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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Review

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It’s been a long time since SHIELD started and quite a bit since it finished at this point. I’ve had the review on the backburner since November of 2020. The show certainly had its ups and downs over the years. It was always fun to have this show to look forward to each week either way and with over 130 episodes it lasted a while. I definitely won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. Grant Ward’s various appearances and basically coming back every season was always a blast. Maybe one day these characters will return. That said, I ultimately would not recommend the title due to some seasons just going a little too crazy.

The basic premise of the show is that there is a group known as SHIELD which has always protected the peace over the years. They do so from the shadows and nobody even knows they exist aside from all the big companies in the know. Agent Coulson is one of the highest ranked members. He was thought to be dead after the Avengers 2012 film but he managed to survive. The show begins with him assembling a new team of fighters. Ward, Skye, Fitz, Simmons, and also the experienced Agent May. Together they aim to stop Hydra and all other threats from infecting the planet. Season 1 is mainly about introducing the team and taking some grunts down first. The season ultimately ends with some big plot twists as well as an inside agent who was a traitor all along.

This was a solid way to introduce the cast. One of the more underrated scenes is when Garrett shows up with his team on the SHIELD base and we get some quick fights. Ward took care of his opponent while Coulson and Garrett had their talk. It was pretty tense and also cemented Ward as the most dependable guy on the team which helped make the twist more effective later. While teased a lot, I also like how they made sure to reference the Avengers in just about every episode. It was an effective way to remind people that SHIELD was in the universe even if later on it felt less and less like the show was actually canon.

Coulson is debatably the main character of the series although you can make an argument for Skye. He’s a very solid leader and does a good job of always making sure SHIELD is on the right path. It was nice seeing him get some power ups over the various seasons but for the most part he stayed as being a very normal down to Earth guy who was ready with the quips. He had a lot of the best lines in the series and always helped to add some levity to the situation. It just wouldn’t be the same without him.

Agent May is definitely the toughest member of the group. She is able to fight through serious injuries and never stops battling. Her nickname of being “The Calvary” may get old after the heroes mention it for the 50th time but season 1 was really about building up hype for all the characters so I suppose it makes sense. Her fairly emotionless approach to most scenarios was always fun. Her best moment is likely when she crossed over into another dimension to take out some powerful aliens in Season 6 and effectively had a time frozen fight to the death there. It was quite impressive.

Then you have Ward who is always super confident and charismatic. He tends to steal the show whenever he is around because the guy is so fun. While most of the other team members are either rookies or jaded retirees, Ward is just an excellent agent who is still in his prime. He’s skilled at everything he tries and that’s why he is always the person people turn to. How many characters are able to consistently get hype as a hero, villain, cybernetic copy, and alien in the same series? Whenever Ward shows up you know something is about to go down.

That said, there was one scene with Ward that I found ironically funny as soon as it happened. So in the series there are 3 people who are extremely determined to protect Skye. First you have Coulson who really sees her as a daughter figure. You have Calvin who is actually her father and so his goal is to protect her at any cost. Then you have Ward who is obsessed with Skye and wants to protect her in his own twisted way. All 3 of these characters have a good amount of hype and skill so you figure they can handle anything right? Well, there’s one scene where Skye gets threatened so all 3 of the hype characters pull out their guns only for Whitehall and his crew to take out bigger guns so they surrender.

That to me was the funniest scene of the entire series. To have all 3 of these characters just immediately surrender to a bunch of guys with guns was hysterical. It was certainly tough for the heroes before the era of them all getting their powers that’s for sure. As for Skye, she definitely gets a whole lot of development across the various seasons. She starts out as a timid rookie and eventually becomes a confident rebel. In the final season she even actively makes the choice to murder one of the villains against orders. Specifically, she ordered someone to murder a villain though so she didn’t get her hands dirty in that scene but she takes out her share of enemies.

