SHIELD is back for its second season, and after finally turning around on the show by the end and then allowing myself to exhibit excitement while offering advice for the show’s future, I can honestly say that I am fairly pumped. I am ready, SHIELD! Lets do this!
But will my optimism be rewarded or thrown back in my face? After having the first season break my heart, am I ready to let love in again for the second season? And, more importantly, was the episode any good?
Lets talk about it.
As a note, spoilers are discussed somewhat unavoidably, though for future episodes I will try and avoid them as much as possible.
1. Yes! Yes! Yes!
Hooray! I’m still in!
I’ll skip a lot of the “will they/won’t they” aspects of this review and say that my relationship with Agents of SHIELD is still pretty positive. I re-watched some (not all) of Season 1 in preparation for it to return and was reminded of some of my complaints, watching the first season’s finale literally right before the second season’s premiere. Coming in with this pseudo-refresher course while also glancing over my past reviews, I was reminded of a lot of the pitfalls of the first season and the things that I felt were holding it back.
But as the new episode kicked off, it appeared that a lot of the problems of the previous season had been addressed. Here was an episode that felt like it was firmly entrenched in the Marvel U — whether it was from the opening scene with the Howling Commandos and Agent Carter, to the return of Glenn Talbot, to the introduction of the Absorbing Man. This was everything that should’ve been with SHIELD since the beginning on display.
It wasn’t perfect, I’ll note. “Shadows” was a very strong opener, one that engenders a lot of faith and enthusiasm from me, but there are still problems — pacing, for one. But I’m honestly willing to forgive that, specifically because it actually feels like a show about a spy organization now. This isn’t the “Coulson and Friends Happy Hour” anymore, but a show in which every character of the team felt important, or even improved upon from the last season. Coulson’s role is still big, sure, but the entirety of the group felt utilized, even when it came to minor or newer characters just joining the stage; almost everyone had some moment to make their role “relevant” to the group. The balance has finally been somewhat struck, and it’s nice to see us join the story back on a high note.
Plus, there’s a lot of stuff that’s being paid off from the past season (some of which we’ll talk about in this write-up). We get the original 0-8-4, the continuation of the Hydra plot and a story that seems to be evolving more than it is coming out in stagnant, solitary pieces. While I will continue to hold my reservations, I will at least note that I was overall very pleasantly surprised by the second series premiere — thus confirming my thoughts about the first season’s Arrow syndrome (ie, the aspect that the first season was a slog but paid off in the end, and the second season was where the show started to really deliver).
2. The New Kids on the Block
As the second season kicks off, we’re introduced to all kinds of new characters. There’s the arrival of Izzy Hartley, Lucy Lawless’ much publicized addition to the program, as well as the less vaunted inclusion of Lance Hunter (played by Nick Blood), Al McKenzie (Henry Simmons) and a third character whose only name is apparently Idaho (played by Wilmer Calderon). And I gotta say, while actually hearing the names of these characters within the episode was nearly an impossibility (I had no idea who Simmons was, for example), I do like the bigger general cast of characters as Coulson rebuilds SHIELD. While it’s sort of thrust upon us, throwing the audience in media res here doesn’t feel entirely off-putting or abrasive; since we spent so much time developing that initial core cast we’ve become used to the idea of the SHIELD team, and it’s nice to see it expanding — and with a bit more diversity this time around.
Continued belowOf course, there’s also more evil on the other side of the fence. Daniel Whitehall aka the Villain More Commonly Known in Comics as the Kraken is introduced (played by Reed Diamond) who makes a nice albeit brief addition to the cast. Whitehall is more of a tease than anything else, but if he ends up anything like the Kraken from Jonathan Hickman’s “Secret Warriors” then I’ll happily accept his role as this seasons Big Bad and the TV version of the Hydra mastermind (since the films have Von Strucker). Plus, the hook of how he’s still around after the opening sequence is a nice one to toss in there, and it’ll be interesting seeing him as a foil to Coulson.
And speaking of villains, heck yes to the absolutely one-dimensional Absorbing Man (played by Brian Patrick Wade). He displayed about as much depth as a puddle, but with a character like the Absorbing Man I don’t think we’re really looking for soliloquies; just the fact that we were given an actual Marvel villain with powers who both had nods to his comic book counterpart (the ball and chain!) and represented an actual threat to the team seems good enough. Leave the masterminding for the eternal Nazis; I’m OK with a bruiser that SHIELD just struggles to go up against, yet who is smart enough not to pick up the weird deadly mystical object that caused Hartley to lose her arm (the scientific legitimacy of rubber protecting him from that not withstanding, or mattering).
