TV Recap: AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D - Season 2 Episode 11: "AFTERSHOCKS"

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AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D's stature within the Marvel Cinematic Universe is such that it's both about what is effectively The Avengers' unofficial support-staff and also is very much that itself: Team Coulson may have their own individual stories and arcs, but what they find themselves actually doing day to day is increasingly determined by what the MCU's superhero-starring feature films need them to do (setting up plot points, expanding mythologies) and forbid them to do (using certain characters, revealing certain truths.) That's got to be difficult, from a writing standpoint, but it makes for an interesting show - a "procedural" whose status quo is always changing.

BIG SPOILERS from here on out, continue at your own discretion:


For the first half of Season 1, that made things difficult - the series had to default into a decidedly mixed "monster of the week" routine until CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER's release allowed them to show their cards re: the presence of a modernized HYDRA as the reigning big-bads. Season 2, on the other hand, has been allowed to play things more deliberately.

The main storyline of its first half (Agent Skye has discovered her real identity, its not human and certain others like her are not nice people) was a treasure-hunt adventure laying the foundation for THE INHUMANS, whose movie won't be out for a few years yet; meaning there's likely not as much already decided this time. But now, with the basic mythos and "rules" of this new level of MCU reality set down, AGENTS' modus-operandi has shifted once again: The series, it seems, is now tasked with establishing the very function of The Inhumans in the bigger narrative (we'll come back to that), while the characters appear to have landed in a whole new realm of moral ambiguity.

...but that's getting ahead of things.

"Aftershocks" opens in the immediate aftermath of the big Winter cliffhanger: S.H.I.E.L.D and HYDRA both followed the alien maps embedded in Coulson's subconscious to an underground temple, where mysterious crystals emitted a gas that incinerated Agent Tripp but encased Skye and superpower-obsessed Raina in coccoons. Skye (real name: Daisy) emerged physically unchanged but with earthquake-causing powers, while Raina was transformed into a kind of human/porcupine hybrid.

Oh! And Skye/Daisy's father Calvin (aka "Mr. Hyde") now wants to kill Coulson for A.) being more a father figure to Skye than him and B.) robbing him of the chance to kill HYDRA boss Daniel Whitehall in revenge for the murder of Skye's mother.

This stuff (read: the stuff we care about) should be the main plot, but it's treated almost like the B-story, with Skye in quarantine (no one knows what happened to her - yet) and the rest of the team mourning the loss of Tripp. The A-story, meanwhile, is all about Coulson marshalling S.H.I.E.L.D 2.0's first big power play: An elaborate scheme to use Whitehall's vacancy to knock off the remainder of HYDRA's leadership, Michael Corleone style. Its a cool setup that could easily have played out across the entire rest of the season...

...but, instead, they pull the whole thing off in this one episode.

No, really: S.H.I.E.L.D makes a handful of moves and the heads of HYDRA (save, of course, for the frequently name-checked Baron Von Strucker; who's scheduled to meet The Avengers in May) are all severed in quick succession. As misdirections go, I like it ("Gotcha! We're done with HYDRA now, it's Inhumans time!") but it ends up feeling a bit anticlimactic: AGENTS has by now embraced it's own B-team stature, so it's a bit weird to see them (apparently) able to run down and erradicate one of the big bad overriding threats of the Marvel Universe at the drop of a hat in what pretty-much everyone acknowledges is a hasty bit of retaliation by Coulson.

But, again, this appears to be AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D's lot in life: HYDRA has served it's purpose in the MCU, or at least is about to (it feels like Von Strucker's presence in AGE OF ULTRON will be strictly an appetizer before the big robot buffet) so it falls to Coulson and company to quietly move them off the field and set about their new mission of helping The Inhumans fill the mutant-sized hole in Marvel's worldbuilding.

Yeah, so let's talk about that.

The rationale for Marvel's eagerness at turning an eternally niche-audience property like THE INHUMANS into a recognizable franchise is the worst kept secret in genre film right now: They know that any incarnation of The Marvel Universe needs the "super-powers as metaphor for oppressed/disenfranchised minorities" angle of Mutants as part of its fundamental DNA; but they also know that they aren't getting the rights to their Mutant characters/concepts back from Fox unless Hugh Jackman boards a one-way flight to Mars next week. Solution? Fit a slightly-reimagined version of The Inhumans (genetic descendants of early humans experimented on by Kree aliens who manifest either powers, monster-like forms or both when exposed to crystalline mists) into the MCU's "Mutant slot" and hope the machine will run just as well until the really bizarre stuff rears its head in the INHUMANS movie.

