Agents of SHIELD S01E05 Eye-Spy

Ooh the plot thickens in this high concept, espionage-thriller of an episode. What are our secret agents going up against in this series? Why a secret organisation of evil. Eat your heart out Christopher McQuarrie.

Steven Moffat (or maybe it was Russel T. Davies) once pretentiously put it that writing for Doctor Who was like burning the concept for an entire franchise on forty minutes of television and I think this is the first episode of AoS that achieves, if not the lofty heights of a franchise concept, certainly a mid-budget action flick. I guess episode 2 had the concept 'they go to Peru', and for the life of me I can't remember the third episode given a week's distance, but this one feels all the better for having had a few days to stew in my brain before taking the time to blog about it (this is serious work).

Our concept of the week is a mysterious woman who manages to rob several banks of their diamonds while they are in transit, a supposedly impossible task. How does she do it? With precognition? (No, that's impossible in this world of Gods). Why it's with the artificial eye she has been given by a mysterious, evil organisation. Through the eye, the organisation are able to see everything that she sees and send commands and information to her.

Akela is a former trainee of SHIELD and an ex protégé of Coulson himself. We get some juicy guilt scenes where Phil waxes lyrical over his former propensity for authoritarian mentorship. The connection between Akela and her current counterpart protégé Skye is bashed out and we learn that the difference between them is that Akela didn't work well in a team. Skye 1: Akela 1 missing eye. Here is the central theme of AoS hashed out again in a new context. The moral that working in a team is good. It doesn't have the same emotional and lyrical resonance as a Buffy or a Firefly but I guess I like the consistency. It does get a bit waring, two decades into the era of superhero media to see the genre tackle the 'teamwork is good' moral once again, but I guess no one was aiming for high art.

The episode takes it's concept and runs with it into a couple of really nicely conceived, intertwined set-pieces. As Ward, wearing a pair of glasses which have jacked the eye-feed must complete Akela's mission without revealing that he is not her. He has to avoid looking at mirrors, accomplices or his own body, all while passably navigating the world as a woman so as not to arouse suspicion. Meanwhile, the bumbling duo of Fitz and Simmons must perform their first surgery, removing the explosive eye from Akela's head so as to preserve her life once her lapsed loyalty is no longer a secret. Elizabeth Henstridge again provides the most laughs, the most charm and the most memorable moments of characterisation as the nerdy blabbermouth out of her depth. The body horror and the action with a twist really bolster this episode into something more memorable than the previous episodes. 

Eye-Spy is a confident hour of television which has enough cleverness in there to feel worthwhile. I for one was happy to go along for the ride.

Agents of SHIELD S01E03 The Asset

Through the murky fog of my head’s flagging CPU a running joke in one of my old favourite podcasts (it may have been The Black Dog or The Weekly Planet) came back to me, the moniker Agents of SHED. Clearly the banality of AoS garnered a reputation early on. This ongoing dismissal of the show had a big effect on my perception of it and I do see an awful lot of truth in the evident genericism of Mutant Enemy’s unloved child. But. Its quite fun.

Threat of the Week

Gravitonium and Frank – the world’s foremost expert in… Gravitonium.

Issue of the Week

Skye’s loyalty.

Plot

The episode begins with a truck-jacking. An undercover SHIELD agent is transporting an important asset – Dr Frank – who is kidnapped by mysterious forces.

Meanwhile, on the Bus, Skye turns up late for her secret agent muscle training with Ward. He is now acting as her Supervising Officer and their relationship is developing nicely with contrasts between the two being highlighted throughout the episode. Ward, chastising Skye for her lack of dedication informs her that every agent has a moment when they make the choice to dedicate themselves to the cause. Skye responds that strength and physicality doesn’t come as easily to everyone as it does for Ward and he informs her that his ‘moment’ came as a child when he learned to fight to defend his younger brother from the elder – that nothing comes to him easily. Skye’s own childhood was similarly traumatic, as she was failed by the foster system.

We learn that Frank has not been captured but ‘liberated’ by Quinn – a self-made, super rich, super villain-coded type who has brought Frank to his tax-free villa in Malta to finish his research into Gravitonium out of the reach of international powers including SHIELD.

