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.
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