Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Mid-Season Finale Doesn't Really Surprise

[walsfeo]

I don't think Mack is dead, he is seen being carried by Coulson and after the Crystal blow up it seemed like his mind was free again. Remain to explain how he was able to survive such a long fall and if he is keeping that ability.

Tripp, on the other end, id ead and died a poor death. Wonder if he would have survived, had he not kicked the Crystal.

Trip was a shining star at the end last season, but they've done jack-all with him this season. Maybe something strange will bring him back; on the one hand I'd like him to be as vital now as he was earlier, but I'd rather not have him lurking around.

Mack also rocks, and as many others on the list have said I doubt he's dead.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

A conscious attempt for TV to modify comics continuity especially with Marvel wanting to do various reboots on it's comics. I've been looking towards how characters from "Smallville" and "Batman: The Animated Series" wound up being introduced into the mainstream DC continuity. That said, I suppose them showing they could use established characters, somewhat, isn't surprising.

I might agree with it, if it was simply "Agents of SHIELD", but this is called MARVEL'S Agents of SHIELD for a big reason; it exists to tie things together with all the movies and comics. And most definitely the biggest draw (should be?) is to have all these fan favorites show up, instead of the generic knockoff's other TV series have to deal with (i.e. new characters need a ton of background, since no one will know them, pretty useless for one time appearances).

Also, now the series can give existing characters (who at least some will know and love) entire new stories and spins.
That can be just as interesting as new characters!

I think Trip is more likely to survive, if for no other reason than to form a sort of indirect temporal bridge between SHEILD and Agent Carter, allowing them to say introduce something in AC and then have Trip discover something related to it in his old Howling Commando memorabilia.

Since you are talking about reasons characters need to be alive and serve purposes, you can easily argument for Trip being done; he introduced the memorabilia and now it is all there in the SHIELD base (with all the old, paper files from CARTER! ). Ready for Fitz (and Mac) to discover, JUSTTTTTT when it's needed! And if Trip is dead, you can also have them go: "Oh, noes! Trip's stuff SHOULD include a super important plot McGuffin, but it's gone! Now we need to track it down next episode(s), dang!".

EDIT: BTW, I am REALLLLLLY bummed Coulson JUSTTTT didn't make it into the Terragen Mist! Now we don't know if his Kree blood infusion has made him... worthy. Which will now linger on foreverrrrrrrr :'(

 

[Kid_Icarus55]

Of course they give the main character a superpower that can be produced by shaking the camera

 

[ShenCS]

Surprised people are all so okay with Trip dying. It annoyed the hell out of me because I was always wondering why the hell he isn't in Nick Blood's place (I honestly can't remember the character's name). I suppose him being killed off is the logical conclusion of his weirdly unnecessary overshadowing, but my first thought when he snuck in with no problem was "oh cool, is it going to turn out that he was -also- and Inhuman and that's why they've kept him on the backline?" Seriously, consider all that could have been done if Trip had been in Blood's place, switching out a Generic Action Guy: Whinging edition for an old-fashioned spy gadget-fetishist. I mean Christ, they introduced all that neat stuff last season and promptly did absolutely nothing with it. From a writing standpoint, it's completely baffling in every possible way.

 

[mruuh]

Otherwise I really liked the episode, but I totally get if people who aren't big Marvel fans don't care for it.

I'm not a Marvel fan at all, and I'm digging the whole series (including first season, which many here dislike, for reasons I do not understand), so don't despair.

 

[WarpedLord]

Otherwise I really liked the episode, but I totally get if people who aren't big Marvel fans don't care for it.

I'm not a Marvel fan at all, and I'm digging the whole series (including first season, which many here dislike, for reasons I do not understand), so don't despair.

My wife is also anything but a devoted Marvel fan (I think she watches the show just to humor me), and the first thing she said after last night's episode ended was "How long to we have to wait to find out what happens next???"

So, they got at least one other non-fan hooked with this supposedly "mediocre" episode for "fanboys only".

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I liked this episode. I felt like it was a good way to wrap up and explain everything to make sure everyone is up to speed. My girlfriend watched the show with me last night for the first time ever and she was able to follow everything pretty well because all the characters gave a good summary of events. My thoughts:

Skye pumping Ward full of lead. Just...all the yes. All of it. Too bad she didn't finish the job, but the look of hurt on Ward's face was more than worth it I suppose.