Fitz and Simmons have a personal investment in liberating Frank from Quinn’s clutches as he served as a mentor to them during training. Sympathetic to their loyalty, Skye utilises an invitation to a party in Quinn’s villa through her Rising Tide connections and hacking capabilities. Doing her best Bond impression, Skye infiltrates the compound in plain sight with a plan to shut down a surrounding force field to allow Ward and Coulson to enter and liberate Dr Frank.

Skye ingratiates herself quickly with Quinn who suggests he is interested in hiring her because of her hacking abilities. She manages to get herself into Quinn’s private office by truthfully revealing to her that SHIELD is listening into their conversation. Despite flirting with the audience and the team’s expectations Skye doesn’t leave the governmental organisation SHIELD for the private and libertarian interests of Quinn, comparing the supposed authoritarianism of SHIELD to the authoritarianism of a loving and protecting Big Brother, like Ward.

Meanwhile, Dr Frank reveals that he planned to be captured all along so he could complete his Gravitonium research. He offers a garbled rendition of the trolley problem in order to justify the deadly dangers of the research, but Coulson isn’t buying it and kills Frank to stop his experiment from exploding.

At the end of the episode Skye has been shaken by the danger of her experiences in the compound and commits to her muscle training with Ward, she has had her ‘moment’. Mae approaches Coulson to state that she is ready to enter the field again, if nothing else, to keep Coulson safe.

Gravitonium

Beyond Skye and Ward’s characterisations and relationship being coloured in, there’s not a huge amount going on here. The Bondian aesthetics are quite fun for a television budget, and the gravity shifting around in the episode’s final act did add some fun to proceedings but there’s nothing much of depth.

I enjoyed the opening scene which introduces us to a dirty and overweight trucker rambling on the phone about a prior meeting he’d had in which the other parties lacked personal hygiene and manners. The quick bait and switch in our perceptions of him, resulting in the revelation that he is an Agent of SHIELD, was a nice little writing flex. Unfortunately, this smart-arsery doesn’t extend to the rest of the script with villains, MacGuffin and central themes of the episode all lazily wafting around each other as opposed to ever really binding together in a cohesive braid.

It felt odd that Fitz and Simmons were written to be the characters with a personal investment in the safety of Dr Frank but they are again kept on the sidelines of the action with Coulson relaying the emotional connection via earpiece – a cybernetic IM system for the secret agents’ secret world. Gotta keep him relevant, he’s top billed you know. I suppose FS need a place to start as characters, keeping them on the bench so their first centric episodes will be more satisfying by contrast, but I like them, and I want them more involved.

Skye and Ward’s back and forth remains fun. Through their relationship I’m enjoying learning more about them and understanding their dynamic. Skye’s backstory here reveals the desire she has to belong to a family which informs her sympathies for people-centred movements, and her failure by the hands of the foster system explain her initial distrust of governmental organisations. Ward on the other hand is far more of an authoritarian, believing that the right person, holding all of the power can make the best calls for the most people. Hope no one from HYDRA has his number. Through these two, I think the meatiest thematic threads are revealing themselves.

Skye’s ‘temptation’ by Quinn, the consummate libertarian, springs from their agreed perception of freedom of information but Skye, somewhere along the way has been won over by the familial unit of SHIELD special forces and by the end of the episode she’s advocating for a more compassionate form of authoritarianism – illustrated by her willingness to practice self defence while enacting pacifism.

The gravity shoogling about is just window dressing. Guess the writers saw Inception.

Final Thoughts

Agents of SHIELD is still rather paint-by-numbers but it’s’ got a bit more going on than I appreciated the first time. For an episode three of a new series, it’s really not bad. At this point the characters are still being established, we’re still in act one and the really juicy stuff about serialised storytelling; the subversions, the changing loyalties, the character centric episodes, won’t be coming until later. I’m just taking it on faith they will.

Agents of SHIELD S01E02 0-8-4

 

Agents of SHIELD - and subsequent blogging - a hobby I can commit to, or a brief fixation which will burn out under the stress of day to day life, and the crushing weight of indifference? I can't say yet, as I watched 0-8-4 immediately after the Pilot and so I was very much under the influence of the enthusiasm I had starting the project when I watched it. I've had a sleep, I've taken my notes, I'm procrastinating from university work. Lets see what I can remember.

