t annoyed by them having to frequently reference the films because it did kind of have to do so anyway. After all, this show doesn’t have as big of a budget as the films so we can’t have something as big as ‘The Avengers’ every week (I’m also saying this in response to the numerous criticisms about the show’s visual effects that I kept seeing early on in the season… I thought the visual effects were actually pretty good for a show of this magnitude). It seems like they’re moving away from that, which they certainly did in the second half of this season, but I won’t mind too much if these kinds of episodes still occur from time to time down the road.


I’m really glad to see that this show has really attracted much more positive reactions in recent episodes. But, at the same time, I’m also rather bummed that it did take a long time for that to happen because this is one of those cases, like with another Marvel property, ‘Iron Man 3’, where I feel like this show was better than what everybody was saying about it. Sure, I’m not going to say this show is ‘as good’ as ‘The Avengers’ or any of the MCU films but it really doesn’t have to be. It serves its purpose by running parallel to the films but for also exploring this universe not through the eyes of someone like Iron Man or Captain America but from regular people like everyone’s favorite agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Phil Coulson, and the team of agents that he leads to ‘protect the ordinary from the extraordinary’. This was really the only show these last few months that I watched on a regular basis (sorry fans of ‘Arrow’, but I have no interest in that show at this time) and I’m really excited to see that it has been renewed for a second season (along with another Marvel series, ‘Agent Carter’, that I’m also really interested in seeing as well). I can’t wait to see what happens next on this show and I’m hoping that it will gain a much bigger fan base next season so that it won’t end up like the last few shows that Joss Whedon has produced, like ‘Firefly’ or ‘Dollhouse’; prematurely canceled…

And now, I close this out with my Top 5 personal favorite episodes from Season 1… but first, some honorable mentions…

‘PILOT’


While I was very positive towards the pilot episode of the show, directed by Joss Whedon, it misses out on being in the Top 5 because, like with a lot of other great shows, while it gets the ball rolling, some of the later episodes were just better than this one. However, I still enjoy the pilot episode very much as it introduces us to the team, has plenty of funny moments (like when Ward is injected with the ‘truth serum’ that apparently wasn’t real as we learn two episodes later in ‘The Asset’), and paves the way for a few intriguing character mysteries, most importantly how Coulson survived his death in ‘Avengers’. It did what pilot episodes are supposed to do… set the stage for what will come in later episodes.

‘F.Z.Z.T.’


Earlier I mentioned that in the first few episodes of the show, Fitz and Simmons really didn’t get much to do and that changed with this episode (as well as the next one ‘The Hub’ which isn’t an Honorable Mention or in my Top 5) where both of them really shined, especially Simmons, who in this episode ends up getting infected by a virus that has been killing people that came from a Chitauri helmet recovered from the ‘Battle of New York’. We really see the connection that Simmons has with Fitz, who risks his own life to help his friend before she ends up being a victim of the virus as well. Both Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge did phenomenal jobs in this episode, which at the time I proclaimed to be the best episode yet… though some even better episodes soon came afterwards.

‘REPAIRS’


It’s safe to say that Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) has been one of the most popular new characters on this show, and I can see why. Ming-Na gives the character a real badass but also stoic persona that makes you interested in finding out what happened to her a while back that led to her initially not wanting to go back into the field back in Episode 1 (and heck, even why she’s known as ‘The Calvary’). This episode gave us our first clue into her past as the team investigates a series of explosions that are linked to a girl named Hannah, though we learn that they were actually caused by one of her co-workers, who was actually trying to protect her. Definitely one of the best episodes of the first half of this season, ‘Repairs’ was a very good episode giving us insight into one of the most popular characters on the show though it does feel like there’s more to May than what we learned from this episode.

‘END OF THE BEGINNING’


The final episode that aired before the release of ‘Captain America 2’, this episode was the first time where the writers really hinted at the darker things that were occurring in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Coulson, his team, and their allies begin searching for the Clairvoyant. This episode has a lot of great character moments, some interesting reveals (like how May was in contact with Nick Fury because he had her keeping watch over Coulson following his resurrection), and a pretty effective and creepy cameo from Brad Dourif as a man who was suspected to be the Clairvoyant… until we learn that the Clairvoyant was actually amongst them the whole time and was even an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. It ends on a great cliffhanger as the team finds themselves in a situation where they have absolutely no idea what’s going on… until the next episode, of course.

Top 5 Favorite Episodes

5. THE WELL (Episode 8)


No, you didn’t read that wrong, one of my favorite episodes of this season was episode 8, ‘The Well’, which was promoted as being a tie-in to the then recently released ‘Thor: The Dark World’… though, as the critics as this episode will no doubt point out, this didn’t really connect that much to the film. The episode revolved around Coulson’s team who are basically brought in to ‘clean up’ the mess after the final battle of ‘Thor 2’, and they come across a mysterious Asgardian staff that gives its user super strength but also fuels them with rage… yeah, I don’t recall anything like that being mentioned or shown in ‘Thor 2’… but anyway, despite the fact that this episode didn’t really tie-in to the movie that much, I really enjoyed this episode for other reasons. As I mentioned earlier, it was at this point in the season when I truly became invested in the six main characters and I felt that this episode offered a solid story arc for Ward as we began to delve into his troubled past… which came into play yet again in a later episode, ‘Ragtag’. Overall, this was a nice little character-driven episode with some great direction from ‘Star Trek’ alum Jonathan Frakes.

