Atlantis/Agents of SHIELD
Atlantis 2.10 The Dying of the Light
More of the literal and metaphorical darkness as Jason becomes a brooding, cold-hearted killer because Pasiphae is his mother, while Hercules does a bit of revisionist history about Medusa - it took way too long for him to admit that’s what it was - and they both fight, leaving Ariadne and Pythagoras the ones I’m feeling sorry for. Shouldn’t Ariadne want to come up with a plan beyond survival for her city? How did she know all she knew?
And is Pasiphae thinking Jason is Atlantis’s rightful heir because he’s her son? Because she’s not its rightful queen...and I’ve forgotten what his father was or what exactly she did before marrying Minos, but it’s a shift from being the only one who can save the city.
Anyway, given my irritation with certain characters, I was glad this episode was mainly about Pythagoras’s quest. I will leave the metaphor of the cartload of manure aside and merely note that I’m no slasher, but the Icarus/Pythagoras was fairly blatant (I’d been wondering if we’d have got a love interest for Pythagoras if the show had gone on. Um. Seems like we did. No offence, Pythonians, but that goodbye scene...) Also, Icarus is an amateur at betrayal.
Meanwhile Medea is having Complicated Feelings about Jason, while he was having meh dreams about her.
Ariadne is a better queen on the run than the Musketeers Anne - I think she did all the hunting, cooking and taking care of the weapons AFTER BEING TORTURED. She deserved better than her fiancé, even before he started snogging Medea. (PS Ariadne, you have the better hair style. On the other hand, it looks like Medea would be excellent at marathons.) So, the show has made its hero a right old unsympathetic berk.
They almost got away with the overblown dialogue - especially Hannah and Emms - but fell prey to too much repetition.
(I paid Agents of SHIELD the compliment of saving catching up with it for after Atlantis, because I thought it would be better. Obviously, it was.)
Agents of SHIELD 2.16 Afterlife
Coulson and Hunter’s road trip was more fun than I expected. Like, I was consistently laughing at their snark.
Bobbi’s sympathy for Skye and admiration for FitzSimmons (who were both back to being likeable in this situation - the current threat uniting them and giving us a break from alien!fear and partial alien!identification tensions) made me shake my head gently at her for picking the wrong side. And not remembering how sneaky Jemma was in the last episode.
Lincoln is pretty (actually, so was much of the show) and I hope they can help Skye control some powers, somewhere between following their own agenda and their doling out of information. I also hope they have a back-up plan other than Gordon to get them out of that place. I was also glad that Skye didn’t take Lincoln up on trying her powers out there and then in the middle of a mountain range...
Already, there are real echoes of Skye’s early relationship with the original SHIELD team at Afterlife. And there was good reason for her not to trust them - and for them not to trust her father.
Oh, loyal and stubborn May. Being rude about her daughter figure and her man is definitely not going to break her. Gonzales. (Bahrain had better be good to live up to the build up.) Offering her a seat on the board with such limited powers is not the way to go either, but kudos to Gonzales for listening to Bobbi, or kudos to Bobbi for getting others to influence him.
I was not firing on all cylinders when I watched this because I saw J. August Richard’s name in the credits and I still didn’t automatically assume that Mike Peterson would be Coulson’s back-up. So, I was hoping that I wasn’t imagining the subtext in the Fitzsimmons encounter. (Fortunately I wasn’t, but it could have just been a rehash of their recent arguments.)
Rayna had a point about not forcing Skye to follow her - even if Skye didn’t know what was coming and needed to lash out because of what had happened to her and Tripp. Bennett’s face as Skye saw what Rayna had become for the first time was great, and their scene was really involving. I had a literal GASP at the reveal of Skye’s mother though - even though they were not subtle about Coulson’s ‘death’.
I liked that both she and Skye had their points in their viewpoints. I am very excited about her being Skye’s new SRO guide (how much does Lincoln know? His surprised face could be all about her superiority in their faction.)
In fact, nice shades of grey all around!
Ugh, I s’pose it makes sense for Coulson to go to Ward given what they know.
FITZ, the taxi driver could be a Real Provisional SHIELD agent. That’s not nearly paranoid enough of you. (But yes, I was smug and relieved about the box.)