Threat of the Week

A lump of metal lodged in a pyramid.

Issue of the Week

The value of teamwork.

Plot

After a brief shot in which the side of the SHIELD aeroplane (the Bus) gets blown off, we cut to nineteen hours earlier.

Its Skye's 'first day of school' Mae and Ward register their doubts as to her reliability, Ward because of her political affiliations and Mae because, alongside FitzSimmons, she is not combat ready. On the other hand, Simmons greets Skye warmly and Fitz burbles neurodivergently at her in a non-confrontational manner.

The bus takes them to Peru where, inside a pyramid, an artefact has been discovered. FitzSimmons investigate the artefact - designated 0-8-4 - while Mae and Ward fend off militaristic attackers outside. Coulson soon recognises the military leader, Reyes who is implied to be a former partner in arms, as well as luuuuuv for Coulson. The ceasefire comes to a quick end when the groups are attacked by a second group of Peruvian militants - this time the local rebels who don't like the government's mining policies. Forced to flee, the group, alongside Reyes and some of her soldiers, make it back to the Bus, artefact in hand.

Fitz is unhappy that the artefact has been handled so recklessly as it is emitting dangerous levels of Gamma radiation (see The Incredible Hulk) but Ward and Skye find the time to talk over their differences. Skye tells Ward she is inspired by the insurgents in Peru because while working together they are more likely to find a resolution to their problems. Ward counters, saying that they are causing needless violence and death, postulating that his worldview involves himself identifying threats before they happen and taking them out alone.

Coulson's ex tries to seduce him but he immediately works out that this is a distraction as the Peruvian government want the 0-8-4 for themselves, making moves to neutralise the SHIELD team, starting with Mae. 

The team are tied up but alive, Coulson enjoying some one-on-one time at Reyes' feet who needs him to verbally confirm the Bus's change of course back into Peruvian airspace. Meanwhile the team work together to come up with a plan to retake the bus, which involves blowing out the side of the plane. Ward points out that this correlates with Skye's philosophy. The team are successful, with Skye at the last minute risking her life to plug up the hole in the plane with an inflatable life raft, working on her own like Ward.

Coulson points out to Reyes that although his team is young and inexperienced, she brought them together by giving them a common enemy to face. We close on a scene of the Agents enjoying a beer while watching the artefact getting launched into space, beyond the reach of any government. Skye secretly confirms her devotion to the political group Rising Tide.

It's an Episode 2

In my memory this was the episode with Asgardian character Lady Sif and so I realised that I had forgotten about it in its entirety. 

I'll cut myself some slack here and say it's not the most memorable. After finding the issue of the week, the downtrodden and struggling Mike, to be the most interesting thing about the first episode, this week I was surprised to see that the 0-8-4 had almost no effect on the plot beyond simply serving up its MacGuffiney realness and then fucking off into space.

Besides this, the thrust of the episode is redefining Skye and Ward's contrasting views ( very much hinting at an opposites attract story down the line) and beginning to define Mae and FitzSimmons. It's somewhat effective. Mae is designed to be enigmatic and therefore we're not exactly besties with her by the end, but the introduction of her nickname 'The Cavalry' in SHIELD circles, and her aversion to active combat, hints at a damaged badass who is haunted by the actions of her past. It's tropey but it's also an episode of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD and so I think it's enough for now. She's Mommy of the group as Coulson fills the role of her work spouse. The younger cast, obviously are the squabbling kids.

And two of those 'kids' Fitz and Simmons get a lot of time to shine in this episode. The one advantage of the non-presence of the 0-8-4 in the story is the space it gives the writers to provide the actors some charming goofery to play with. I'm particularly enjoying Simmons during this watch, I feel that, even if she doesn't get the best lines, Elizabeth Henstridge makes them so. From her declaration that she doesn't know everything because she's not 'Hermione' to her offering to 'open a window' because Fitz thinks the 0-8-4 might overheat, she brings a compulsive drive to the character's babble which isn't irritating (as sometimes Fitz veers upon being) and warms me to her immensely.