Once she became Quake, Skye became one of the most powerful SHIELD agents which is impressive. The fact that she can conceivably destroy the planet is pretty impressive. So Skye’s a good character but I do think she uses her powers rather poorly. She should be winning just about every fight and yet most times she forgets she has powers or uses them way too late. There are so many times where she is defeated and you have to shake your head. When you have impressive abilities like that you really just need to fight to the end and keep on going. Personally, I think she just didn’t train enough.

Then we get to the worst member of the group Fitz. Fitz is just extremely annoying from day 1. His personality is your standard science guy who is really smart academically but doesn’t do well socially. After he gets betrayed by Ward he loses a lot of his mental functions for a while so it takes multiple seasons until he is back to normal. You can try to make the case that this is why it was so easy for him to turn to the dark side but there is still no excuse for this. Fitz is very easily turned on multiple occasions. He is often okay with taking the easy way out such as sacrificing a few to stop an attack. He goes as far as to perform tortures on his teammates and the guy never properly gets any real repercussions for this. By the end of the series you can’t look at him without thinking that you are just flat out looking as a villain. Fitz is not a true hero as far as I’m concerned. His romance plot with Simmons also drags on over and over again and often times Fitz is tempted to forsake his duty as an agent for this.

Unfortunately Simmons is pretty much just as bad. When we find out that Skye has powers Simmons is very quick to say that the lead should be destroyed. There is no mind control here or anything like that. Simmons just jumps right into drastic territory because she thinks the risk is too great. The fact that she was willing to betray her friend so easily was just crazy. Then you have the whole destiny thing where she and Fitz delude themselves into thinking that they are immortal so nothing can go wrong in the present. That’s why pretty much any scene with these two can be painful. They’re just bad characters.

Fortunately we had some extra agents in Hunter and Bobbi who were far better even if their screen time is pretty limited. Hunter doesn’t take things too seriously and you could say he isn’t even all that heroic. Mainly he’s here for Bobbi. He still makes a lot of mistakes of his own though. When we meet the “Real SHIELD” lets just say that things get shaken up. That said, It made for a really cool cliffhanger to suddenly have a whole other group around. I would have been fine exploring that plot for a while longer to be honest because there is a whole lot you can do with that.

Bobbi also stands out as a quality character. One of her better scenes is when an alien warrior shows up and just easily crushes the main cast. Bobbi goes up against him in round 2 again facing certain defeat but doing so to buy a little more time. She’s a talented fighter and doesn’t even like combat but is always willing to stand back in the fray. It’s too bad she wasn’t around to fight more. Next up is Mack who gets a pretty big role by the end of the series. I wasn’t a fan of his though.

Mack’s main issue is that he’s not good with power. He panics a whole lot and starts yelling at the team for no real reason. When the going gets tough in the final season he literally just quits even though he has a responsibility as Director and just gets out of there. Then he gets depressed and shuts everyone out for over a year. You can’t be making these kinds of mistakes when you’re leader or you’re just putting everyone in danger. That’s why I could never support his rise to leader, especially when May or Skye would have done a much better job.

Lincoln is one of those guys who joins up but you feel like it’s just so he can have a romance with Skye. Given that there are other guys around who will last longer that means he was doomed from day 1. Lincoln was reasonable I guess but he doesn’t leave a huge impact. His electric powers were cool though and he did defy the Inhumans at times so I’ll give him credit there. Radcliffe is one of those villains who’s around a little more for comic relief at times. He’s a super genius given that he was able to build Aida and he usually comes out on top with his plans. He evaded SHIELD for years after all. He’s a fun enough villain and has some humorous moments even if he doesn’t really get to go in the field a whole lot.

We got some guest stars early on in SHIELD even if they wouldn’t return for long. Nick Fury’s scenes in season 1 were a lot of fun. It helped really make Agents of SHIELD feel like a big deal at the time. Maria Hill also got to appear and she’s a capable general as always. One of the more surprising appearances had to be Lady Sif. She gave us a fun episode even if Ward was mind controlled a little too easily. I like to think he wouldn’t fall for that. While not a guest star, we also had Agent Triplett show up for a brief time. Unfortunately he didn’t last very long but I did like the guy while he was around. He was always very enthusiastic about the mission.

