The first half of Agents of SHIELD’s second season is done, and good gracious did they really nail it this go around. No apathy, no listless watching while playing Peggle — just full on tension and terror and excitement and all that good stuff.
But there’s some thing we need to talk about now. There’s always things we need to talk about.
Read on for five-ish thoughts on last night’s SHIELD, and be warned: major spoilers contained within, rather obviously. I picked the least spoiler-y image imaginable to kick the post off, but that’s where that ends.
1. Among Us Hide.. the Inhumans!
So, no way getting around this one anymore. They’ve not come out and said it, sure, but it’s all there: mentions of the Kree, a buried city that’s most likely Attilan, Terrigen crystals, Terrigen mist, people going into cocoons and coming out with powers. Everyone and their mothers guessed it, but Marvel has officially introduced the Inhumans into their Cinematic Universe via their show.
Which is pretty interesting, when you step back and think about it. If we can now all agree that SHIELD is great — we can all agree to this now, yes? — then we can look at one of the biggest complaints about the first season, that it felt largely disposable as a piece of the bigger picture, and see how that issue was fixed. SHIELD never held its own enough to be interesting and it never contributed to the build-up towards the inevitable two-part Infinity War— until now, and they’ve done so with a bang. Because now, everything is different; now we have Inhumans, we have a brand new jumping off point for people with super powers, and we didn’t even need to have Blackbolt around to introduce them.
Not to mention the other little bit of world-building the show has been doing. I’m still waiting for the Punisher casting to get announced! Heck, I’m just excited to be excited about this damn show!
Still, all things considered, SHIELD has been firing on all cylinders this season, and even with one of the most telegraphed moments of comic book TV this still managed to be wonderfully thrilling and compelling entertainment.
2. You Get an Official Marvel Character Identity, and YOU Get an Official Marvel Character Identity, and YOU…!
And the secret is out: Skye, aka Mary Sue Poots, is actually Daisy Johnson. It should’ve been completely obvious to me last week when I made a big stink about “Daisy Bell” being played in the opening scene, but sometimes you don’t see the forest for the trees. Also: duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, of course it’s Daisy Johnson because this show has referenced “Secret Warriors” a lot (Whitehall, Koenig, etc, SHIELD actually being Hydra, etc). Duh!
With the revelation of who Skye is, we can also now figure out who Kyle Maclachlan has been secretly playing the whole season. Introducing himself to Skye as “Cal,” the character formerly known as Doctor is none other than Calvin Zabo, aka Mr. Hyde. Which makes perfect sense, of course; a guy who goes into blind murderous rages and beats people to death with his fists? That’s Hyde.
This is some pretty sharp heel turns for the show, but it’s impossibly exciting — particularly Skye being revealed as Daisy Johnson, aka Quake, aka the leader of the mother flippin’ Secret Warriors, aka one of my favorite Marvel series of the past five years and still the best thing Jonathan Hickman has written for Marvel. Quake became director of SHIELD for a time too and has the highest level of security clearance, so I imagine big things are on their way for Skye. To quote Beyonce, who run the world?
However, a big change for Daisy Johnson/Skye/Quake is the revelation that she is an Inhuman, which brings us to…
3. No More Mutants
There’s one huge advantage to having the Inhumans: it means Marvel doesn’t need to use mutants.
We’ve talked about this before in the column (and as was been pointed out originally by my one-time fill-in Brian Salvatore), but Marvel can’t use mutants in their films because of the rights they sold away to Fox. It’s what makes the whole Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch thing a conundrum for the two companies when it comes to their films, though they’ve apparently found an amicable solution. And since Marvel can’t use mutants, they ramped up their use of the Inhumans via the Hickman-penned event “Infinity,” which gave birth to a new Inhuman race and allowed for very specific synergy. That and, well, the Inhumans are basically the same thing as mutants anyway; the only major difference is they get their gifts from space, experimentation, crystals and selective breeding vs. gene mutation.
Continued belowBut with Skye being an Inhuman, it does show how far Marvel is taking this property and concept. You know how Daisy Johnson got her superpowers in comcis? Via evolved genes passed on from her father, which somewhat technically makes her a mutant — and that’s a big no no. So it seems no one can have super powers in the Marvel U unless there’s a specific explanation for them (like midichlorians) because just having superhumans doesn’t work anymore, and if you weren’t experimented on by a government organization or involved in some freak science accident then congrats, you got your powers from space. Making Daisy an Inhuman is drawing a pretty firm line in the sand about what kind of content Marvel will be pursuing, so it bears thinking about in terms of what characters Marvel will be using in the future and how they’ll explain their impossible and awesome powers.
And I suppose this confirms Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch as Inhumans in Age of Ultron as well, yes?
4. But Wait, What About Raina?
One very dangling thread left in this episode was whatever happened to Raina. Similarly caught in the Terrigen mist blast, Raina’s transformation is not nearly as pronounced as Skye’s. We see some thorns protrude from under her eyes, which are now noticeably different (orange, and almost feline), but have otherwise no real conclusion as to who she could be. On purpose, of course.
Raina was (ostensibly) an original creation for the show, like most of the principle cast. While she was tied to a few characters who had specific Marvel U identities, Raina was a mysterious and great new character who operated sort of like the shark from Jaws to some extent — always lurking in the background, only striking when needed. But now she’s an Inhuman, and with Skye being revealed as Daisy Johnson, it perhaps stands to reason that Marvel has made Raina into someone more recognizable as well.
But as to whom that may be, I’m not sure. I’ve re-watched the portion of the episode, paused and given it the full CSI rundown. The spines make me think of Quill (not Peter), but otherwise I’m at a loss to who she is. But, hey, that’s the fun part of Inhumans: there are no rules anymore.
5. The Man with No Eyes
Last but not least, the final mic drop of last night’s episode was showing us another person who could wield the Diviner — and, oh yeah, he had no eyes. Clearly another Inhuman, the question is: who?
Thing is, as far as I know there’s only one blind Inhuman, and that’s Reader. The no eyes match, the grey hair matches, and all that’s missing is a dog. The only problem is, though, that this character was just introduced; first appearing in August’s issue of “Inhuman”, Reader is a new character created by Charles Soule and Ryan Stegman as part of the new batch of Inhumans. To bring him into the show now seems really early, or at least really well planned.
Which is perhaps fair. Reader as a character was announced back in March of 2014, before Agents of SHIELD had finished its first season if you can believe it, so maybe this was just supremely well planned. If so, well, kudos to the show on smart synergy-tastic planning, and double kudos Soule and Stegman for already getting a character they created brought to life.
Or it’s someone else. There aren’t that many blind characters to choose from, but perhaps he is a gender-bent Blindfold (Ruth Aldine)? She was created by Joss Whedon so there’s at least one plausible thread, and Marvel can’t use mutants so might as well switch things around so Fox doesn’t get mad, I suppose!
Bonus: RIP Antoine “Trip” Triplett and Daniel “The Kraken” Whitehall
I still don’t want to believe it. Trip was the character that initially gave me hope that SHIELD could be worthwhile back in the dullest parts of the first season. I’m rather upset he’s gone. But… maybe there’s hope yet?
Whitehall I’m okay with dying, though I’m sad he never got to become the Kraken in full. Also: what an uneventful death. Perhaps we’ve not seen the last of him as well.
At least Mac is okay. And if we’re lucky, Ward may still bleed out.
