*Warning, if you’re not caught up on Agent Carter or Agent of SHIELD, there are spoilers below!
I watched the first half of this season of Agents of SHIELD excited every single week. The show was finally just consistently good. Then the mid-season finale hit and… I don’t know… I felt like my tires got deflated. It was really hyped up by Marvel, and in some ways it was good, but I felt sort of like I got punched in the stomach and then the offender just ran off. I wrote a long blog post about it that I never published on the blog, because after I wrote it I thought maybe I just needed to get my feelings out and I was actually fine now that the words had been written.
Thankfully, Agent Carter was there to divert my thoughts for a while. If you know me, you know I’m a Peggy Carter fangirl, and I was super stoked about the show. When it started I was… confused… about the direction it was going in and the plot. I thought it was sort of going to pick off where the Agent Carter one shot left off, but it actually feels more like it never happened. I thought Peggy was supposed to be in charge of the beginning of the SSR, I mean, this had been alluded to in the one shot, in Captain America The Winter Soldier, and in Agents of SHIELD. Instead, she’s just the glorified secretary to the boys. But after a few episodes, I decided to enjoy it for what it was. I still loved Peggy, as well as many of the new secondary characters, such as Jarvis, Angie, and Sousa.
I ultimately enjoyed the season. I still never completely understood what the plot of it had to do with the Marvel universe at large, but I hoped for a second season to help sort it out some more. And I still want that.
Then Agents of SHIELD returned, and we’re one episode in and while it was a fine episode, I’m still feeling uncertain about what’s happening. Fitz finds out what’s happening to Skye but he’s going to keep it a secret. Raina’s essentially a demented porcupine. Bobbi and Mack are up to something, but what? Are Fitz and Simmons ever going to talk again? OK, I know they won’t let that drop, but I want it now, dang it. I have a hard time caring about the Inhumans storyline at the present because I’m still very worried about the humans on the show. I am completely not over Trip’s death (that was what my unpublished ranting blog post was about, essentially), I worry about Fitz-Simmons, I worry about all of them.
Except Ward. He wasn’t in this last episode and I did not care or miss him for two seconds. They made me hate him that much. (Or maybe that indifferent to him.) I just don’t like feeling this way. I guess I’m not supposed to like feeling this way. No one said this was a Hallmark movie. But just the thought of him popping up again just makes me feel… ugh. I just don’t care about him. I want him to leave. I want Trip back (not matter how impossible). I want to smoosh Fitz and Simmons’ faces together, and then we can carry on with Hydra and Inhumans and whatnot.
I’m happy that this next episode features Lady Sif, because I love me some Sif (not quite as much as Peggy, but still a lot). I just hope things will make sense soon. When the season ends, I want it to feel like the story is heading in the right direction. The season one finale left us hanging, but it was good and left me wanting more in the right ways. I know there’s some time and I shouldn’t worry, I suppose I just hoped that after such a long hiatus I would get something I was hoping to see, instead of basically nothing at all that I cared about (other than Coulson yelling and bringing down some Hydra folks, because that was good stuff).
Also, how is this going to tie into Avengers 2? What the heck is that movie about anyway? That first trailer really gave me chills in the best way, and this newest one is just not nearly as interesting to me. I’m sure it will all work out, but I’m just curious about what direction the Marvel universe is actually going if there’s supposed to be Civil War and so much other crap going on. I’m sure someone with comic book cred could help me out.
What are your thoughts on Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, and the various Marvel storylines?
I am the other way around…I adored Agent Carter. And I don’t really look forward to Sif, because the track record of the show with episodes which cross over to Thor is bad. Really bad. “Yes men” is easily my last favourite episode of the whole show (in: I hate it and wish I could jus pretend that it doesn’t exist). And while I don’t like Ward as a person, I always look forward to him turning up now, because you never knew what he will do next.
I’m not a big fan of the episode “Yes Men” either, but it certainly had nothing to do with Sif, and I think this upcoming episode with her is going to be a stronger episode based more in the show’s mythology, rather than just a goofy throw-away.
This is my “pre-comment” as I have not seen the latest episode of SHIELD yet. But I am super excited to watch – read this post and then comment and discuss 🙂
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
I will say after tonight’s episode things are feeling more intentional to me now, in a good way…
So… circling back around FOREVER later 🙂 I ended up enjoying the Inumans storyline – because I thought it complicated some of the backstories really well. And because Luke Mitchell… and because I actually liked how the Bobbie/mack thing changed everything for everyone. I liked seeing what it brought out in Hunter. But I did not like at all that it made me like Simmons less. I just saw today that SHIELD s2 is on netflix so it’d be interesting to go back and rewatch and see how it played out, knowing now where it’s going.
I have to say – I’m kind of with you in, where is Marvel going with all this? Now we’re going to get a second season of Agent Carter (which I’m super excited about!). I liked how the started out the whole Russian program that led to Black Widow. But I’m not sure how it’s leading to Civil War or a larger Thanos story.
It would probably be good for me to do a recap of season 2 since my feelings have changed since this post, though I am still confused about why they have so much focus on inhumans now when there’s going to be an Inhumans movie so far down the road. But I did end up liking the storyline pretty well. I’m not really sure about Civil War or Thanos either. And I agree about Simmons, until like the last couple of episodes when I finally started to like her a little better again. And the finale… omg! And yes, I agree about Hunter; he really thrived in the last part of season 2. And yay for Peggy Carter season 2!
I will say that I am intrigued to see how things go. Civil War was obviously a very Avengers-divisive story, but it also ended with a major death. Will the movie? The next Thor is subtitled Ragnarok, which is essentially Norse Armageddon in which all of the gods wipe each other out. Will this happen to the Asgardians and Thor?
Two Infinity War movies. Thanos is going to have to create some severe mayhem. By the end of the decade, how many of our first-run Avengers will be left?
I don’t know how everything will play out, but I’m excited to see it! 🙂