Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review - Episode 3: The Asset

[Right Hook]

Don't really know much about LMD's, but can they bleed?

'Cause agent Coulson clearly bled in episode 2.

Yes, they can bleed, wouldn't be a very good decoy if it couldn't bleed. They are pretty much indistinguishable without doing massive damage to them.

Coulson wasn't trying to reload the gun, he was trying to do that cool "grab the slide to disassemble it" trick. Which is why Ward just chucked it into the force field...it was an easier way to get rid of it than waiting for Coulson to pull the trick off.

Okay, that's what I thought too. I was confused when he said reload.

 

[themyrmidon]

Not a fan of all the superficial political statements being made, I wish it showed SHIELD more as the two-faced organization that it is.

 

[Uri]

thanks again for this blog I really like it.
The parts I like best are the Marvel Universe explanations, I have no comic book back ground so these blogs help me appreciate the show.

Also im pretty sure "reload" in bob's post was just a mental typo, and he meant get the bullet out of the chamber.

 

[JSF01]

Sweet I am now 99% sure one of my theories from last episode is right, there is a secret Shield Space station, and that's where slingshot is taking the items. When Coulson was detailing how deeply he wanted that element buried and secret, to that agent that was putting it into storage because that's what Hall would have wanted, he specifically mentioned He did not want it flagged for the slingshot. Coulson makes it quite clear that he never wants this stuff to be touched again, and yet he specifically dose not want it to be flagged for slingshot, which would send it into the sun, that would guarantee it was never touched again. Graviton is implied to be very dangerous, and I'd have to say it sure seems to far more dangerous than the Hydra Ray weapon last episode, that when fired only put a relatively small hole in the side of a plane, but was "too dangerous for any person or government to have."

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Sweet I am now 99% sure one of my theories from last episode is right, there is a secret Shield Space station, and that's where slingshot is taking the items. When Coulson was detailing how deeply he wanted that element buried and secret, to that agent that was putting it into storage because that's what Hall would have wanted, he specifically mentioned He did not want it flagged for the slingshot. Coulson makes it quite clear that he never wants this stuff to be touched again, and yet he specifically dose not want it to be flagged for slingshot, which would send it into the sun, that would guarantee it was never touched again. Graviton is implied to be very dangerous, and I'd have to say it sure seems to far more dangerous than the Hydra Ray weapon last episode, that when fired only put a relatively small hole in the side of a plane, but was "too dangerous for any person or government to have."

I turned to my wife and said the same thing. If he didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands, why not put it on the slingshot and hurl it into the Sun. Perhaps the Gravitonium would have a catastrophic effect on the Sun? They mentioned that if an electrical current is passed through it that it goes unstable (or something like that). I'm guessing all the radiation generated by solar activity may cause it to go gangbusters. Then again, who knows.

 

[Souplex]

I was really trying to like the show, but it has too much of Whedon's stink on it.
Avengers was tolerable because it barely smelled like Whedon (Other than his inability to stop re-writing the same characters). This isn't working because you can tell it's his doing from miles away.

 

[Your Rival]

I usually like Joss Whedon's stuff, but I can't stand this show. This show feels like someone trying to imitate him to be honest. Usually, when Whedon uses clichés and cheesy dialogue he does it with a self-aware finesse that makes it work. This show lacks a certain je ne sais quoi that is present in his other work.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Yep, this show is picking up its stride. I loved how they clearly blew the budget on the small rotating lab set (probably repurposed from a movie set) and spent the rest of the money renting a short stretch of highway and a California coastal mansion.

Did it break the immersion? Yep. Did I care? Not one bit.

Don't really know much about LMD's, but can they bleed?

'Cause agent Coulson clearly bled in episode 2.

He's not a life model decoy. He's clearly a clone. The life model decoy will be Agent Coulson 4.0 when his spare bodies run out.

I'm just watching it and got to the gravitonium part.

Ain't that basically Mass Effect (as in the material)?

No, no, no... the stuff that manipulates gravity when you put a charge through it and gives people superpowers was called Element Zero, whereas this stuff was called Gravitonium. Totally different things. Note how Element zero is two words and Gravitonium is one.

 

[romxxii]

I'm just watching it and got to the gravitonium part.

Ain't that basically Mass Effect (as in the material)?