And, at least as far as "Aftershocks" seems to imply, AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D is where the "doesn't this remind you of The X-Men?" drumbeat begins: Skye is looking to hide her mutation Inhumanity from the rest of the team (except for Fitz, who figures it out but agrees to stay mum about it) at least until she can control her powers. Simmons is so broken up about Tripp that she's gone from wanting to discover/study mutations inhuman-powers to wanting to wipe every trace of them off the face of the Earth ("Jemma-cidal," much?) Starting to sound familiar?

But if there was any remaining doubt that Marvel is positioning The Inhumans as Brand-X-Men, it should be obliterated by the "C-story" involving Mr. Hyde and Raina. Hyde is excited that Skye's post-transformation anxieties (a flashback involving Skye's mom nurturing a recently-transformed teenage teleporter Gordon aka "The Reader" establishes this as a common issue) could be a catalyst for driving her away from Coulson and back to him. Raina is mortified that her Inhuman form has left her looking like a monster, and attempts to committ suicide by S.H.I.E.L.D hit-squad...

...but is thwarted when a now-grown Nightcrawler Reader bamfs teleports in, calls her "beautiful" and wisks her off with promises to show her the way - Reader having previously inferred a connection a whole network of on-the-downlow Inhumans. Oh, and Hyde gets all giddy at the thought of calling up his own Brotherhood collective of mischief-making Inhuman pals to wreak havoc against S.H.I.E.L.D, so maybe we've got two competing factions of superhumans at play here, as well?

So, yes, it now appears that the guesses (mine included) were right: The Inhumans are the MCU Mutants, and S.H.I.E.L.D is now (unwittingly) the tip of humanity's incursion into their previously-hidden world. But lest you think that's all we're dealing with, a final scene establishes that Agents Bobbi (aka Mockingbird) and Mac are indeed double agents for... somebody, and they're specifically looking to relieve Coulson of former director Nick Fury's "toolbox."

As an episode, "Aftershocks" was uneven - the Death of HYDRA business felt rushed, and the Inhumans rollout thus far feels more interested in winking at in-the-know comics fans ("Yeah. We're really doin' this. This is happening.") than selling itself to audiences. But it's hinting at exciting ideas for the rest of the season, and maybe more. There's an entertainment value to be had in watching an entertainment piece stride confidently up to the plate and pre-call the trajectory of it's next home run, even if it's not at all clear that it's going to avoid striking out.

PARTING THOUGHTS:

• Note to Marvel/all-comics-adaptations in general: If you're going to give people nicknames/codenames/etc? Use them. "Cal" is an angry scientist who gets angry and stomps the shit out of people, it's okay to just call him "Mr. Hyde."
• Raina's porcupine-woman look is way too reminisicient of NIGHTBREED's Shuna Sassi to be unintentional, right? Especially given that NIGHTBREED is also about an underground community of "monsters" shunned by normal humanity?
• Who are Bobbi and Mac working for (or, at least, reporting-to)? They're probably not going to go for straight-up villains so soon after wrapping up the whole "HYDRA sleeper agents" plot, so I imagine the idea is more along the lines of Fury and Coulson not being the only people who wanted to start up a replacement for the original S.H.I.E.L.D. Shot in the dark? They're actually Agents of S.W.O.R.D.
• So Fitz/Simmons, previously AGENTS' model of workplace friendship and/or adorkable star-crossed romance, are now going to be on diametrically-opposed sides of the Inhumans Issue; signaling that "Kill `em all!" v "Maybe don't do that" is going to be an A or B choice for people in the MCU? Huh. Y'know, that's the kind of thing you might end up fighting a CIVIL WAR over...

NEXT WEEK: 

"Who You Really Are" will feature the return of Jamie Alexander as We Can't Use Chris Hemsworth Lady Sif, who is having some amnesia troubles after scrapping with an enemy who may have connections to the Skye situation. Also, it looks like maybe we won't be waiting much longer to see how Coulson feels about Skye being an Inhuman.


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AGENT CARTER - In Summation

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Opting to hit up a full-series rundown now that AGENT CARTER has concluded, as opposed to just an episode breakdown like last week. 