Back to bigger members, Yo-Yo is easily the most powerful SHIELD member. She has legitimate super speed. Now, she does have a drawback where she has to return to the spot where she bounced from each time. That is a pretty big weakness but with her speed it shouldn’t matter. Of course that means that the show has to make her look bad a lot of the time so she doesn’t end the fight quickly each time. She can be a fun member for the most part despite this. It’s just tough for speedsters because they always have to be nerfed at some points.

Deke is a character who started out okay and then really jumped up the ranks. He had to survive in a pretty dark future and that showed his determination. Once he was in the present with everyone else he was able to have a blast just enjoying all the little things. He started his own company and had the catchiest theme in the whole show. It was always a lot of fun to see him even if the rest of the cast treated him horribly the whole time. At times it was for comedy and at other times the heroes were just jealous of his success. He took it all in stride though, even wishing Skye well despite his one sided romance for her not working out well for him.

One character who joined the crew late and definitely was not that good was Daniel. He is here from the Agent Carter show and managed to become a main character by the final season but he’s just annoying. Another one of those guys who panics a lot and he also got over Agent Carter awful fast to rebound with Skye. While it can be nice to have someone from the old days here marvel at all the new stuff I was just never able to get on board with him. I’d prefer if Deathlok had returned. He had some fun appearances early on in the show and was a good fighter to have on hand. His role was ultimately not very large though.

Garrett was one of the first big SHIELD villains and he did really well. The guy has a lot of connections and is really good at strategy. He had some solid one liners as well so he’s pretty memorable. I thought he was better than Malick who is a similar kind of villain but won’t leave as much of an impact on you. Now Raina was a villain you don’t forget. She loves to hear herself talk and is constantly making speeches. That said, despite being able to see the future and knowing a lot, she ultimately doesn’t fare too well here.

Calvin was an interesting villain seeing as how he’s Skye’s father and all. He has a pretty tragic backstory with what happened to his wife. You kind of hope he’ll take down Whitehall real quick but that guy is just a little too tricky most of the time. At least Calvin was always interesting though and you could definitely understand his motives. I wasn’t really a fan of Whitehall though. He’s just another old scientist here to cause some havok. We’ve seen it all before.

Season 2 features the destruction of SHIELD thanks to the events of the Captain America: The Winter Soldier film. Coulson is now the Director of SHIELD and things are as busy as ever. For starters a race of beings known as the Inhumans have begun appearing everywhere. These guys have a lot of fantastic powers and now every group wants them such as Hydra and AIM. In particular a man named Whitehall is quite intense about grabbing them all and running live experiments until he can perfect a way to use their powers. It turns out that Skye also has some ties to the Inhumans as well. Can SHIELD really keep this under wraps or are we about to get a war between humans and Inhumans?

You could say season 2 is when we really started embracing the comic book nature of the show more. Inhumans are a nice segway because they have powers but are fairly normal otherwise. The annoying thing about this is always that the Inhumans initially aren’t looking for trouble despite their tough talk and are taken down pretty quick. It’s why you send to see a lot of people acknowledging that Magneto has a point while Xavier’s wish for world peace goes on as mutants keep being captured and destroyed. Inhumans are effectively very similar to mutants if you think about it and are hunted a lot as well. Black Bolt doesn’t really get to weigh in here compared to his mini series though. This season was a lot more violent than the first one as Whitehall keeps going back to his scientific roots. In effect it’s why you always get worried when someone has regeneration because you know they are going to end up using that ability quite a lot as Jiaying had to.

