Agents of SHIELD

Episode: Seeds
Original Airdate: 1-14-2014

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has come off of its midseason hiatus and hit the ground running. Many of the biggest problems that I had with the first half of the season are no longer apparent in these past couple episodes. The team finally feels like a team, even Ward is getting much more personality to him, the mysteries are starting to actually build upon each other and bring things back from earlier episodes to form a larger whole. There’s still a bit of the freak of the week going on, but for the most part, I think it’s really getting into the swing of things and I’m looking forward to where this goes for the rest of this season and hopefully beyond. If you’ve been reading my recaps to this point, you already know I don’t shy away from spoilers, but there’s a couple possible surprises here if you haven’t watched the episode yet, so you’ve been warned.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:12

Episode: The Magical Place
Original Airdate: 1-7-14

After a brief midseason hiatus, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back and continues to kick the latter half of the season off in high gear, continuing from last episode’s cliffhanger. There are quite a few interesting character developments from almost everyone except for Fitz Simmons, I’m even starting to get a feel for Ward here. There are some nice moments of kick ass action, some quieter dramatic moments, and still plenty of room for some comedy. And while I’m certain that the revelation of Coulson’s revival won’t please too many people, I’m glad it’s finally done with. And for my point of view, the situation surrounding the revival was always going to be more interesting than the payoff no matter what they would have come up with.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:11

Episode: Repairs
Original airdate: 11-26-13

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m done with my turkey lunch, had only a five minute drive to my sisters where the rest of my family came together and am starting on a nice and relaxing 11 days off of work. And I’m ready to do some writing and movie watching. But first off it’s time to talk about this week’s episode of S.H.I.E.L.D. where it tries to take a bit of a creepy tone with some ghosts and another almost tie-in with Thor. The episode takes a closer look at Melinda Mays’ backstory and adds a little to several of the other characters as well. But I didn’t think the attempt at bringing a thriller/horror element to the show worked very well and it had a very annoying character that they were trying to help. The character moments were great, but the rest was quite lacking.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:09

Episode: The Well
Original airdate: 11-19-13

The lead up to this episode from what I read about was a big deal that it was the tie-in episode to the theatrical release of Thor: The Dark World. I wasn’t really expecting something huge like a cameo from Chris Hemsworth or Tom Hiddleston, or even Kat Dennings though that could have been more likely. What could have been a possibility was something to do with the beast that was let loose in England during the battle. They might not be able to use the full quality as in the movie, but one might think that they could use it in some lower res capacity. What we got instead is a completely unrelated story about an Asgardian who came to Earth in the distant past and left an ancient relic that has been found. The tie in is mainly just a very brief montage of quick clips from the first two movies as well as starting the episode with the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents cleaning up a little bit of the mess left in England from the climax of the Dark World. As far as a “tie-in” goes, it was a bit of a let down. Looking at the episode apart from the marketing and it’s another fairly solid episode with a surprising guest appearance by Peter MacNicol, and finally a little bit of depth to Ward’s character.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:08

Episode: The Hub
Original airdate: 11-12-13

It’s that time of week again for another recap of the latest Marvel TV episode. For the first time in several weeks I am not actually wanting to call this the best episode yet. Of course, this isn’t a bad thing because I’ve been enjoying the past several episodes very much and I think the overall quality has improved greatly over the first couple episodes which were good, but not great. All of the characters on the show are starting to flesh out a more well rounded personality, and this episode had a moment that made me laugh out loud, which doesn’t happen all too often and as a sidenote is one of several reasons why you will never catch me using the abbreviation LOL. Last week’s episode gave a lot of time to fleshing out Simmons’ character and this time around Fitz gets his time to shine. We also get to see a bit more of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s inner workings and how the organization operates. And finally, we get yet another hint into the mystery surrounding Skye’s past.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:07

Episode: F.Z.Z.T.
Original airdate: 11-5-2013

I’ve mentioned before that this show keeps improving week after week, and in this episode it took yet another jump in the right direction. While there isn’t very much action, there is a lot of character with very strong performances from Agent Coulson as well as Simmons. There’s also one of the stronger tie-ins to the Marvel cinematic universe with the connections to the Chitauri and what happened during the Avengers. There is also a couple nice reveals at the end that gives a lot while still leaving a good chunk of the mystery intact. There are a couple moments that I couldn’t quite get behind, but the rest of it is so well done that I didn’t care.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:06

Episode: “Girl in the Flower Dress”
Original Airdate: 10-22-13

S.H.I.E.L.D. is back again with another great episode. I think they are doing a great job of starting to build onto ongoing mysteries as well as creating new ones while at the same time building two very strong central characters. There is still a lot of the side characters getting lost in the shuffle and I’d like to see any of them start to develop past their one-note concepts. That said, Skye, Coulson, and Melinda May are interesting enough for me to keep tuning in week after week and I’m sure the others will start to develop some personality eventually. It’s nice to see the villains gain a face, and a name tied into something that we’ve already seen before.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:05

Episode: “Eye Spy”
Original Airdate: 10-15-13

One thing I realized this week about this show, while I do think that the quality and my enjoyment of the show has been increasing from week to week, there is one thing missing from it that I do think turns a lot of fans off. There is a distinct lack of Marvel in it. This episode gets it right in terms of building the mysteries, developing (most) of the characters, creating an interesting, mysterious, and action packed episode. But it doesn’t feel like we’re dealing with superheroes and aliens here, it feels more like a James Bond spinoff than a Marvel spinoff. And that’s not a bad thing for some people. I’m really enjoying the show for what it is, but aside from a cameo, a couple lines reminding you of other Marvel properties, and the fact that Coulson is a major player in the show, there just isn’t a strong Marvel presence in it. I don’t honestly know if it truly needs that strong of a connection, but I would kind of like to see it come into play a bit more often.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:04

Episode “The Asset”
Original Airdate: 10-9-13

After a bit of a hit and miss start with a lot of setup in the first couple episodes, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Finally hits a stride in episode 3 which I thought should have been called “Gravity” especially due to the release of Gravity this past weekend and a lot of the subject matter in the episode, both literally and figuratively. There are plenty of special effects and action scenes, and most importantly there’s a lot of character development as well as some twists and turns in where the story is going. This episode really felt like it was hitting on all cylinders and it kept the humor up to boot. Really the only thing missing, which I didn’t even miss, was any sort of tie-in to the larger Marvel Universe. But an overall solid episode that I really have a hard time finding fault with except for a couple minor nitpicks.
Continue reading Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S:01 E:03