Spoiler city after the jump, but for up here I'll just say that I thought the series was strong throughout and finished on the proper note. I get that some fans are annoyed because they were hoping for some kind of major Marvel character drop or more explicit MCU worldbuilding, but AGENT CARTER was very much it's own creature and stayed on that course admirably. This was Marvel Studios' first real push at developing what amounts to an original character outside the comics (the Peggy Carter of the books is a markedly different, less overall-important figure than the one played by Haly Atwell) so it's important that this was overwhelmingly her story moreso than another gear in the MCU worldbuilding machine.

More after the jump (SPOILERS)

At this point the most introspective question in geek media is whether or not the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie/TV projects are "overrated." That the features are overall extremely well-reviewed among action films isn't in dispute, it's more a matter of degrees: Is this really that above-average of a blockbuster cycle, or are fans overpraising their good points when they're really just high on the experience of Continuity Porn finally being part of superhero-cinema?

Speaking only for myself? I don't necessarily think "overrated" is the problem, but there's probably a significant level of under-criticizing. For example, a largely forgettable feature like THOR: THE DARK WORLD should probably have taken more lumps for being forgettable; but instead its average-ness passes without much scorn because, hey, those were some nice ULTRON/GUARDIANS/INFINITY building-blocks, huh? These things happen.

On the other hand, sometimes the big continuity experiment justifies itself; namely by allowing the production of something that otherwise wouldn't likely have seen the light of day. It's hard to imagine even the most niche of TV networks jumping at the chance to run a scifi-tinged female-led period spy series that's also set up as a broad (pardon the pun) metaphor for the uniquely and largely lost-to-history struggles of American women between the end of World War II and the decade-later advent of contemporary feminism; but if it's an AVENGERS prequel? Suddenly, you've got a show.

The result was a real winner. AGENT CARTER had an energy and a sense of self like nothing else currently airing, at once a throwback and forward-looking as it deftly balanced it's meta-plot (Peggy Carter versus the postwar patriarchy) with a more straightforward espionage plot that teased at both Marvel Universe obscura and Cold War stirrings, only to subvert both expectations with a villain scheme that ultimately boiled down to revenge on America for a war crime committed against Russian allies during The Big One.

Along the way, some cursory groundwork (maybe) got laid in terms of what will lead to the dissolution of the SSR and the rise of S.H.I.E.L.D (plus it's built-in internal rot via a surprise last-minute appearance by Arnim Zola) and the historical background of The Avengers' Black Widow; but in the end this was an eight hour action-adventure story that was "about" - both thematically and in basic plotting - the lives of women and the search for identity of one woman in particular... and that's what it needed to be.

Not that this was some kind of polemic: In the end, Peggy Carter's journey was about overcoming her own insecurities even moreso than the sexism of her colleagues, and it's "message to the men" boiled down to "don't make assumptions based on gender." In the end, AGENT CARTER made it's most radical points just by existing - it's hard not to notice that the seemingly mundane aspects of Peggy's story (invisible sexism, morality-policing in so-called "safe spaces," complex friendships among women, etc) are actually more "exotic" presences of a network series than all the balletic martial-arts, sci-fi devices and near-magical hypnotists. Ray guns and madness-gas? Been there. Carter instructing a well-meaning male colleague that his eagerness to leap to her defense is less help than hindrance? That's fresh.

Not that this was a one woman show: The supporting cast (largely original characters or dramatic reimaginings) was uniformly great, a who's-who of character actors who look better in period settings than they would anywhere else. It's not every show where outsized "Oh! That guy!" talents like James D'Arcy, Neil McDonough and the great Shea Whigham feel right at home; along with the welcome return of Dominic Cooper's Howard Stark. And special attention must be paid to Bridget Regan, who invested the late-arriving Dottie Underwood (the proto-Black Widow) with real character.

It remains to be seen where AGENT CARTER goes from here. The series has spawned a small but passionate fanbase, particularly on social media among women, but it wasn't a ratings juggernaut. Could a full series (perhaps in a more forgiving timeslot like Sunday nights?) be in the offing? Another mid-season fill-in for AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D? TV movies - or maybe a feature try-out? I couldn't guess at this point. But Marvel has created a powerful new resource here - they'd be crazy not to make more use of it.

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On Leonard Nimoy

I've been consumed with a number of things, most especially getting THIS (and it's follow-up, and the impending relaunch) ready to go, hence the lack of immediate updates. But I obviously can't let the passing of Boston's own Leonard Nimoy yesterday afternoon pass unremarked upon.

