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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph Agents of SHIELD Discussion Thread (and Slingshot)

Discussion in 'Community' started by Lazy Storm Trooper, Sep 21, 2013.

  1. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 23, 2005
  2. Juliet316

    Juliet316 37X Hangman Winner star 10 VIP - Game Winner

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    Apr 27, 2005
  3. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001
    Well, that new episode certainly seemed to imply the showrunners were paying attention to most of the complaints from the front-half...
     
  4. DarthMane2

    DarthMane2 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 20, 2003
    I didn't think so. We actually got a story around something interesting. Well atleast one part of it atleast, that being the Coulson part. Could still care less about everyone else. I really want Skye to bite it some how.

    as for the reveal. WTF? That's it. He dies, and they find a way to bring him back medically. Wow. The suspence paied off.
     
  5. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    Except it showed the team basically totally gelled, even with Skye being off on their own -- setting up the team for being the "outsiders" and not happy about SHIELD's questionable activities; willing to do anything for one Agent vs. the rest of the organization focused on simply assaulting Centipede.

    Skye was stuck with things she was GOOD at (and using the one martial arts move she was ever taught) rather than being Uber-Skye and even May was in on letting Skye be Skye. Ward stepping in to lead the team, as an actual second-in-command. Fitz attempting to get more serious and Simmons still being Simmons ("Manscaping...")...

    The Coulson reveal was actually a Macguffin to what the episode gets us back to. And it answers some questions and asks others, which is fine.
     
  6. DarthIntegral

    DarthIntegral JCC Baseball Draft/SWC Draft Commish star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA VIP - Game Host

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    Jul 13, 2005
    How different the Galaxy Far, Far Away might have been, had Dr Streiten been there for Padme.
     
  7. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 29, 2005
    It was an improvement. It's not all the way there yet, but it's making adjustments.
     
  8. Jarren_Lee-Saber

    Jarren_Lee-Saber Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Apr 16, 2008
    I totally stopped watching this show....
     
  9. Dingo

    Dingo Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 23, 2001
    They didn't give us what people wanted (some big, other-worldly, massively integrated to the Marvel history explanation), but the one that they needed. The one that they actually have been laying the seeds for. And that's something that is character driven. The important aspect of the explanation wasn't that the way he was brought back was (mainly) Earthly and medical in nature. It's that it was done in a fashion where Fury threw everything possible at resurrecting him, the sheer time it took for this to take place, and most importantly, that it broke Coulson.

    The immediate rammifications are obviously the character driven ones that revolve around Coulson. He now knows what they did to him, and what it did to him mentally. That is something that can actually be explored and played with on a TV show, and has far more mileage than it being the Infinity formula or some such which could only be explored for a short period of time before it would reach far beyond the possible scope of the show. It also allows one of their better character actors to have something good to work with.

    The other thing it does it allow for distance to be put between them and the rest of SHIELD, with a payoff also down the line. Knowing that Fury and Hill ordered and were aware of everything gives a reason for Coulson to find ways of keeping apart from the central SHIELD organisation. This means there isn't a need to explain why we don't see them interacting with that core more often when bigger threats hit, and also might allow for why they won't be involved with the events of Winter Soldier. And then as either a result of what is possibly going to come in Winter Soldier, or separate from it, a resolution to any distancing between Coulson and Fury can be used, and provide a good reason to bring SLJ back for an episode or two.
     
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  10. Juliet316

    Juliet316 37X Hangman Winner star 10 VIP - Game Winner

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    Apr 27, 2005
    Provided that Fury actually survives the events of Winter Soldier.
     
  11. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    But I don't see how that makes any sense. There didn't need to be any "mystery" around what you just said. All those points of character drama could've been playing out from the first episode. He had a very difficult recovery that has left him damaged. Fine. Instead, they intentionally played up how impossible his survival was, and how miraculous his present state seems in light of that. People are resentful of the reveal because they were misled. They wanted something cool, mysterious, and outside quotidian experience to hook people onto the show, so they hinted that Coulson's survival was all of these things. In fact, it was none of them.
     
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  12. Dingo

    Dingo Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 23, 2001
    But the mystery also needed to be there for the character. There needed to be the case that he was lied to over what happened and the revelations to Coulson himself that something wasn't right. Did the showrunners toy a little with expectations? Yeah, they did. But they also never at any point actually pushed it as being this big other-worldly thing. All they did was keep pulling at the string that there was something not right with his death, and that Coulson was a changed man because of the event.

    The issues people have were the result of ABC and it's marketing department creating any notion or expectation that there was this big mystery tying into something even bigger. People need to keep that in mind when railing at feeling cheated by "Marvel" or the showrunners.
     
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  13. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 29, 2005
    Well, technically speaking, they didn't give us an explanation at all. We now know that Coulson was dead for a while before he stopped being dead, that there was some kind of brain probe involved, that his heart was basically gone, and that whatever the process entailed horrified Dr. Book. We don't know how they replaced his heart. We don't know why there had to be a probe thing cooking his brain. We don't know what was so horrifying, exactly. We don't know how this process saved a guy who was dead for days. It's a slightly more detailed elaboration on what we knew to begin with: Coulson died but they saved him somehow. The "somehow" is still a mystery.

