Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review - Episode 7: The Hub

[vid87]

Also, regarding the Red Skull - WHERE THE HELL IS HE?! There's no way he died in Cap 1 (especially with my theory that no actually got killed by the Tesseract since it may be the Space Infinity Stone and just teleports people): he's one of the most prominent villains in the entire franchise. I know Hugo Weaving's expensive, but it's been way too long without finding out if he's officially gone.

My guess he's Robert Redford.

God I'll hate it if that's true. "Hey, maybe we could have a villain be a subtle nuance on how potentially immoral actions for the sake of security can be given merit? Nah! Let's just have it be Red Skull in disguise so no one has to think, 'Is this really a horrible thing?'"

Also, Penny Arcade pretty accurately summed this show up. It may be getting better, but the quality was so low to begin with, it's not going to make it to "good" territory any time soon.

I'm actually feeling the opposite - the more details and lore they start hammering out, the more I'm dreading what comes next. Bob's not the only one noticing that the new pairings didn't produce anything particularly interesting and hearing how Whedon is relying on cliche' along with the PAINFULLY slow reveal of the mysteries they remind us of EVERY episode aren't helping. I'll still keep up via recaps, but shit better go down real soon or I won't be able to bring myself to watch anymore.

Also, I'm really disappointed in Weaving - he keeps taking jobs he later says he doesn't care for. Dude, are you that broke that you need to pander? Love ya but do something else.

 

[Pyrian]

Maybe Hugo Weaving is tired of being the villain all the time and just wants to be loved. ;D

 

[Attercap]

Maybe Hugo Weaving is tired of being the villain all the time and just wants to be loved. ;D

We loved him as V, vendetta and all.

 

[FURY_007]

Considering my favorite series is Nick Fury, Agent Of SHIELD, I am absolutely loving this series.....except for Skye. All the time put in to her story would have been better to build up going against Hydra or AIM. Skye is just so fucking annoying and I wish Coulson would fucking just shoot her in her stupid fucking face. It's so out of place for this, and not needed.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

So... yeah.... am I the only one who feels like Bob was seriously pissed off about something else while he wrote this review, and decided to take it out on the episode? It seems that he was unusually snippy and cynical today... I mean, Bob's always been one for calling clichés where he sees them, but jesus, he was doing that EVERY LINE of this review.

Bob, I love your material, man, but sometimes I feel like you've really got to chill on the whole college-chic "Ugh, we've seen THIS before..." routine. It's fine in small doses, but frankly gets annoying when overdone.

Was he really that hard on it though? It seems like he concluded that it was an average episode on its own but that it improved his opinion of the show as a whole (even the pretty mediocre first three episodes) because it seems to be tying the whole thing up better.

Still a pretty damn good show, the new teamups weren't THAT interesting but it still gave the more minor characters needed screen time and development while also forwarding the bigger plot a little. Easily the best show I'm watching right now.

I didn't say I thought he was too hard on the episode.

 

[HanFyren]

I'm loving these writeups. Great for those of us who love the marvel universe, but haven't read all the comics.

Hope The Escapist keeps ordering them.

 

[SpaceGhost]

Moviebob: The bizarrely prominent fan-theory that Skye would turn out to be Coulson and May's lovechild can apparently be discarded.

Maybe notsofast? Wasn't there a Coulson/May scene that implied that May had suffered her own [possibly] life-n-death experience? Maybe the one that was the root cause of her semi-retirement from field work? Anyone know how long since she was "Cavalry"?

 

[Ickabod]

Between this and the Cap 2 trailer it really seems like Shield is going to be the bad guys before long. I wonder if Shield isn't being run by some super computer "Ultron" and we just don't know it yet.

I know nothing of the Marvel lore though

 

[faefrost]

Can Coulson just be Vision? Can we do that? Are we doing that? Would that make the casting choice for Scarlet Witch weird? Science?

Notice how many of the "level 8" Agents have titles or call signs? Hawkeye, The Black Widow, The Cavalry, etc? Fury's line when Coulson died in Avengers, "I've lost my one good eye". Coulson's job was to be Fury's eyes. To go out in the field and investigate things for Fury. To be Fury's "Vision".

Which opens up another whole realm of possibilities regarding Skye. If we assume that her identity or parentage might be an Easter Egg of some sort back to a classic comics character, based on Coulson and Agent May's discussion at the end of this episode it is probably a safer guess that her parent or parents may not have been on the side of the Angel's, and more likely their is someone truly terrifying in her past. Something that she is better off not knowing for her own piece of mind. Her being related to Agent Carter or Captain America does not really work for that. There has to be a really nasty villain back there someplace. So some thoughts.

- As Bob mentioned, Cynthia Schmidt. Sin. The Red Skulls daughter. This would fit well with the May/Phil scene, but in order for it to work even moderately requires them to take Skye to a much darker place. Sin is not a nice little hacker chick. She is a Joker level sociopath. Turning Sin into a hero seems to far a departure from the character for no real payoff. Better to just make her a new character.

- Since this is SHIELD, then her parents likely have some ties to the more classic Hydra. Maybe a child of Baron Strucker? Or how about Madame Hydra? Which might make her Jessica Drew?

- if Coulson is in fact the Vision, than Skye may be the daughter of another well known Marvel villain (who cannot be named in the Disney stuff, at this time). She does have that sort of slightly yet indiscriminately exotic look about her. Her hacking skills don't make a lot of sense. They are almost supernatural. As if she is bending probabilities to gain access. I wonder how she would look in a red leotard with pink tights?