3. The Ghost of You
One noticeable aspect about this episode was how much of the first season and other past events seemed to loom over it like a specter. In some cases it was incredibly literal — Fitz, for example, is hallucinating that Simmons is still around, with her having apparently left him due to his head trauma post-saving her life in the finale (I phrase it like that and it sounds horrible, but still it’s a bit shitty to abandon a close friend like that). The reveal was a moment that was a bit obvious, but it still adds an interesting wrinkle towards what we could possibly expect out of him after the massive betrayal he felt last season from, well, pretty much everyone (May tried to shoot him, Ward tried to kill him, Coulson yelled at him a lot, Simmons rebuked his affections and left him along with his head trauma — god, Fitz is primed to be a villain, isn’t he?).
Meanwhile, ghosts remain everywhere else. Skye is still haunted by her past, and there’s her affections for the traitorous Ward who now seems to be obsessed with her. Coulson is haunted by the past iteration of SHIELD and its inability to keep the promises it set out to do as an organization. While May seems relatively unscathed, she’s always been a character with a mysterious and foreboding past; I can only imagine what is weighing on her.
But if I could be so bold, I would guess that a big part of the season is going to be about the past catching up to the present and all these ghosts returning, perhaps rather obviously as a parallel to the fact that the team itself is now comprised of ghost operatives. Whether it be the eventual arrival of Skye’s father, the assumed confrontation coming with Whitehall or any number of leftover threads from the first season, there are ghosts everywhere — and it very much feels like the point.
4. Going Dark
So this is something that caught me a little bit off-guard, but having watched the previous season’s finale literally right before this premiere, I found it odd that this episode was so… dark. In fact, it was an active element of the episode, with Coulson telling his agents at parts to “go dark” on their missions. It’s a bit meta, if you ask me.
But the reason it’s off-putting at all is because the previous season ended on such a high note of optimism. We had all these horrible things happen, SHIELD and the world were left in a worse place, but it was up to Coulson to rebuild. Heck, if you’ll remember, Coulson was actively smiling during the confrontation with last season’s Big Bad Garrett, and he took him down with a quip. Yet as we kick off, Coulson apparently chose to remain in the shadows and that’s seemingly become an all consuming part of them. It is not surprising the world reacted negatively to SHIELD, and it’s great to see that SHIELD 2.0 is still an organization actively endeavoring to do the right thing (now with more clever methodology, too, which is nice) with a quirky line here or there, but it did seem odd to see all of these characters months after the events of that chance for a new beginning now in a place of pessimism.
Continued belowHonestly, that most of my notes for the episode noted that characters seemed sad for the duration of the episode struck me as a strange recurring element when reading back my brief scribbles. While the episode was still fun and had its pockets of humor and whatnot, it doesn’t seem like SHIELD is ready to let the light in just yet.
(Could this be prep-work as we march towards Age of Ultron and the upcoming public teases that feature Tony Stark standing over the bodies of fallen Avengers? Perhaps.)
5. Season 2, At a Glance
So, if we can use one episode to make all of our assumptions and predictions about the rest of the season, I’d say this: having changed the channel over to FX to watch Sons of Anarchy without watching the “This Season, on SHIELD” portion after the episode and with no other outside influence, I’d say things are looking good.
This episode sets up a lot. We’re reminded of some lingering plot lines from last season (the electronic schematic is still very relevant), which is nice. We’re given a few new artifacts and items to keep our eyes on, such as the mysterious obelisk that Whitehall is after, and it would appear that the plot is a bit more direct and focused this time around. There’s so much in this first episode that seems like a seed planted for something farther down the line, and that’s a good thing.
We’re also inundated with references and things that make this actually feel like the Marvel Universe, whether it being that 90% of the characters appearing are all based on Marvel Comics Characters or that we get nods to STRIKE (the allies in London — though it could ostensibly be MI13, I suppose), LMDs (the many Koening brothers), and things straight out of Marvel films (hello, Quinn jet!). We wanted SHIELD to identify itself as a Marvel program; it has decidedly done so, and in spades.
So I’m optimistic for SHIELD. The writing is better, the actors are in better sync, and “honeycomb kill room” is now a thing that exists in our lexicon. It could use some polishing still, but this is a vast improvement over what came before. I’m doing my darndest to avoid spoilers, having already seen a pretty big one, but from just one episode and the promises of what’s to come (Mockingbird!), I am at this point rather happy to have SHIELD back on the TV.
Join me next week for more SHIELD recaps, and be sure to sound off in the comments what you thought about the premiere.