I am pretty sure that Mack is still alive. Once the city triggered, it looked like whatever was controlling him let him go. He grabbed his head as he fell. A dead person doesn't do that.

Sad about Tripp. I liked him, and he never really got a chance to shine once Ward was removed from the picture. I'll miss him.

I'm betting Whitehall isn't dead either. My dad came up with the idea that, since he has Skye's mother's organs, when the shockwave went off, it triggers those and wakes him back up. I can see that happening. I do agree that he needed to die a much more painful death though.

 

[RedDeadFred]

The previous episode really built this one up and unfortunately, it didn't really succeed IMO.

There were a number of things that really annoyed me:
-the opening CGI was some of the worst I've seen from this series, and that's really saying something.
-Tripp's death seemed pointless. "I'm here to save you! Oh, maybe not." I get that they want to give him a kind of heroic death, but why would he run into the chamber that's going to trap them with the thing that kills people?
-Tripp's death had zero impact (for me at least) since they've done almost nothing with his character. I knew they were going to kill him off as soon as he jumped back down the hole.
-Ward's motivations are apparently boiling down to the power of boners.
-Why did no one make sure Whitehall was dead? Seriously, Cal knows that Whitehall doesn't age, stands to reason that he's probably going to take a little more than a shot in the back. You think he'd stomp on his face a bit for good measure.
-What's so special about Skye's dad? He keeps saying shit like: "oh, I could rip you all apart!", and then proceeds to do jack-all except for beat Coulson in a fight. How does beating a Coulson (a trained fighter yes, but still...) translate in being capable of slaughtering an entire village? If he really is this Mr. Hyde guy that people are ranting about, shouldn't he have bashed Coulson's skull in with one punch?
-I groaned at the scene of Skye breaking out of her cocoon. The whole thrusts chest to the sky thing while stuff explodes in slow-mo looked like something out of Dragon Ball Z.

The episode wasn't all bad, I did like a few things:
-Hurray, Mac is alive.
-Hunter and Bobbi continue to offer lots of funny moments. "Travel the world, meet new and interesting people.... and kill them."
-Fitz and Simmons finally getting along again was nice to see.
-It did finally answer a lot of questions (well... I did some Googling to make sense of the names).

 

[Nixou]

He's an MD AND knows about Whitehall's special powers!!!

He also tends to lose his ability to think rationally when angry. Although I heavily suspect that the main reason Whitehall ended that way was due to the low budget not allowing the series to give Coulson his inevitable "Oh Fucking Fuckery Fuck he's an Evil Hulk" moment mid-season by having him helplessly watching Cal turning into Hyde and tearing the old nazi apart (no need for gore: take 40 seconds to show CGI-Hyde shrugging of Whitehall's bullets and tech gizmos, then make a close-up on Gregg making a frightened/repulsed face while Reed Diamond produces gargling sounds/cries of pain)

 

[deth2munkies]

I don't think Mack is dead, he is seen being carried by Coulson and after the Crystal blow up it seemed like his mind was free again. Remain to explain how he was able to survive such a long fall and if he is keeping that ability.

Tripp, on the other end, id ead and died a poor death. Wonder if he would have survived, had he not kicked the Crystal.

Trip was a shining star at the end last season, but they've done jack-all with him this season.

This. Literally the only thing he's been there to do is react to stuff, say "Aw hell naw", and not be relevant in any way to any plotline. The only thing he actually did that helped the team was have a box of WWII stuff.

Killing him off makes me indifferent.

 

[mruuh]

-I groaned at the scene of Skye breaking out of her cocoon. The whole thrusts chest to the sky thing while stuff explodes in slow-mo looked like something out of Dragon Ball Z.

...or maybe like something out of, I don't know, a comic book? Lighten up, ffs.

 

[MatParker116]

Looks like the Ennilux Corporation will join Hydra as the big bads of this show. Assuming the dude with no eyes is Reader.