You're thinking of Element Zero, and no, the defined properties of Eezo (which is heavily documented) do not match up to the displayed properties of Gravitonium. Key point being, Eezo affects mass, not weight and direction of gravity.

 

[romxxii]

I usually like Joss Whedon's stuff, but I can't stand this show. This show feels like someone trying to imitate him to be honest. Usually, when Whedon uses clichés and cheesy dialogue he does it with a self-aware finesse that makes it work. This show lacks a certain je ne sais quoi that is present in his other work.

It's run by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen. Notably, Jed's worked on Dollhouse and Avengers, as well as having co-written Dr. Horrible with Maurissa.

 

[Guffe]

I like the new series.
It's a bit stupid and it's sci-fi to a point (so far) that in the future most the stuff in it, we might actually have.
But I think some of these analysis are too analytic?
I mean does everything have to be tied to todays politics? If someone wants to read into stuff as much as you Bob (not sure if you normally do it, or just now because it's... well a part of your job) but I just want to sit and enjoy a show that seems to get more and more interesting all the time.
No super-hero marvel cameo in this episode :/

 

[RedDeadFred]

Well this episode wasn't bad. The last one had me very worried about where this show was going. This one was better even though it was once again filled to the brim with cliche. I'll give this show longer, hopefully we'll get some episodes that give us more than the potential of greatness. Arrow was like this at the start too and in the end, it got a lot better (although it never really handled the side villains very well -but this show seems to be doing the same thing). Arrow had a much more compelling main arc (along with the island arc too) and this show looks like it's probably going to be the same way. I'm excited to see this show hopefully start showing some kind of overarching plot since it's only really hinted at it so far.

 

[Clankenbeard]

I am happy to see Graviton born. He is a formidable bad guy in the Marvel Universe and a reaonable choice for the show. Special effects for a gravity-based hero can stay low budget.

The abduction scene to lead off the episode seemed a bit dopey. There were way too many loose ends, but the plot had to be moved along. The lack of FitzSimmons closure at the end (after their obvious emotional involvement) seemed odd to me. Skye's potential double cross seemed a little shallow, but that red dress bought her some leeway. A "catalyst" can be anything I guess. But who decides "that dude looks like the perfect catalyst to me"?

All that being said, this a damned Marvel TV show better than any other comic book show I can remember. I have alway hated SHIELD in the Marvel Universe. Buncha government funded jerks always showing up with who-knows-what agendas. People's tax dollars are funding flying aircraft carriers? This always seemed dumb. But, if a TV series can't afford the special effects budget necessary to do a real superhero team, I'll take this.

As I think about Graviton, I think back to the 1984 comic, West Coast Avengers. Their battle with Graviton is the only time I actually remember him as a baddie. He did a great job of taking the team down. And this makes me think "how tough would it have been to make a series with this team?" Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Tigra, Mockingbird, Iron Man and Henry Pym. Maybe you ditch Iron Man for budget reasons. Budget-wise you wind up with one super strong guy, one poor lady who has to spend 3 hours in make-up every day, and a shrinky guy.

 

[Makabriel]

Sweet I am now 99% sure one of my theories from last episode is right, there is a secret Shield Space station, and that's where slingshot is taking the items. When Coulson was detailing how deeply he wanted that element buried and secret, to that agent that was putting it into storage because that's what Hall would have wanted, he specifically mentioned He did not want it flagged for the slingshot. Coulson makes it quite clear that he never wants this stuff to be touched again, and yet he specifically dose not want it to be flagged for slingshot, which would send it into the sun, that would guarantee it was never touched again. Graviton is implied to be very dangerous, and I'd have to say it sure seems to far more dangerous than the Hydra Ray weapon last episode, that when fired only put a relatively small hole in the side of a plane, but was "too dangerous for any person or government to have."

I turned to my wife and said the same thing. If he didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands, why not put it on the slingshot and hurl it into the Sun. Perhaps the Gravitonium would have a catastrophic effect on the Sun? They mentioned that if an electrical current is passed through it that it goes unstable (or something like that). I'm guessing all the radiation generated by solar activity may cause it to go gangbusters. Then again, who knows.

Coulson knew the doctor was absorbed into the Gravitonium. He didn't want it destroyed because of the sacrifice made to keep it stable.