    How did they fix a guy whose heart was gone and who had been dead several days? Advanced medicine isn't a full explanation of resurrection. In fact, simple "Earthly and medical in nature" explanations are the one thing this episode ruled out by establishing that he was dead for days and had to be outright resurrected. This wasn't an explanation; it was a tease for an explanation, giving us more information but leaving the important questions up in the air. There will eventually be a full reveal, telling us that that brain probe was transferring his memories to a clone body, or they resurrected him with some super-serum and mad science, or whatever, but this wasn't it.
     
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  14. Juliet316

    Juliet316 37X Hangman Winner star 10 VIP - Game Winner

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    Apr 27, 2005
    Promo for next week's episode:

     
  15. Moviefan2k4

    Moviefan2k4 Jedi Master star 4

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    Dec 29, 2009
    The spider-type machine wasn't cooking Coulson's brain, just continually stimulating his pain centers to keep him alive and conscious. What I found horrifying was that Fury oversaw it himself. This begs the question of why, as an individual, does Fury place Coulson's life above everyone else's?
     
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  16. Bib Fartuna

    Bib Fartuna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2012
    I love the scene where SHIELD gets to Indiana Jones-town.

    Main good guy goes off to fight white bad buy ... next bad guy fought is black, last that appears ... Asian! Political correctness and quota fulfilled! ;)
     
  17. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    Why? What happened was traumatic and horrifying in its own right. We know this because even the people involved peripherally in the process seemed sickened by it. Whereas Coulson was the one that had it happen to him against his will. That should be more than enough to estrange him from Fury or generate whatever internal character conflict will result.

    How isn't that teasing that it's going to be a huge mystery? Note how he phrases it. He didn't say the repercussions of Coulson's death would last for several episodes. He didn't say working through the emotional trauma or the tension that this creates with SHIELD would take several episodes. He literally said that finding out what happened in the first place would take this long. This is direct evidence that he, the show's creator, made a deliberate choice to play up the mode of Coulson's survival as some sort of huge exciting mystery. It wasn't. Guess who deserves to be blamed for that deception? Yeah.
     
  18. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 23, 2005
    This show needs more than just cameos and references to the movies. The revelation of Coulson's resurrection shouldn't be an excuse to bring in A-list celebrities, that's poor writing.
     
  19. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

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    Jan 28, 2007
    There will eventually be a full reveal, telling us that that brain probe was transferring his memories to a clone body, or they resurrected him with some super-serum and mad science

    It seems like there was room out of 7 or more operations for neurosurgeon Dr. Strange to work his magic in the magical place, since the Coulson mystery is a medical one. This program could be a staging point to introduce the character.

    Wiki says: "that Doctor Strange would appear in some capacity as part of "Phase Three" of the MCU. "
     
  20. Darth-Lando

    Darth-Lando Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 12, 2002
    Everyone is talking about Coulson and all I can think about is how horrible Skye's entire segment was. She crashed a stolen car on purpose so she could activate OnStar and get a tow truck to take her to the car's owner's house which she didn't know. She couldn't have looked for the registration in the glove box? And the tow truck driver that AAA or whoever sends is just going to know where the owners house is? And won't ask for ID or even a membership card? And that wrist thing that shuts down network connections or whatever is even more implausible. It shuts down two dozen laptops in the coffee shop but later does nothing because she has a reaching broom? Why not just stretch her arm behind her back and use it one handed? Nope, better take some computer illiterate hostages and walk them through her "hacking" step by step. She is just the worst.
     
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  21. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    On the other hand, the Bus's 180 was pretty darn cool... :cool:
     
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  22. s65horsey

    s65horsey Otter-loving Former EUC Mod star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 24, 2006
    I agree with your other complaints but they covered this one. She is seen early in the episode with her hand behind her back and it doesn't work. She needed the extra length with the broom or whatever she used. She couldn't type the complicated stuff on her own because of the bracelet so she needed someone. Really though, Agent May should've known this and sent someone with her.
     
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  23. Yodaminch

    Yodaminch Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 6, 2002
    This was the first episode where I finally got the hate for Skye. All I wanted was Coulson and more Coulson. I could take a bit of the team sure. But the fact that it all came down to Skye was just nauseating. First, it means that of all the top men Fury and Hill and Hand have on this, none of them can crack things as quickly as Skye. Then there was her string of luck that allowed her to even get that information without being arrested or shot. Great that she used the one disarming move she knows, but other than that, not very impressive. Trying to shove her down our throats has turned even the casual fans off of her I think. Prior to this, as cringe-worthy as some of her stuff was, it never actually made me hate her or want her to go away for good. But this episode did that for me.

    Coulson on the other hand was awesome and I wanted more. Learning that he underwent 7+ operations to get brought back to life and that Fury threw everything he had at this (including some type of green formula: Infinity perhaps if not something similiar) is certainly interesting. But more importantly, Coulson remembers being on the table with his head open begging to die. This plus the other scars make it clear that Coulson is still Coulson and not an LMD, despite the doctor's "thing" comments.
     
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  24. JoinTheSchwarz

    JoinTheSchwarz Former Head Admin star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Nov 21, 2002
    No, you are wrong. I still like her.
     
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  25. Rosslcopter

    Rosslcopter Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    That was idiotic. Slowing your vehicle to a complete stop, turning, and then accelerating again cannot be efficient time wise OR energy wise. Not to mention the havoc it would play inside the plane itself. You saw how many people were in there, there's not enough seats for everyone to strap in and NO WARNING WAS GIVEN TO ANYONE. I'd be surprised if anyone on board escaped without head injuries
     
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