Agents of SHIELD, season 1

[osprey_archer]

I finished season one of Agents of SHIELD. As much as I liked the first half of the season, they definitely kicked it up a notch in the post-Winter Soldier episodes! Like, I had to stop watching and come back later when Skye realized that Ward was Hydra, because OH MY GOD. The scenes where Skye knows Ward is Hydra and it's not at all clear whether

Comments

[anactoria]

Often I feel like writers, especially TV writers, think that compassion is a fuzzily mystically quality that vaguely attaches itself to characters, particularly female characters, rather than being an actual trait with defined qualities that a character needs to exhibit.

I think you're right there. (And I say that as someone who loves Gwen Cooper, but NOT FOR THAT REASON, MY GOD.)

I've just caught up with AoS, and what you've said here articulates why I love May so much pretty perfectly.

The scenes where Skye knows Ward is Hydra and it's not at all clear whether Ward knows she knows, all so tense.

God, yes! I don't often get that watching-through-my-fingers-because-I'm-not-sure-I-want-to-know-what-happens-next feeling, but those scenes were one of those times.

[osprey_archer]

I warmed up to Gwen around the end of season one, when they stopped pushing GWEN IS THE HEART OF THE TEAM quite so hard, because she has other good qualities: she's brave and curious and she can give a great inspiring speech. But compassion is so not her thing.

I want to catch up with season 2 of AOS, but I'm having trouble finding some of the early episodes - I watched episodes 1 and 2 and then gave up because I was lost without all the S1 backstory. Clearly I should have just dived into season 1 right then! Ugh, my choices...

[osprey_archer]

I am interested in this! I've already seen episodes one and two, but the later episodes, yes.

[entwashian]

Have you seen the S1 blooper reel? There's an outtake from the scene where Skye is figuring out that Ward is HYDRA that I guess is supposed to be funny, but I just find it heartbreaking, instead.

I think there's always going to be a problem with morality tales that are written in shades of gray, because two people are ever going to have the exact same line drawn between what they think are "right" and "wrong" and, like, forgivable and unforgivable offenses. But Jed & Mo actually have a lot of experience writing these kinds of stories.

It seems to me that a lot of fans do like May? But then, I stick to my own happy little corner where the most wank I see is people ranting about fans who support Ward (which I've never personally seen XD).

[entwashian]

Whoops, that should be "because no two people are ever going to..."

Yeah, a lot of their stuff is about agency -- how it's lost, how to get it back, etc. (I mean, they wrote for the Spartacus spin-offs, which are about literal slaves, and for Drop Dead Diva, a show about a woman who died and came back in someone else's body) I think it's a fact of our society that it's the white guys who primarily have agency, and who try to take it away from others. So making someone other than a white guy be the oppressor in their stories would be disingenuous and kind of gross.

[osprey_archer]

I had not! Skye, Simmons, and May pretending to be Charlie's angels. YES. I also love the blooper where Maria Hill says Fury instead of Stark, and tries to recover from it in character. Oh man

[osprey_archer]

It would be! It would be adorable! But I feel like Skye deserves puppies and kittens and Simmons, not Bucky Barnes from this story who would be all "Let me tell you the hilarious story of the time I stabbed a guy to death with an icicle. HILARIOUS. Steve won't let me tell it to him anymore."

[osprey_archer]

Do they interact more in season 2? I was promised beautiful Simmons/Skye possibilities in season 1, and they have that one really nice scene together where Simmons ends up shooting Jasper Sitwell (...how did she even get away with that, what is wrong with SHIELD. I DIGRESS). And also the cute scene where Simmons is looking after Skye while she recovers. But I wanted moooooore.

Maybe the snowball thing could happen once Bucky's recovering a little more? I feel like he would find Skye pretty non-threatening, and it might let him let out some of his old playful side.

[sineala]

I am two episodes into S1 so I am skimming this post and trying to avoid spoilers (I already know about Ward) but I am heartened that you like it, even if it seems really uneven so far. And I hate playing "who from Buffy/Angel/Firefly is guest-starring this time, please please find new actors." (In the pilot, Gunn and Book, though I had to IMDb Gunn. My brain got as far as "that guy is surprisingly good-looking much like Gunn but like 15 years older" and did not make the actual connection.)

[osprey_archer]

I never saw Buffy or Angel so I have no idea who Gunn is. Who was Book playing? (Or the actor who plays Book, I guess.)

[sineala]

The guy playing Book was a doctor with a few lines; he didn't really have much to do, but being as I had just figured out that the guy playing Mike Peterson had also played Gunn I was yelling NOT AGAIN JOSS.

(Gunn was one of the series regulars on Angel; people shipped him with Wesley a lot, although I have no idea if any of the fic still holds up.)