Jiaying plays a pretty big role here as the leader of the Inhumans or at least this branch. Her healing abilities are really good but in a way this is just bad news for her since it means the villains can exploit this for quite a while. That said, I wasn’t a big fan either way. She just didn’t seem to have any plans for the long term survival of the Inhumans which is not good. Eventually of course things were going to go sideways. Gordon was a dependable right hand man. His teleportation ability was also really solid. He’s a likable guy. Gordon may not always watch his back too closely but without him the Inhumans wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long as they did.

Then you have a pretty interesting villain in Lash. Lash is so powerful that most of the Inhumans couldn’t last very long against him at all. It would take several just to try and bring him down. He’s pretty much a creature of mindless rage and he’s at his best when you don’t know his identity. The show really allows this guy to go all out and get a lot of hype so I appreciated that. Even the design was pretty unique.

The third season brings The Hive into the fold. Hydra has brought him around to cause chaos and he is basically a king of unlimited power. Naturally he decides to use Ward’s body so we have the guy around once more. His powers are pretty impressive and naturally this is bad for the Inhumans since he can effectively use a lot of abilities. Coulson wants to use the Inhumans for good as always and strikes a deal with Rosalind and her government group. She’ll stop capturing Inhumans for nefarious purposes and he’ll share data. This truce threatens to compromise both sides though and causes a lot of tension within the ranks of SHIELD.

As soon as Ward was back it’s hard not to get hyped since he’s always a blast. Of course in this one he’s here completely as a villain at this point trying to get revenge on Coulson. I was not a fan of Coulson’s partnership with Rosalind from the start though. You can’t make deals with villains like that and by all accounts she was totally a villain with all the kidnapping and such. You can’t just pull all of that and hope to get away with it. With this deal she would basically get away completely free. It was a pretty reasonable season. I would say it wasn’t as big in scope or new ideas as the first two seasons but the Hive had to be the strongest villain yet. From all of the seasons this one blends together the most because there were quite a few episodes here so it’s not like it was literally all Ward but he’s easily the most memorable part of the whole thing.

As mentioned Rosalind wasn’t very impressive. I just didn’t like her as a character from the start and she never really got better after that. She’s basically just another government agent. We got to see more of two SHIELD Agents Piper and Davis who would have bigger roles later on. Needless to say, I was not a fan of these characters. They just don’t really add anything to the story or dynamic. You could cut them out and nothing would have changed. I would say the best way to think of them is like getting two red shirts from Star Trek but then giving them an entire plot line and lots of extra appearances for some reason. No matter how often they appeared they were never impressive.

The Hive was an impressive villain as mentioned. I mean to a good extent he just felt like Ward but he does have a different personality in the end. He was certainly more ruthless. Then you had Hellfire who was another villain around but not nearly as powerful. The guy’s basically just a traitor who sells out and ultimately doesn’t realize that in the end the Watchdogs will take him out as well. His flame powers are good though. Elemental abilities are always fairly high tier because there is so much you can do with them.

In the fourth season the gang begins to tamper with forces beyond their comprehension like the Ghost Rider. The group heads out to find him but he’s busy tracking other villains down. The Ghost Rider is effectively a spirit of vengeance using a human host that appears from time to time to carry out a mission and then leave just as suddenly. Naturally this is a big burden on the human involved. We had some nice ghost type fighters to go up against him and the effects for his flames were pretty solid. We also have some drama within Shield as the Patriot takes over in Coulson’s place and quickly starts to become a very shady individual. That’s why you have to be careful when turning down a position to someone else. Coulson didn’t want to be leader and now it could come back to bite him.

Additionally we have the Framework appearing here. In this other world everyone’s lives are a little bit different which includes a completely evil Fitz as well as a powerful android known as Aida. This just helps to cement Fitz as one of my least favorite characters as we see just how close to being evil he is. You could cut him some slack if this was just in the framework but lets just say this isn’t the last we’ve seen of evil Fitz. This was definitely a very intense season. I liked Aida though, she’s one of the most memorable villains to be sure. She got a pretty bad deal by the end as Fitz basically just used her. She was a villain of course but you still felt like Aida deserved better. Her abilities were absolutely crazy as well so you could say she was one of the strongest characters in the series. You also can’t go wrong with Ghost Rider of course. He’s always a pretty fun character to have around and the heroes are lucky to have him and his powers at the ready.