- long shot, but SHIELD seems fond of obscure characters. (Agent Mack), the daughter of AIM scientist Supreme Monica Rappaccini, the latest Scorpion and occasional SHIELD Agent Camilla Black.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Bob sure comes off as bored and mad at this show when he recaps each episode. I like how they raise the mystery stakes, like Skye's real parents, and the truth of Coulson's revival. For the time being, I'm sticking with my cyborg theory, where he was revived and kept alive by tech that S.H.I.E.L.D. "acquired" from the Soviet Union, the same nice bunch who rebuilt the nearly-dead Bucky Barnes into their Winter Soldier (and if the cut out the U.S.S.R. connection in the next Cap movie, I will be pissed).

As for Penny Arcade's take on AoS: who pissed in their Cheerios?!

 

[Alandoril]

Her turning out to be Sin would actually make a whole lot of sense, given how they're treating her.

 

[Balmong7]

- if Coulson is in fact the Vision, than Skye may be the daughter of another well known Marvel villain (who cannot be named in the Disney stuff, at this time). She does have that sort of slightly yet indiscriminately exotic look about her. Her hacking skills don't make a lot of sense. They are almost supernatural. As if she is bending probabilities to gain access. I wonder how she would look in a red leotard with pink tights?

Sorry... but can I have a name? I gotta look up this hero you are thinking of, and I don't know my marvel heroes well enough to just pluck her up from the vague description of her costume, and powers. (guess I should turn in my marvel fanboy card...)

Also I don't think making her spiderwoman makes sense, because you know if she becomes a full on superhero then she has to leave the tv show most likely.

 

[Rakor]

The robot comment in the episode is almost too heavy-handed to be foreshadowing. XD

My vote is still clone.

Also, are the decoy's generally built to be able to bleed realistic blood like coulson did in the second episode? "Yes because technology" is a fine enough answer if it is.

 

[faefrost]

- if Coulson is in fact the Vision, than Skye may be the daughter of another well known Marvel villain (who cannot be named in the Disney stuff, at this time). She does have that sort of slightly yet indiscriminately exotic look about her. Her hacking skills don't make a lot of sense. They are almost supernatural. As if she is bending probabilities to gain access. I wonder how she would look in a red leotard with pink tights?

Sorry... but can I have a name? I gotta look up this hero you are thinking of, and I don't know my marvel heroes well enough to just pluck her up from the vague description of her costume, and powers. (guess I should turn in my marvel fanboy card...)

Also I don't think making her spiderwoman makes sense, because you know if she becomes a full on superhero then she has to leave the tv show most likely.

Sorry about that. I was referring to the aforementioned Scarlet Witch. Daughter of Magneto. And long associated with the Vision and the Avengers. Of course Magneto cannot be directly used or named in any of the Disney shows at the moment because Fox holds the rights to the X Men movies. (I do wonder about television however?). Whereas Disney/Marvel retains the Scarlet Witch as she is mainly tied to the Avengers. (Fox's deal includes "All of the Marvel Mutant's, except 2. Scarlet Witch and her brother Quicksilver, who are part of the Avengers license... although Fox sorta broke that deal with the new X Men movie by including Quicksilver in it.)

Also it's the cinematic universe. She doesn't necesarily have to be "Spider Woman". The actual Jessica Drew backstory is very tied into SHIELD and Hydra, above and beyond her kind of vague Spider Powers.

 

[frobalt]

They simply can't hide the fact that Coulson is alive from them if they're to be working from him.

They do have higher clearance than the Avengers though, but that's only because the Avengers aren't officially shield agents (except maybe Captain America)

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

- if Coulson is in fact the Vision, than Skye may be the daughter of another well known Marvel villain (who cannot be named in the Disney stuff, at this time). She does have that sort of slightly yet indiscriminately exotic look about her. Her hacking skills don't make a lot of sense. They are almost supernatural. As if she is bending probabilities to gain access. I wonder how she would look in a red leotard with pink tights?

You can discard that option. It has been confirmed Elizabeth Olsen will be playing Scarlet Witch in Age of Ultron.
I'm curious to see how they'll explain her powers though, since the word mutant has been banned from the MCU. If I had to guess, I'd say it has something to do with the Reality Gem from the Infinty Gauntlet.It would be a neat way to give her that range of powers. I'm assuming that the Tesseract is the space gem and the Aether is the power gem.

That would leave us with the mind gem (perhaps the mind controlling stone on Loki's scepter in The Avengers?). The soul gem could easily be introduced either on the Guardians of the Galaxy movies through Adam Warlock or perhaps they'll adapt Doctor Strange's Eye of Agamotto to be the soul gem. The time gem is the tricky one. I imagine it would be introduced in Cap 2, Avengers 2 or perhaps in Ant-man, which are the other confirmed Marvel movies.

 

[gopher_666]

Here's another theory for Skye's origin. Coulson only says that the baby was dropped off by an agent of shield and the photos at the end show a dead woman and an id photo of an agent (10?) which appear to be the same person. I would suggest that agent that dropped Skye (not her real name) off at the orphanage was in fact Romanov after she had killed her mother - a ledger dripping in blood -who was perhaps a double agent and had fallen in love with a man name Dreykov or this was a pre-agent Romanov and the guilt of making Skye an orphan made her decide to turn herself in to shield. It would make sense that Coulson would want to keep the fact that Shield killed her mother from Skye but would also ask May to find out what really happened.

 

[Vault Citizen]

It was nice to see Victoria Hand. I read Dark Avengers during Dark Reign and I always liked her character. For those who don't know about her character she was sympathetic with some of the ideas that Osborn expoused and was frustrated with the way that Fury used to run things but she wasn't a villain and she was a dedicated agent. She was convinced by Osborn and believed in him but she was still aware of some of his major flaws and worked actively to get Osborn himself to recognise them and tried to make sure that he took the steps necessary to address parts of his life that could become a problem. Her character was great for showing how a different point of view could be just that, different.