By the time I was old enough to be aware of STAR TREK, Nimoy and Spock were well into their mutual mid-1980s revival as blockbuster superstars, so I never new a world where Trek (classic, at least) wasn't a widely-accepted part of mainstream popular culture. But even knowing of the period adrift only through history, it feels like any moment of "has-been" stature that might've stuck to the rest of the franchise never stuck to this person - even if at one point his relationship with his most famous characterization was complicated enough to pen both the 1975 autobiography I AM NOT SPOCK and follow it up with 1995's I AM SPOCK.

So, to me, this person was always famous; one of the first actors I can remember really associating with beyond his character thanks in large part to his unmistakable voice and presence. He always seemed larger than life, which was unusual since outside of Spock he was so often seen in genial and playful circumstances - a towering figure who for some reason deigned to walk among ordinary people.

It's cliche by now, but there's really no better to say it than just to reiterate: Actor, director, singer, writer, activist - he lived long, and he prospered.

Also cliche: By now, I'm sure everyone's Facebook is well and truly cluttered with repostings of the funeral scene from STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. But for me, the first thing I sought out on hearing the news was the below video, which captures Nimoy's (locally)-famous narration of the tech-demo for the Boston Museum of Science's Mugar Omni Theater:

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Here's An Insane AGE OF ULTRON Theory For You

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So here's the new (final?) AGE OF ULTRON poster, which looks about as generic as one can expect from a movie that has never once needed a poster or any kind of advertising to gaurantee a blockbuster opening. Truth be told, the Marvel movies have generally had pretty bland posters, the one exception possibly being the second one for FIRST AVENGER.

But whatever. Not a lot of new information get's conveyed upfront (Vision is still mostly obscured, if Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver eventually become not boring-looking we're not seeing what that looks like here) but the full credits at the bottom are telling a different story - maybe.

For starters, we finally get confirmation that Stellan Skarsgaard and Anthony Mackie are both in the cast - though who can say what exactly their roles will be (I'd like Falcon and War Machine to have at least one "Main Guys' Black Friends" side-eye moment.) Also Haly Atwell (Agent Carter) which is... interesting.

But the one sticking out to me? Additional music from Danny Elfman. What's that about?


Briefly: The "additional music/pieces" credit for scoring is generally only used when pieces of music from a different score (by a different composer) are showing up. Now, it's very plausible that the film is simply borrowing a piece of music just to use it (that happens - directors fall in love with temp-tracks all the time.) It's also possible that the credit refers to the use of an Oingo Boingo track, though the credit would generally be different for that.

The only character in this movie remotely previously associated with Elfman is Hulk, but that's because Elfman scored the 2003 Ang Lee version - if Marvel is going to reference a previously Hulk movie, it'd probably be the one they made that's still (technically) part of their continuity, right?

Either way, I'm sure the answer is pretty mundane. But thinking on it gave me a crazy idea that I now can't get out of my head without sharing it. So here goes. There's effectively maybe 0.000001% chance this would happen, but if I had my cosmic way over all such matters the reason a Danny Elfman track would show up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be to accompany the arrival a familiar hero with his familiar (Elfman composed) theme:

SPIDER-MAN.

As in: Tobey Maguire as the now-adult Peter Parker from the Sam Raimi-directed, Elfman-scored SPIDER-MAN movies that pre-dated the now-aborted Andrew Garfield/magic blood/robo-rhino version.

Hear me out.

Here's what's known about the immediate future of the SPIDER-MAN movies: Marvel originally wanted to strike a deal to get him into the hero versus hero CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR movie in some capacity. The role is being recast not only younger, but with a rumored emphasis on possibly shaking up the franchise's ethnic status-quo with either a non-white Peter Parker or a movie debut for Miles Morales, the Black/Latino second Ultimate Spider-Man.

So, picture this scenario:

• Spider-Man shows up in AGE OF ULTRON. Doesn't have to be for the whole movie, just for a scene - maybe he's helping in a battle, maybe it's an "Oh hi guys!," something like that. He's NOT an Avengers-level hero, traditionally, so it makes sense he'd be operating on their periphery.
• When he shows up, he's accompanied by Elfman's familiar main theme and sounds a lot like Tobey Maguire. Just to get the audience thinking on those lines.
• At a certain point, Maguire (briefly) appears again as Peter Parker, with some sort of quick business (piece of costume sticking out?) and a reprise of the theme to indicate that, yes, this is not only Spider-Man but THAT specific version of Spider-Man, retroactively making the Raimi films (or just the first two, if you like) part of the MCU extended canon.
• Maguire-Spidey reappears as a full-blown supporting character in CIVIL WAR, where he fulfills much the same role as the comics re: joining Team Iron Man, revealing his identity to the public and coming to regret doing so. But this time, it goes much worse for him - he dies. Yes. Spider-Man (a hero still more familiar/loved worldwide than any of the MCU characters) buys it in CIVIL WAR. He can die heroically (Ooh! Maybe he takes the sniper-bullet for Captain America for the adaptation fake-out?) Tears, sadness, "This generation's Optimus Prime death," etc.
• Post-credits stinger for CIVIL WAR: Introduction of a seemingly random young kid who seems especially moved by the death of Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
• However many months later, Miles emerges as the main character of the new Marvel-But-We're-Pretending-Sony-Is-Making-Any-Meaningful-Decisions-About-This SPIDER-MAN movies; which can no procede with his supporting cast, origin, etc.