Ghost Rider just helped give the heroes a lot of muscle and came through when it counted. His host here was also solid as he was always ready to fight. Things were certainly personal for him after all and he made sure to get a whole lot of revenge on the heroes. As for the Patriot, I did not like him. The guy was given a good position and then squandered it on a power trip. He had every opportunity to be a great character but at the end of the day he definitely did not live up to it. I have to take away a lot of points from him as a result. He just could have been so much better so it was a shame that he couldn’t live up to this. The way he went out also wasn’t super impressive.

Enoch is a character who would end up having a massive presence in the series. He is a Chronicom from the future so he is always prepared. He tends to be a pacifist and has a hard time understanding human customs but gradually he becomes proficient at it. He also has a lot of solid humor scenes. I would argue the final season gives him a little too much hype with being able to take down the entire SHIELD group. It’s hard to picture that in the slightest but he is tough. Also, without his planning the team would have died many times over. He’s like the Watcher only at least he actually helps out.

The Superior is another big villain who showed up. I like the fact that he realized how Coulson was always popping up from the dead and why he may be responsible for everything. He wasn’t correct of course, but I would say that it’s a reasonable interpretation of events at its face value. I also liked his determination to solve everything as a human and win with his own two fists instead of taking any shortcuts. He’s the kind of villain you don’t forget very quickly.

We finally get time travel in the 5th season. The heroes are transported to the year 2091 where naturally humanity has fallen. The Earth was destroyed and a bunch of Kree rule most of the universe. The heroes are onboard the “Lighthouse” and have to find a way back to the past. Additionally Fitz is somewhere in this timeline, or at least a version of him is. He’s currently working with Enoch and eventually the two plots collide. Once the heroes are back home they have to figure out a way to prevent the Earth from being destroyed and averting this disastrous future. It’ll be difficult but Talbot feels he is up to the task.

This season went the most all out in a lot of ways. Having almost the whole season take place in space was pretty crazy and we even had effectively a tournament as Skye and Yo Yo were forced to face off against other villains. Having a villain group with the powerful Ruby also helped to up the tensions. The stakes were quite high in this season although at times it would also get pretty dark here. The future is pretty hopeless with Kasius in charge after all so everyone either becomes a slave or is quickly taken out of the picture. Talbot being tortured for ages while the heroes were having fun in space was also rough. It’s easy to see how he came off the deep end in the second half.

I enjoyed his battle with Skye a lot though. It felt like something out of Supergirl with the characters flying around and getting things pretty high tier. For the most part despite having characters with super powers you couldn’t expect to see big meta human battles like this. Talbot may have become a big villain but at the end of the day I’m still a big fan. He was an interesting villain which is always important and with his powers I do think he would have been in good position to protect the Earth. With Thanos referenced it would have been fun if he had stepped in to fight for a while.

Tess is one of the survivors in the crazy timeline and she did well to survive. She’s got her own connections and always has a gameplan. While Tess may not stand out a whole lot next to Deke, she did well. Flint was another survivor who did well and the fact that he had some basic rock powers was cool as well. He’s a little young so there wasn’t a ton he could do but every bit helps. Kasius is the big villain here but he’s not likable in the slightest. He’s one of those villains more worried about romance and wanting more power than actually having plans. He would tend to just be annoying most of the time getting emotionally involved with his past and rambling a lot of the time.

Sinara was a solid villain though. As Kasius’ right hand woman she was always ready to fight. Her techniques were fast and lethal leaving no margin for error. Serious villains like that always tend to work well because they are focused on achieving their objective and that’s it. Sinara did really well. Likewise I enjoyed Ruby. Her disc throwing abilities were quite potent. I also liked her confident the whole time. She may have been manipulated a whole lot during the show but she’s a villain who really stood out. Ruby may not have seemed evil with her personality but she was ruthlessly butchering all of her opponents so you can’t go easy on her either.