A few statements were made in Ep2 that confirm the slingshot sends things to be destroyed. The first is.. incidental. Skye said they went through a lot of trouble for something that was just going to be destroyed, to which Coulson said that the Slingshot was protocol for these types of devices.

Second, FitzSimmons comments while the rocket was taking off. Saying it was going beyond the Lagrange points (which are points of orbit) so it doesn't hit Herschel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Space_Observatory). Also mentioned the coronal mass ejections of the sun, implying that the rocket was going in that direction...

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

I would consider this the first good episode. The action and events in the previous two felt extremely forced and rushed. I really like that we're getting to the point in the series where an overall arc is being created. There's nothing wrong with monster-of-the-day style shows, but without something tying the episodes together they get stale way too fast. My biggest problem with the first two episodes was how they both ended with the terribly formulaic "we just defeated the bad guy and learned a life lesson, let's reflect on it and then laugh and smile awkwardly at the camera for a freakishly long five minutes." Asset's stinger at the end and overall higher production value showed me that they do intend to deliver more than a cheesy kids show.

 

[The Bandit]

I remember a while back Jon Stewart, when he was on the Bill O'Reilly show I believe, pointed out that his job (and the job of every comedian) was just to point out absurdities in everyday life. If this isn't what South Park is about, then I have completely missed the point of the show for a few decades now. It's kind of amazing that Bob seems to not understand this.

Then again, Bob has ALWAYS just taken the most hipster view he possibly can. People like South Park? OK, let's talk about why that's crap. People DON'T like South Park now? Just kidding, I like it.

 

[Keith_F]

Didn't have time to read through the other comics so someone might have already mentioned this.

re: Coulson struggling to reload his gun as a possible allusion to his being a robot/clone double. Another interesting note: at the end, Coulson mentions that reloading the gun should just be a matter of muscle memory (linking back to the earlier discussion between Skye and James Bond Jr), possibly indicating that, while SHIELD was able to reproduce Coulson's body (as a robot or clone or whatever), they weren't able to reproduce his more subtle physical qualities. It's a nice little touch. If you could implant someone's mind into a new body, would it maintain the original's fine motor skills?

 

[Rakor]

Well here's the thing, are the decoy robot whatever things built to be able to bleed, as Coulson did in the second episode? If so, fair enough. If not, I'm still thinking clone.

 

[JSF01]

I turned to my wife and said the same thing. If he didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands, why not put it on the slingshot and hurl it into the Sun. Perhaps the Gravitonium would have a catastrophic effect on the Sun? They mentioned that if an electrical current is passed through it that it goes unstable (or something like that). I'm guessing all the radiation generated by solar activity may cause it to go gangbusters. Then again, who knows.

While that may work as a reason not to hoot it into the sun, it doesn't really work with how Coulson said it. If what you said were to be true I would expect Coulson would have said something along the lines of "Because of how unstable Gravitonium is we can not risk sending it to the sun, so (list how I want to make sure nobody touches this stuff)" or "(list how I want to make sure nobody touches this stuff), since we can not risk shooting this into the sun." Instead Coulson listed making sure it did not get flagged for slingshot within the "list of how I want to make sure nobody touches this stuff", which kind of implies that if it goes to slingshot, people are going to mess with it.

Coulson knew the doctor was absorbed into the Gravitonium. He didn't want it destroyed because of the sacrifice made to keep it stable.

A few statements were made in Ep2 that confirm the slingshot sends things to be destroyed. The first is.. incidental. Skye said they went through a lot of trouble for something that was just going to be destroyed, to which Coulson said that the Slingshot was protocol for these types of devices.

Second, FitzSimmons comments while the rocket was taking off. Saying it was going beyond the Lagrange points (which are points of orbit) so it doesn't hit Herschel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Space_Observatory). Also mentioned the coronal mass ejections of the sun, implying that the rocket was going in that direction...

The thing about those statements is you are assuming that they are the truth. If I remember from the Avengers correctly Tony Stark said Shied's secrets have secrets. Something like a top secret research space station is not something that standard field agents need or even should know, especially when one of the team members is considered a risk by everybody. As for Fitz Simmons comments, you are assuming they were told the actual flight plan the rocket was going to take (assuming they told them even that much, since they are both geniuses, if you just told them the rocket was going to the sun, they probably figure out the supposed flight path just on that, and know all that info) Its not like they where going to be tracking the rocket outside of their visual range.