Plus, considering how Ward was acting like an angry Bruce Banner at points, I couldn’t resist making this joke via Twitter…



4. T.R.A.C.K.S. (Episode 13)


Here we had a pretty darn good episode where the team boards a train as part of their investigation of the Clairvoyant. There were a few aspects of this episode that I really liked; I liked how it continuously returned to a certain moment, giving us the full picture of the situation that Coulson’s team was getting into as all of them were split up into teams (plus we had a nice little cameo from good old Stan Lee… that’s always nice). The episode also ended on a pretty shocking cliffhanger as Skye ends up getting shot twice by one of the bad guys, Ian Quinn, and is left for dead by him until Coulson and the rest of the team find her. This leads into the next episode, T.A.H.I.T.I, where the stakes were pretty high as they were trying to find a way to save Skye which ended up with them giving her the same drug that S.H.I.E.L.D. used on Coulson when he was near death. Plus, as we learned from the last episode ‘Seeds’, there’s more to Skye than meets the eye in that she’s actually an ‘0-8-4’, an object of unknown origin similar to the device that the team found in Episode 2, fittingly titled ‘0-8-4’. Overall, ‘T.R.A.C.K.S.’ was another solid episode that had us on the edge of our seats as it ended up until the next episode aired a few weeks later.

3. NOTHING PERSONAL (Episode 20)


I’ve heard a lot of people say that the weakest part of ‘The Avengers’ was the character Maria Hill (played by Cobie Smulders). While I’m fine with Smulders in the role and her role in the film as a whole, I can sort of see what everyone’s talking about as it sort of feels like this character was possibly one of the last additions made to the film and ended up getting lost amongst everything else that was going on in that film. But recently Smulders has really gotten more comfortable in the role via her next appearances within the MCU, especially in ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’. She has a great moment in the pilot where she remarks about Thor’s arms after Ward questions whether Thor is actually a god. She makes a return to the series in ‘Nothing Personal’ and has another great moment in the second half of this episode when she pulls a ‘verbal smack down’ on Ward (at this point, Coulson and the rest of the team have learned that he’s with HYDRA), allowing Coulson to sneak onto the plane so that he can rescue Skye. An even bigger moment in this episode is when Coulson learns that he was in charge of the T.A.H.I.T.I. operation that brought him back to life. Overall, this episode was full of great reveals, some great scenes between Ward and Skye, and possibly Cobie Smulders’ stand-out appearance as Maria Hill.

2. THE ONLY LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS (Episode 19)


This episode takes the cake for some of the most heartbreaking moments we’ve witnessed this season. In this episode, we finally meet Coulson’s cellist ex-girlfriend who was first hinted at in ‘Avengers’, Audrey Nathan (played by Whedon regular Amy Acker) as Coulson, Fitz, Simmons, and Agent Antoine Triplett (B.J. Britt; hopefully he becomes a regular next season) travel to Portland, Oregon to save Audrey from a man named Marcus Daniels (known as ‘Blackout’ in the comics) who obsesses over her. The material involving Coulson and Audrey’s relationship is the highlight of the episode and is some really, really sad stuff as Audrey tells Simmons about what happened when she learned about Coulson’s ‘death’, saying that now she feels like he’s ‘watching over her’… and the sad irony is that Coulson is leading the mission to protect her and she doesn’t know about it. It gets even more heart-wrenching after Coulson and the team defeat Daniels. Audrey gets knocked out and before they leave, Coulson comforts her, again without her knowing he’s alive. Seriously, this was a sad episode but also one full of some fun MCU references (including references to ‘Winter Soldier’ and Bruce Banner (heck, Simmons even makes a ‘Doctor Who’ reference at one point)). I hope they bring back Audrey in future episodes, not only because Amy Acker was fantastic in the role, but I’m hoping that Coulson will eventually get the chance to reveal to her that he’s alive. The writers owe us that much after continuously pulling our heartstrings during this episode.

1. TURN, TURN, TURN (Episode 17)


Yeah, you can’t really argue against this one. ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ was the best episode of the season and as many of the early critics of the show noted, this episode was when the show finally started to get really good and of course, while I’ll defend that the first half of the season was better than it was credited as, this was definitely the game-changer episode of this season, perfectly tying into ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’. Now that HYDRA has taken over S.H.I.E.L.D., this episode follows the group that definitely has the biggest connection to S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson’s team, as they try to survive after learning this. Not only that, but this episode has some great surprising moments, including when Garrett was revealed to be the Clairvoyant and, most importantly, when Ward reveals his true colors. This was a fantastic hour of television in every way.


Final Season Rating: 4.5/5

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