wherever i am, i am what is missing
Ugh, I woke up this morning with a terrible headache and nothing so far has helped.
I think I might have broken geeky co-worker #3 this morning. He asked me if I was excited about Spider-Man 2, and I was like, "More like really concerned." And he was like, "Why?" and I said, "I don't want them to kill Gwen Stacy!" and he laughed and was like, "You're so funny!" but then five minutes later he came by my cube and was like, "Wait, Gwen Stacy DIES in the comics!" and I was like, "EXACTLY!" And he said, "You don't think they're going to kill her do you?!" and I was like, "That's what I'm afraid of!" Of course, readers of this journal know that I already spoiled myself on this plot point* but I didn't want to spoil him, and that was my concern before I knew any spoilers. *hands*
*Sadly, I was right to be concerned.
SHIELD: "The Only Light in the Darkness"
Not that this show has ever made me squeeful, but this episode was particularly egregious in the way it wasted both Patton Oswalt and Amy Acker. Also, someone please punch Coulson in his stupid self-righteous face, please?
(I'm hoping Maria Hill will do it next week. God, Coulson, HYDRA didn't leak all of SHIELD's secrets onto the internet, FURY AND NATASHA DID. Maybe you should do some intelligence-gathering, since you don't know what the hell is going on!
And since there's been a huge prison break, you need to NOTIFY THE AUTHORITIES, OF WHOM YOU ARE NO LONGER ONE. Obviously, there are still huge questions of whether other intelligence agencies have been infiltrated etc.** and maybe that is a thing you should be concerned about, instead of being a sanctimonious hypocrite.
** I'm guessing that is why Sharon is getting a job at the CIA, and Maria Hill at Stark. So they can keep an eye on things and see who else has infiltrated these places. I mean, SI will also provide someone Maria kind of mostly trusts (Pepper at least, and also, Tony) and access to both resources and people (Bruce, at least) who might not otherwise be receptive to her and Fury and Natasha, but I also think they're totally Fury's eyes on both the US intelligence community and the military-industrial complex.
I'm also having some thoughts about how SHIELD (as it was anyway) treats superpowered individuals as threats without first investigating if they ARE threats, and therefore, in a lot of situations, they CREATE the threats they're attempting to stop. it's like the whole, "Batman created the Joker" argument, except worse because Batman is just one guy without the power/authority of the government behind him, and sweet jebus, this is one more reason why mutant or superhero registration is wrong and do not go down that road, Marvel! DO NOT DO A CIVIL WAR STORYLINE. What you did in Cap 2 was SO MUCH BETTER. Leave the registration question to the X-men movies, where it fits better.
And that's without even going into whether it was Fury or HYDRA who was having these superpowered prisoners experimented on (and how much difference that even makes), or how much due process any of them got and how that works in the MCU. This show is not equipped to deal with any of those questions! This is what a She-Hulk or Daredevil show could do! [I also have thoughts about how Arrow has properly problematized ARGUS, which is the DC version of SHIELD, but I have a terrible headache so I'll leave it to someone smarter than me to talk about all of this.])
ANYWAY.
They need to retool this show and here is how they should do it: May and her mom - already more awesome than most of the regular cast in her 45 second appearance at the end - team up with Simmons and Triplett to fight the forces of HYDRA in May's mom's SUV. (I refuse to accept Triplett as a HYDRA plant if he is the grandson of a Howling Commando.) Skye can stay, too, since she figured out Ward was HYDRA and will hopefully kill him in the season 1 finale, but if she doesn't, he can stick around as a bad guy, because he is much more palatable as a HYDRA agent. ALSO, STILL NOT A PATCH ON NATASHA. YOU STFU WITH THAT, SHOW. YOU KEEP SAYING THAT BUT YOU'RE JUST WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS. Ahem. Anyway, Maria Hill can show up from time to time with intel from Natasha or Fury, and Triplett's grandpa can show up to be a cantankerous oldbie who knew Cap back in the day. (I'm guessing they intend it to be Gabe Jones, but someone in the AV Club comments said that it should be Dum Dum Dugan, who could have left a trail of babies across Europe and the US in his youth, and I am totally up for that head canon to be real.)
Of course, that is step 1. Step 0 is hire a whole new writing staff ASAP. I'm sorry, but the show is TERRIBLY WRITTEN. Even when the episodes are mildly entertaining, the writing is cringe-worthy.
So there's that.
***
Wednesday reading meme:
What I've just finished
The First World War by Hew Strachan, which is a good overview of WWI, if a bit drier in tone than the other books I've been reading. Its main flaw is the absence of maps. I don't understand how nobody said, "Hey, can we get some maps to illustrate all the things you're talking about?"
I also reread Wyrd Sisters, which was really enjoyable.
What I'm reading now
I've moved on to rereading Guards! Guards!, which I'm also enjoying.
What's next
I don't know? I might do another WWI history, or possibly a book about both wars and the inter-war period, and intersperse the heavy non-fiction with a Discworld reread. I also have a Star Wars tie-in novel I haven't read, and a bunch of comics to catch up on, so there could be that, too. *hands*
***
Today's poem:
Keeping Things Whole
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
~Mark Strand
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/657162.html.
people have commented there.