Would it work? Who knows. Maybe I'm nuts. But I'd be all over that, and not just because I more or less made it all up on the fly. But I'd argue it offers a lot of benefit: Marvel get's a huge WRATH OF KHAN moment for CA:CW without having to lose one of "their guys," Sony gets to re-issue full=-priced new Blu's of the Raimi Trilogy now that they're MCU building-blocks, picky fanboys get a "proper" MCU Parker at least for a moment, Miles Morales becomes a massively talked-about figure to a general public that never heard of him and Sony-But-Really-Marvel get's a fresh start for their new series that'll be covered as a colossal event for introducing who will immediately become (with apologies to T'Challa) THE Black Superhero.

Either way, we'll find out what really happens so enough. Unless Marvel just steals this idea.Which isn't going to happen.

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REALLY THAT GOOD - New Project Announcement Trailer

This has been in the works for awhile, glad to finally be able to tell you about it:

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So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

Zack Snyder's Twitter has revealed the first official image of Jason Momoa as AQUAMAN (who will almost-certainly not be called that, ever) in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE... and holy hell, is it about the worst approach I could've imagined...

I'm a Zack Snyder apologist through and through - the guy has amazing chops, and WATCHMEN remains one of the most visually spot-on translation of comics to film. But this Aquaman? Wow. The worst coke-binging money-fight "brainstorming" session at Image Comics circa-1996 couldn't have yielded such a bad redesign.

I'm actually kind of stunned - it was probably too much to expect anything close to the scale-mail shirt/green pants look, but this literally looks like they just said "add some fish-stuff to the GAME OF THRONES look and give him a trident."

I get that the DC movies are doing their own thing apart from the "Silver Age with the stupid sanded off" approach Marvel has mined to such success, a mash-up of the broody testosterone-fest still lingering from the Nolan Batman features and "XTREME!!!!!" 90s comics affect that seems to be Snyder's go-to reference point for the genre.

But... there it is.

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Whelp Of Wall Street

Remember back when WOLF OF WALL STREET was first hitting and people realized you could cut any movie about someone having lots of money to the beats of that trailer and it'd be funny, and the most obvious one 90s kids went to was the live-action RICHIE RICH?

Well, Netflix has apparently decided that what's cute for like 2 minutes will be hilarious for a season's worth of binge-watching. Below, the trailer for the streaming giant's new RICHIE RICHIE reboot series (did anyone even remember hearing they were doing this?) which is pitched, literally, as "Jordan Belfort, but he's 12."

So... the gamble here is that "90s Disney Channel/Nickelodeon sitcom" is an aesthetic with enough nostalgia cache that Millennials will binge it and maybe younger kids won't hate it either? Because I'm not seeing why this is a streaming show and not just turning up on Nick's fall lineup - unless, of course, it really sucks and none of the cables wanted it.

I'll say this much: I was more or less going along with the "okay, this is pretty harmless" vibe (the idea that 21st Century Richie is a boy genius whose start-up success is the source of his previously-ordinary family's cartoonishly-obscene wealth instead of being an Old Money scion is kind of inspired - that I can see being a weekly show) until we get to the pet robot that Richie (who looks to be about 12) has for some reason built (commissioned?) in the form of a human girl in her late-teens that he dresses in a French maid's outfit.

I know that "Irona" is part of the lore, but she's usually depicted as an automaton. This version feels like something that's been calculated to become a wink-wink-nudge-nudge running joke by the writers ("Hey! That's gonna be a whole other kinda useful in like 5 years, right bro!?") should the series actually become a hit.

Well, whatever. This comes out tomorrow, and it seems to be the first anyone has heard of it, so I guess we'll find out.

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