 

[SupahEwok]

I liked Trip, but honestly I would've been okay with either Trip or Mack dying. Bob gave a finger wag to a show killing off BOTH OF IT'S BLACK CHARACTERS OH NOES (eyeroll) but what's been FAR more criminal is how bland and uninteresting they both were this season.

Mack is supposed to be the mechanic... or something, right? People keep mentioning he has a garage. When the hell have we seen him actually do stuff in said garage? For most of this season all he's been around for is being Fitz's buddy. When he's not Fitz's buddy, he's playing video games or drinking beer or both. Only two episodes ago did the show give him the least bit of an extra dimension by implicating him with some conspiracy with Bobbi, but that's it.

Tripp was great at the end of the first season, but he hasn't been given a chance to shine at all this season. Someone above mentioned that his actor has a role on another TV show that he's probably leaving this one for. So, my theory is that they originally introduced him in Season 1 to replace Ward in this season, only for the actor to want out to focus on this other show. So they introduced Hunter to be the replacement for both Ward and Trip, and gave him most of Trip's moments for the season while Trip has been a bit of a hanger-on until they got to the mid-season finale where they HAD to kill someone. Makes it all understandable, but I still dislike it, as I liked Trip better than either Ward or Hunter.

As for Whitehall, I too don't think he's dead, but I think it for a reason I haven't seen on here yet: body double. Cal is a medical doctor, and even when mad I would think he'd be able to tell if someone was dead, especially because I think we saw him checking. But when Fake May shows up and goes over the body, the last few frames I think we see her have an expression of surprise. I take that to mean that she found some sign, or a lack of one, that identified this Whitehall as a fake. Her grabbing Ward is a fake-out to bring him to Whitehall for brainwashing, as Whitehall already stated that was his intention for Ward.

 

[RedDeadFred]

-I groaned at the scene of Skye breaking out of her cocoon. The whole thrusts chest to the sky thing while stuff explodes in slow-mo looked like something out of Dragon Ball Z.

...or maybe like something out of, I don't know, a comic book? Lighten up, ffs.

I found it incredibly cheesy. Just my opinion, you don't have to share it. Maybe if the CGI was actually good they could pull this off without it looking lame but IMO, it's not even close to that quality. It's not like a brooded about afterwards trying to nit-pick. My immediate (pretty much involuntary) reaction was a groan.

I know I sound like I dislike the show right now, but truthfully, I was just disappointed by the episode. This season as a whole has been quite strong and miles ahead of where it started.

 

[faefrost]

It might not be this season, but has anyone else picked up a rather interesting pattern to some of the characters, villains and references we have been tossed?

Franklin Hall - Graviton
Donnie Gill - Blizzard
Marcus Daniels - Blackout
Crusher Creel - Absorbing Man
Calvin Zabo - Mr. Hyde

Now add to that Agent 33, who is starting to look quite a bit like the MCU version of Madame Masque. Hmmm? And they mentioned she was turned using "Faustus's techniques". Will anyone be surprised if a Dr. Karla Sorrenson shows up? How about a sonic powered trailer chick named Mimi? Or if Mack or Fitz evolves into a tech genius supervillain... maybe called "The Fixer"?

What I am saying is there is something that ties all of these villains we have thus far seen together. Actually in some cases 2 somethings. And if they were to pull the trigger on it, it would be glorious.

Which leaves open the possibility of Ward orchestrating the whole thing in a sort of Helmut Zemo type role?

 

[jabrwock]

Oh well... I hope her being an earth bender does not put too much of a dent in their budget.

The way I understand her powers (at least from the wiki about the comic character) is that it's more about vibrations than it is about controlling earth. She's called Quake cause she can create earthquakes, and she can create earthquakes because she can push vibrations through the earth.

She can also send vibrations through.....everything else so "invisible vibrations that rattle stuff" is probably the most cost effective super power they could have picked. Think human sonic screwdriver.

So basically like when Flash vibrated the lock off the door. Minor stuff that is handy, but not too expensive to show on screen.

 

[Phil the Nervous]

Am I the only one who was seriously disappointed by the lack of icers in this episode?
"Hey, we're raiding Hydra HQ."
"Better grab the lethal weapons. Some of the people may be brainwashed, but we're still gonna kill em."

The whole series this year has felt unheroic as hell.