Season 6 breaks the team up into two groups. One group heads into space for a lot of adventures while they look for Fitz who is once again missing across the timestreams. This tends to be the more lighthearted plot as the heroes go to a bunch of different planets. Every place is pretty different. Then you have the ground plot where a guy named Sarge who appears to look just like Coulson is running around. As Coulson should be dead by now the heroes are upset to see this lookalike. Sarge is saying some crazy things about surviving a lot of destroyed planets so the heroes need to get some answers out of him before Earth is put on a 1 way trip to oblivion.

The space adventures were okay but I think most of the intrigue and suspense here was with the Sarge plot. There’s a lot of fun mysteries here like what his whole deal is and how he relates to Coulson. There’s a lot you could do with his whole world hopping thing as well and seeing Coulson as a villain was just surreal. It was always fun to have him around. The rest of his crew was mostly forgettable but Sarge stands out. That said, I do think he didn’t handle some plot twists well as he was quick to forget his grudge. I would have liked him to keep his Sarge personality through and through.

It does make for a good climax though and the arc is just exciting from start to finish. We even got a bunch of monsters running around. Meanwhile Izel made for a great space villain though. Her humming was fairly iconic and she made for a solid mastermind. This isn’t her first rodeo as she’s been taking planets down for ages. I’d be very close to saying that she is the best villain in the show. I won’t go quite that far but she can hold her own with any. Her ability also helps to make her one of the most powerful ones though as she keeps on controlling people. She could have easily finished off the main characters so many times you’ll lose count. With great power comes a lot of holding back though. Her fight in the realm of the dead was also a lot of fun.

That brings us to the final season which involves a ton of time travel. The Chronicoms have decided to eliminate SHIELD by destroying them in history. The team will now have to keep jumping to different eras in time in order to keep up with them. The difficult thing here is that the Chronicoms always appear to be a step ahead. Additionally the heroes manage to grab onto Daniel Sousa so now they’re at risk of changing time. Still, the villains changed time first so does it all even out? Each episode is a reference to a different movie or show and we also get a lot of crossover elements here to really cement this as the final season. The gang’s together for one last ride and then it’s all over.

SHIELD did a good job of really throwing in as many elements as possible here. We got to relive all of the seasons to an extent and got some extra closure for each character like Skye getting to see her Mom again. The best episode here was probably the time loop. I could watch films and shows about that concept for ages. I’m a pretty big time travel fan so elements like loops and paradoxes are just a lot of fun. It was a fitting way to end the saga at long last and this was just a really solid season. It would have been nice to see Deathlok, Hunter, and Bobbi are they feel like the only big characters that the season was missing. We did still end up getting just about everyone though so I was definitely still satisfied in the end.

Nathaniel Mallick is one of the big villains here. You could make the case behind him being the main villain over Sibyl but they’re both about 50/50. With his sonic powers at the ready he makes for a pretty big threat in the season. I would say at no point do you think he could seriously beat Skye in a 1 on 1 fight but unfortunately she tends to turn her back during battle a whole lot and just underestimate everyone. This really ends up leading to her downfall at times. He’s not really my kind of villain. The guy whines a whole lot and doesn’t really seem to know when he’s being manipulated. He just talks with a lot more confidence than you would expect considering his lack of power but I guess relative to most of the case he is pretty tough.

John Garrett shows up again and I have to say I liked this new version of him quite a lot. The guy can teleport now and has endless confidence. He returns every one of Coulson’s subtle digs and one liners with a counter of his own which is nice. You want to see a villain be able to dish it out like that. This whole thing is more of a game to him compared to the others though so he does panic a bit when things are coming to the end. I still have him as the best villain in the season though.