However, this was a good episode with lots of entertaining moments and neat little hooky developments.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/172687.html.
More of the literal and metaphorical darkness as Jason becomes a brooding, cold-hearted killer because Pasiphae is his mother, while Hercules does a bit of revisionist history about Medusa - it took way too long for him to admit that’s what it was - and they both fight, leaving Ariadne and Pythagoras the ones I’m feeling sorry for. Shouldn’t Ariadne want to come up with a plan beyond survival for her city? How did she know all she knew?
And is Pasiphae thinking Jason is Atlantis’s rightful heir because he’s her son? Because she’s not its rightful queen...and I’ve forgotten what his father was or what exactly she did before marrying Minos, but it’s a shift from being the only one who can save the city.
Anyway, given my irritation with certain characters, I was glad this episode was mainly about Pythagoras’s quest. I will leave the metaphor of the cartload of manure aside and merely note that I’m no slasher, but the Icarus/Pythagoras was fairly blatant (I’d been wondering if we’d have got a love interest for Pythagoras if the show had gone on. Um. Seems like we did. No offence, Pythonians, but that goodbye scene...) Also, Icarus is an amateur at betrayal.
Meanwhile Medea is having Complicated Feelings about Jason, while he was having meh dreams about her.
Ariadne is a better queen on the run than the Musketeers Anne - I think she did all the hunting, cooking and taking care of the weapons AFTER BEING TORTURED. She deserved better than her fiancé, even before he started snogging Medea. (PS Ariadne, you have the better hair style. On the other hand, it looks like Medea would be excellent at marathons.) So, the show has made its hero a right old unsympathetic berk.
They almost got away with the overblown dialogue - especially Hannah and Emms - but fell prey to too much repetition.
(I paid Agents of SHIELD the compliment of saving catching up with it for after Atlantis, because I thought it would be better. Obviously, it was.)
Agents of SHIELD 2.16 Afterlife
Coulson and Hunter’s road trip was more fun than I expected. Like, I was consistently laughing at their snark.
Bobbi’s sympathy for Skye and admiration for FitzSimmons (who were both back to being likeable in this situation - the current threat uniting them and giving us a break from alien!fear and partial alien!identification tensions) made me shake my head gently at her for picking the wrong side. And not remembering how sneaky Jemma was in the last episode.
Lincoln is pretty (actually, so was much of the show) and I hope they can help Skye control some powers, somewhere between following their own agenda and their doling out of information. I also hope they have a back-up plan other than Gordon to get them out of that place. I was also glad that Skye didn’t take Lincoln up on trying her powers out there and then in the middle of a mountain range...
Already, there are real echoes of Skye’s early relationship with the original SHIELD team at Afterlife. And there was good reason for her not to trust them - and for them not to trust her father.
Oh, loyal and stubborn May. Being rude about her daughter figure and her man is definitely not going to break her. Gonzales. (Bahrain had better be good to live up to the build up.) Offering her a seat on the board with such limited powers is not the way to go either, but kudos to Gonzales for listening to Bobbi, or kudos to Bobbi for getting others to influence him.
I was not firing on all cylinders when I watched this because I saw J. August Richard’s name in the credits and I still didn’t automatically assume that Mike Peterson would be Coulson’s back-up. So, I was hoping that I wasn’t imagining the subtext in the Fitzsimmons encounter. (Fortunately I wasn’t, but it could have just been a rehash of their recent arguments.)
Rayna had a point about not forcing Skye to follow her - even if Skye didn’t know what was coming and needed to lash out because of what had happened to her and Tripp. Bennett’s face as Skye saw what Rayna had become for the first time was great, and their scene was really involving. I had a literal GASP at the reveal of Skye’s mother though - even though they were not subtle about Coulson’s ‘death’.
I liked that both she and Skye had their points in their viewpoints. I am very excited about her being Skye’s new SRO guide (how much does Lincoln know? His surprised face could be all about her superiority in their faction.)
In fact, nice shades of grey all around!
Ugh, I s’pose it makes sense for Coulson to go to Ward given what they know.
FITZ, the taxi driver could be a Real Provisional SHIELD agent. That’s not nearly paranoid enough of you. (But yes, I was smug and relieved about the box.)
However, this was a good episode with lots of entertaining moments and neat little hooky developments.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/172687.html.