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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.


ShadowDog
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Is it safe to watch yesterday's episode without having seen the Thor movie first? I'll take my answer off the air.

Totally. Only three items show any direct movie connection:

 

1. The episode starts with them cleaning up post-movie-climax rubble in England. If you're surprised the movie had some of that, then let me welcome you to your new pal Marvel Movies.

 

2. They mention a "ship". That was in the trailers. Details aren't discussed in depth and don't much matter to this episode.

 

3. Thor's not around because reasons -- i.e., not enough TV money in the world for movie star.

 

That's it. Pretty self-contained, bordering on a near-gratuitous "red skies" crossover level.

 

It guest stars Peter MacNicol, so there were some "Vigo" jokes that wrote themselves in my head.

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THANKS!

 

My personal touchstones for the great performances of Sir Peter MacNicol's career tend towards his less comedic roles : Bumbling Political Toady on that one season of 24, Frustrated Father Who Is Taught Life Lessons By Semi-Silent Clown in Bean, and, naturally, his beautifully touching turn as Scientist Who Dimly Recalls The Universal Language Spoken By All Infants Prior To Their Ascension From The First Of Erikson's Eight Stages Of Psychosocial Development in Baby Geniuses. Oh well chacun à son goût.

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I hadn't seen that. Thanks very much for passing it along. :thumbsup: I'd been prone to the occasional "because, hey," variation before the internet made the "hey" superfluous. It's nice to see linguists recognizing such online permutations without necessarily bemoaning them.

 

Also, bonus points to the author for the phrase "exceptionally bloggy".

 

(If I'd known The Atlantic did interesting things, I might've noticed them sooner.)

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THANKS!

 

My personal touchstones for the great performances of Sir Peter MacNicol's career tend towards his less comedic roles : Bumbling Political Toady on that one season of 24, Frustrated Father Who Is Taught Life Lessons By Semi-Silent Clown in Bean, and, naturally, his beautifully touching turn as Scientist Who Dimly Recalls The Universal Language Spoken By All Infants Prior To Their Ascension From The First Of Erikson's Eight Stages Of Psychosocial Development in Baby Geniuses. Oh well chacun à son goût.

But no Dragonslayer love?
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It must be a red herring, right? They even use the familiar refrain from Dollhouse of "Did I fall asleep?" "For a little while." in the dream sequence. So it could be a deliberate fake-out to the attentive and Whedon-savvy viewer and the truth is something a little more pedestrian : it's really him, he really survived, but there's something mysterious about his recovery that S.H.I.E.L.D. (and maybe Coulson himself) is covering up.

 

Or maybe it's a double twist and they're just choosing to make it seem super obvious that he's a skinjob with Coulson's memories and the real Coulson is dead or maybe in a coma somewhere or maybe on Counter-Earth that must be it Coulson was kidnapped by the High Evolutionary and sent there or, wait, remember those fan theories before The Avengers of Loki and Coulson being in league with each other maybe Loki deliberately made it not a killing wound for that reason or maybe Ultron already exists in-universe and Coulson has always been the movie analogue for the Vision and he was sent by Ultron to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. and they only discovered he wasn't human when he was wounded by Loki oh no maybe there never was a Coulson all along or I am Coulson typing these words on this computer oh man pretty sure Coulson is just the four-and-a-half ice cubes in my No. 2342 Dixie® Georgia-Pacific Corporation cup filled to the brim with Coke Zero.

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It must be a red herring, right? They even use the familiar refrain from Dollhouse of "Did I fall asleep?" "For a little while." in the dream sequence.

Caught that; loved it.

 

New theory: Tahiti was real, but the entire show is the dream. Season finale: after the entire cast dies horribly while fighting the secret head of Centipede (played by some boring musclebound TV guy), Coulson wakes up screaming. He's in the hospital, his bed surrounded by Fury, Dum-Dum, Jasper Sitwell, Gabe Jones, Jimmy Woo, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and all the other real agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

And then the series really begins.

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My personal touchstones for the great performances of Sir Peter MacNicol's career tend towards his less comedic roles : Bumbling Political Toady on that one season of 24, Frustrated Father Who Is Taught Life Lessons By Semi-Silent Clown in Bean, and, naturally, his beautifully touching turn as Scientist Who Dimly Recalls The Universal Language Spoken By All Infants Prior To Their Ascension From The First Of Erikson's Eight Stages Of Psychosocial Development in Baby Geniuses. Oh well chacun à son goût.

I loved him in 24 but its all about him in Ally McBeal for me.

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Why be coy about it? Why not call them AIM in the first place? They were barely a step above a throwaway gag in Iron Man 3, so I can't imagine such a revelation would impress more than 10% of the viewers.

 

...

 

So, this week's episode, then: while the team interaction was better than ever, it's kind of goofy that they made a new villain by crossing Jed Clampett with the Spot.

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So I'm several episodes behind. Normally I save this show to watch with the kid cause it's one of the handful of shows we can both be into. Between the custody schedule with the former Mrs. Tank and the holiday we are way behind.

 

We sit down and watch Dy of the Doctor the other night, and after I remind him we have like 3 episodes of SHIELD to watch. And my eight year old, who lists Avengers as his favorite movie, says "Dad, that show is kind of boring. I don't want to watch it really."

 

To which I say YOU'RE RIGHT.

 

rip-cord pulled. Maybe i'll give it a chance when it's on streaming and I can zip through, or if they realize they need to reformat things, or become vaguely interesting.

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That's exactly what happened for us years ago with Enterprise. It got to the point where we'd stockpile episodes two or three at a time, and then add them to our chore list. "I need to rake the backyard." "Did you remember to take the old clothes to Goodwill?" "One of the garage light bulbs is out." "Are we caught up on Enterprise yet?" That's how we knew it was time to let go of the show and Trek completism in general.

 

Sad when it happens, but I totally get where you're coming from. If it becomes essential, we'll let you know! Gunn a.k.a. "Mike Peterson" will return in next week's episode, if that helps at all.

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