Sibyl has a big role of course but you can’t help but feel that she ruined everything for the villain. The Chronicoms have time travel at their disposal and crazy high tech options. Why couldn’t they just blow up the planet or something like the hunters suggested? Sibyl kept saying that they had to follow her plan exactly since she can see the future but at the end all that did was put the villains in a bad spot time and time again. Things would have been a lot better if they had just ignored her. So she’s a fun villain but she overthinks everything.

Finally we have Kora, but she was not very good. My main issue with her is that she was very wishy washy about which side to be on. She was quick to turn evil and then to turn around again and again. She also wasn’t very smart with how she handled her final scenes. I remember in one cliffhanger when she hugged the villain a lot of people were waiting for her to suddenly stab him or something but then it just never happened. There’s a lot more the series could have done with Kora if you ask me. I liked her confidence and swagger, she just never followed up on it.

Naturally there are a bunch of other characters in the series overall but these are at least a bunch of the big ones. With 130+ episodes it makes sense that there’s time for a lot of them. Especially since as a live action series the episode lengths are double that of a normal show so this is more like reviewing something that’s 260 episodes long. It’s still quite impressive that it lasted so long. In general that’s just quite the feat. I also thought the show wrapped up quite nicely with the final season. They had a lot of fun with it and explored some nice concepts.

So at the end of the day, why does this show lose out? Well, in particular with the earlier seasons like 2-4, the series decided to get really gritty. You had characters being tortured numerous times, surgery on screen while the character is still conscious, and things like that. The show liked to make the villains appear as big threats by making them as evil and sinister as possible. It’s just the way the show would usually handle this. So it would go for being violent as well as dark/tragic. I would say in the final seasons, especially the very last one this got dialed back a bit but there would be moments like this in every season. You were never truly going to escape the violent nature of the show. Even the final season had the buzzsaw robots which were incredibly over the top to the point where it was more of a spoof than anything.

In that regard Agents of Shield is a show that’s more like Attack on Titan. It’s entertaining while watching it but it can never escape the core issues that doom it to a low score. Typically if you’re a long running title your odds of surviving moments here and there are increased because you can have so many positive moments that you drown out the bad ones. For example, if you’re only 13 episodes and have a horrible episode, that will hurt more than having 8 bad episodes out of 136. It’s all relative of course and you hope that even at its worst a show will never go bottom of the barrel. Shield never gets awful I would say but what hurts is the frequency of these moments. It got to a point in some seasons where you could expect this to happen every episode. I recall Whitehall’s season being the most violent at least back in the day. The Inhumans and the whole cyber season could be up there too though.

So violence is the main thing against the show. In a combat setting you can give it a bit more leeway but when you get to the torture and non combatants being thrown into this then it gets to be a bit much. On a much less severe note, the show also has a ton of rebound romances as it goes on. Throughout the series you can’t possibly take any romance seriously because of how they keep shuffling. Skye had affairs with Ward, her tech co-worker, Deke, and Lincoln at the very least. I think that was it at least. May had Coulson and Ward, but I could swear there is a third guy in there somewhere. Then you have Yo-Yo going with Mack as well as some other guy although I forget that expendable’s name. Simmons was with Fitz and some random guy she met on the moon, etc. Basically everyone in the show tends to be quick to fall for multiple characters so even by the end when they presumably find their true romance you may roll your eyes at that.

The Fitz and Simmons plot gets a ton of screen time for example and I can never buy into it. I mean, it doesn’t help that both characters are some of the worst in the series though. Fitz and Simmons continued to surprise me with how bad they were the whole time. Each season would bring them to a new low and they both had a similar plot line of going off the deep end. I suppose they match up in that sense but yeah I definitely was not feeling this story from start to finish.