I think I might have broken geeky co-worker #3 this morning. He asked me if I was excited about Spider-Man 2, and I was like, "More like really concerned." And he was like, "Why?" and I said, "I don't want them to kill Gwen Stacy!" and he laughed and was like, "You're so funny!" but then five minutes later he came by my cube and was like, "Wait, Gwen Stacy DIES in the comics!" and I was like, "EXACTLY!" And he said, "You don't think they're going to kill her do you?!" and I was like, "That's what I'm afraid of!" Of course, readers of this journal know that I already spoiled myself on this plot point* but I didn't want to spoil him, and that was my concern before I knew any spoilers. *hands*
*Sadly, I was right to be concerned.
SHIELD: "The Only Light in the Darkness"
Not that this show has ever made me squeeful, but this episode was particularly egregious in the way it wasted both Patton Oswalt and Amy Acker. Also, someone please punch Coulson in his stupid self-righteous face, please?
(I'm hoping Maria Hill will do it next week. God, Coulson, HYDRA didn't leak all of SHIELD's secrets onto the internet, FURY AND NATASHA DID. Maybe you should do some intelligence-gathering, since you don't know what the hell is going on!
And since there's been a huge prison break, you need to NOTIFY THE AUTHORITIES, OF WHOM YOU ARE NO LONGER ONE. Obviously, there are still huge questions of whether other intelligence agencies have been infiltrated etc.** and maybe that is a thing you should be concerned about, instead of being a sanctimonious hypocrite.
** I'm guessing that is why Sharon is getting a job at the CIA, and Maria Hill at Stark. So they can keep an eye on things and see who else has infiltrated these places. I mean, SI will also provide someone Maria kind of mostly trusts (Pepper at least, and also, Tony) and access to both resources and people (Bruce, at least) who might not otherwise be receptive to her and Fury and Natasha, but I also think they're totally Fury's eyes on both the US intelligence community and the military-industrial complex.
I'm also having some thoughts about how SHIELD (as it was anyway) treats superpowered individuals as threats without first investigating if they ARE threats, and therefore, in a lot of situations, they CREATE the threats they're attempting to stop. it's like the whole, "Batman created the Joker" argument, except worse because Batman is just one guy without the power/authority of the government behind him, and sweet jebus, this is one more reason why mutant or superhero registration is wrong and do not go down that road, Marvel! DO NOT DO A CIVIL WAR STORYLINE. What you did in Cap 2 was SO MUCH BETTER. Leave the registration question to the X-men movies, where it fits better.
And that's without even going into whether it was Fury or HYDRA who was having these superpowered prisoners experimented on (and how much difference that even makes), or how much due process any of them got and how that works in the MCU. This show is not equipped to deal with any of those questions! This is what a She-Hulk or Daredevil show could do! [I also have thoughts about how Arrow has properly problematized ARGUS, which is the DC version of SHIELD, but I have a terrible headache so I'll leave it to someone smarter than me to talk about all of this.])
ANYWAY.
They need to retool this show and here is how they should do it: May and her mom - already more awesome than most of the regular cast in her 45 second appearance at the end - team up with Simmons and Triplett to fight the forces of HYDRA in May's mom's SUV. (I refuse to accept Triplett as a HYDRA plant if he is the grandson of a Howling Commando.) Skye can stay, too, since she figured out Ward was HYDRA and will hopefully kill him in the season 1 finale, but if she doesn't, he can stick around as a bad guy, because he is much more palatable as a HYDRA agent. ALSO, STILL NOT A PATCH ON NATASHA. YOU STFU WITH THAT, SHOW. YOU KEEP SAYING THAT BUT YOU'RE JUST WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS. Ahem. Anyway, Maria Hill can show up from time to time with intel from Natasha or Fury, and Triplett's grandpa can show up to be a cantankerous oldbie who knew Cap back in the day. (I'm guessing they intend it to be Gabe Jones, but someone in the AV Club comments said that it should be Dum Dum Dugan, who could have left a trail of babies across Europe and the US in his youth, and I am totally up for that head canon to be real.)
Of course, that is step 1. Step 0 is hire a whole new writing staff ASAP. I'm sorry, but the show is TERRIBLY WRITTEN. Even when the episodes are mildly entertaining, the writing is cringe-worthy.
So there's that.
***
Wednesday reading meme:
What I've just finished
The First World War by Hew Strachan, which is a good overview of WWI, if a bit drier in tone than the other books I've been reading. Its main flaw is the absence of maps. I don't understand how nobody said, "Hey, can we get some maps to illustrate all the things you're talking about?"
I also reread Wyrd Sisters, which was really enjoyable.
What I'm reading now
I've moved on to rereading Guards! Guards!, which I'm also enjoying.
What's next
I don't know? I might do another WWI history, or possibly a book about both wars and the inter-war period, and intersperse the heavy non-fiction with a Discworld reread. I also have a Star Wars tie-in novel I haven't read, and a bunch of comics to catch up on, so there could be that, too. *hands*
***
Today's poem:
Keeping Things Whole
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
~Mark Strand
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/657162.html.
people have commented there.