Overall it's an episode 2 of a supernatural team show. The characters' mission statements have been drawn out. I think they're well defined. The action is rather good, with a moment of synchronised combat featuring Coulson and Reyes showing us their historical connection being a highlight for me. It's a somewhat paint-by-numbers development of a mismatched team but I've certainly come away from the experience more invested in them and so job done?

Final Thoughts

It's an unexceptional story with some budget pumped into the action to make the viewer feel like they're being treated good. That said, it's foundational building work which needs to be done in order for the more interesting character stuff to happen down the line. I'm quite enjoying my little Marvel show. The team members all feel like outsiders (even if Ward's outsider status is a self-anointed position above everyone else) but together they know how to open a life raft and read an instruction manual. Good for you my guys. See you in 3.

Oh, and Nick Fury turns up at the end. 

Agents of SHIELD S01E01 Pilot

 Maybe it's the slow demise of the Marvel project which was going so strong for well over a decade; or maybe it's my current hyper-fixation with the work of one certified nasty-boy Joss Whedon which gave me the drive to revisit Agents of SHIELD. 

The erstwhile black sheep of the Marvel slate, ABC's Agents of SHIELD started with a bang interweaving through tentpole releases but very quickly dropped off my radar. Like many other people my age the 22 episode series television model felt far less alluring when box sets and big screen releases were on offer. I'd also just left home when Agents of SHIELD started and was studying for an English degree so the pull of the student lifestyle and my own abysmal concentration just made keeping up with Coulson and his team a little unmanageable. 

My memories of the show aren't great. I found the main cast a little one-note during the first season. The first episode opened strong, focussing on a downtrodden young father struggling with powers but the character turned out to be a one-off and the Whedon B-team failed to really capture the magic of Buffy, Firefly or even Angel in their issue of the week, plus overarching narrative. I never made it far into season 2 so I was always quite bemused to see, first that the show was still going, and later that it had made it to seven seasons - a huge amount of content that many iconic television shows fail to reach. 

So it's curiosity and desire to enjoy some old school genre television (in a contemporary bingeable format) which is driving me today to revisit Agents of SHIELD. I also want to brush off the keyboard and give myself a little writing project. Don't worry if you never read this, I'm sure I won't either.

Threat of the Week

Mike and the Extremis drug.

Issue of the Week

The place and value of ordinary people in a world of superheroes.

Plot

I could take notes while watching, maybe I will in future but it didn't occur to me to journal this experience until the 20 minute mark so lets see what I can remember.

City centre (New York?) Mike, a young man spends time with his son looking at super hero action figures which he can't afford when an explosion rocks the street. Mike conceals his identity and, revealing to the audience that he has super powers climbs a wall, enters the building and saves a woman with red hair. A young woman - Skye - films Mike.

Meanwhile Agent Grant Ward, a chisel-faced no-nonsense type, determined that everyone know he is a lone wolf is conscripted into a special SHIELD taskforce by Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders, Marvel's cameo girl) which is run by a mysteriously not-dead Agent Coulson last seen impaled on Loki's staff in the previous year's Avenger's Assemble. The team consists of a no-nonsense Ming-Na Wen (character's name not remembered), and FitzSimmons (that's Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons) - the nerdy English/ Scottish science buffs played by the delightfully hunky Ian De Caestecker, hunching over and wearing a hoody to show he is, in fact, a nerd. And the stunningly glamorous Elizabeth Henstridge who is, in fact wearing glasses.

Skye tracks down Mike, warning him that the government (SHIELD) will be coming for him before broadcasting on a secret frequency that her political insurgency group will be coming for SHIELD, their plutocratic control of The Truth soon to be coming to an end. Coulson and Ward arrest her immediately. 

A nice, if bizarre, scene follows which begins as a supposed interrogation of Skye but when Coulson gets out his trusty truth serum it's Ward who gets injected. Following her interrogation of the sultry agent Skye has warmed to Coulson and she becomes more collaborative in their search for Mike. 

Mike meanwhile is revealed to have gained his powers through the application of an intravenous dose of the Extremis formula (see Iron Man 3). The side effects are made apparent when he tries to get his old job at a factory back but loses his temper in the face of unfair bureaucracy and causes some physical and property damage. Mike is spiralling, wanting only to secure a future for himself and his son but the Extremis is affecting his mind and is likely to cause him to explode, which no-one wants. 

The Agents catch up with Mike after a chase through the New York (?) train station and streets. Mike decries the failure of the American dream, made all to apparent by the rise of superheroes in the world. Coulson agrees with him when Mike is shot with an anaesthetic and collapses, unexploded on the ground. 

Coulson and Skye bring Mike's son to a happy family on a farm before soaring off in a flying car into episode 2, fully established as team mates.

Whedonisms

The pilot is a sometimes breezy and very quickfire episode of television which establishes a lot in a short space of time. Whedon's trademark team taking on supernatural forces does feel like familiar ground for him and it somewhat comes across a project which he produced with limited passion. 

His archetypes are all here, if reimagined. Coulson's traits are like someone took the doddering father figure tropes of Giles and shoogled them about with some leadership traits in Mal from Firefly. He's very much the big cheese of the group but his love for his sports (flying) car and his charming Dad-jokes were really enjoyable. Clark Gregg balances well the light hearted banter with just a hint of hidden trauma which paints in some dimension to the Coulson of the films who I never really registered. 

I remembered finding Skye somewhat irritating ten years ago. She's precocious, wears tight clothing and kicks men in the balls - she's a Joss Whedon heroine through and through which can sometimes read as a fetishistic take on femininity as opposed to an authentic person but Chloe Bennet makes the material work. She's got the charisma to make the part her own and she injects some well needed life into the team.

Grant Ward is being sold to us as a Riley Finn, with a smattering of Angel. He's a professional but he works alone scowly face. I think the episode does well to undercut him as much as possible. I know he has some secrets to come out later in the season but the truth-serum scene allows us to take a glimpse under the mask and it adds, if not a third certainly a second dimension to the character. I like that the episode is framed around his introduction to SHIELD, it's a nice device which suggests he's going to be our protagonist even though it's Skye who is the real focus. And for that matter, the real character.

Ming Na Wen is awesome. I guess Gina Torres walked so Ming Na could kick men in the balls, but I love Zoe from Firefly this episode just isn't Ming Na's time to shine. 

FitzSimmons will become my favourites, but in this episode they're just making up the numbers.

J. August Richards, a veteran of Angel plays Mike. He's fantastic. The character is immediately likeable, his political message is strong, it inspires empathy and it ties in (sort of) well to the way that ordinary people would be feeling in this world. In fact it's such a strong concept that it informs the plot for the best MCU Spiderman film Homecoming a few years later. It's just a damn shame that the most interesting character in this episode is only a recurring one rather than a bigger focus of the series.

The fact that the series isn't focussed on Mike, or characters like him really gets to the core of my initial problem with the series. There's a real charm in Whedon projects to seeing the underdogs struggle against the forces of society in order to do good. It's evident in Buffy as the gang meet in the school library, struggling with bullies and hormones just as much as they are against demons. It's there in Firefly and Angel as downtrodden protagonists with histories and struggles navigate their ways through hostile environments with just the support of their friends and their wits to get by. SHIELD is not that; as Skye rightly points out, they are the power, they are the government and therefore they are just not as compelling as your average Mike making impossible choices just to get by. That said, there's a fair mission statement in Mike's monologue about the lies he's been told - that hard work and doing the right thing will pay off when, in fact, in this world some people are just more privilaged (read superpowered). It speaks to Whedon's instincts as a storyteller that Coulson agrees with him - Coulson is the sidekick, the bit character, the Xander among Scoobies. He knows what it's like to be normal. But then again he also has a flying car.

Final Thoughts

So is it worth continuing? We're not going to get a powerful metaphor here about navigating your teenage years, or about struggling with addiction and consolidating your being with the sins of your past. Are we? What's the thesis statement of Agents of SHIELD and will it be realised and developed once Big Whedon releases the reigns? I hope so - there's that spark of potential there. SHIELD are not Gods, they're made up of flawed and idiosyncratic people, cleaning up the mess and trying to do the right thing. If the series remembers the humanity amongst the corporate forces of both SHIELD and Marvel studios it'll probably make for an enjoyable if sometimes pedestrian offering of genre television. Will that be enough to pull me through seven series? I hope so.