It’s usually most convenient for guest stars since they don’t have time for more than one. For example at least Hunter and Bobbi always stayed consistent. It was definitely sad to see them go since they did add a lot to the team’s dynamic while they were there. So Agents of Shield can’t really get away from the romance angle and there’s a whole lot of it. I gather that’s pretty much a requirement for live action shows or pretty much most shows in general but with such a long running direction then it’s bound to add up after a while. The writing was usually pretty solid though. We got a lot of nice interactions during the show and pretty quality one liners. It’s pretty fun to see the first episode of the show again and then compare it to the ending. I ended up checking out the very first two episodes again just to see the contrast. The show started out very upbeat and fairly low key with a lot of practical effects and everything was down to earth. Then by the end you have the heroes hopping across dimensions and all having super powers so it was really quite the journey. It feels pretty natural as you go through though.

I would say the show is at its best when the gang is having fun with some solid action scenes thrown in which is why I would probably put the first and last seasons as the best ones. Still, it did a good job of shifting genres for each impending threat. The show also did a good job with the season cliffhangers. Each season would usually end with something crazy like the reveal of a new director or a cutaway to the far future where everything has gone crazy. It always made for a pretty hype way to await the next season. Good cliffhangers are always crucial for a long running title like this.

Overall, Agents of SHIELD is one of the only long running live action series that I’ve watched from start to finish. Aside from The Office, Ultraman, and Agent Carter I can’t think of any completed series where that is the case. I’ve seen a ton of episodes for old classics like Twilight Zone, Odd Couple, and I Love Lucy but not in a start to finish kind of thing. It’s pretty rare in general and I’m definitely more of an anime/cartoon guy but live action titles definitely have their own charm. With today’s effects they can basically be like watching a movie that just keeps on going and going. I wouldn’t be able to recommend the show myself as there are too many moments where you’ll be shaking your head. If you like watching the Marvel films though and want something to binge through as 2021 continues to roll then this is a pretty good option. It gets quite a bit darker than the films but there’s also a lot of light hearted episodes and comedy thrown in so that may balance it out. It should definitely last you a while even at top speed.

Overall 3/10

Inhumans Review

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The Inhumans were pushed heavily throughout the comics and shows a few years back. Marvel did their best to try and use them as replacements for the X-Men although this plan failed and the mutants are back in business. This TV show came out during this interesting period and all it did was show why the Inhumans were never all that popular. They just aren’t likable characters.

The show starts off with showing us the Inhuman civilization on the Moon. Things may look peaceful from a distance, but the citizens are not happy as King Black Bolt has separated them into an outdated caste system. Depending on how you were born you were doomed to work in the mines or you can live above ground. Now you may recognize this system from many villain groups like the Soul Society, Skypiea, or even the world of Black Clover. Since you know the format then you know that Black Bolt is the main villain so an up and coming Inhuman will stop him right? Well that’s where Maximus comes in.

He realizes that the caste system is immoral and decides to quickly put a stop to it once and for all. He achieves a coup d’etat and usurps Black Bolt of his crown and banishes most of the royal family to Earth. Black Bolt swears revenge and that he will destroy Maximus when next they meet. Show’s over right? Well, Maximus is the main villain and Black Bolt is the hero…..just let that sink in for a little while.

Despite the summary Maximus is obviously a villain from the start. It’s just a shame because he is completely right about how Black Bolt has become a dictator and isn’t treating everyone equally. The show just wrote itself into a corner because this makes Black Bolt a total villain so Maximus goes over the top and starts murdering everyone while also trying for someone who is already married. Clearly the show was worried that Maximus was going to be the best character in the show otherwise. Naturally as a result of all this I am definitely not a Maximus fan. While he may be slightly sympathetic at first he completely goes nuts and loses whatever credibility he had. It’s a shame, but just having a sob story won’t be enough to get you anywhere.

Black Bolt is just as bad but he was never sympathetic. He can’t talk which is supposed to make you sympathetic I guess, but as he is king we can blame him for a lot of what is wrong with the society. He kept in the caste system and looks down on his own people. He is incredibly arrogant to the point where he doesn’t like anyone to make contact with him since he is so above them. He locked one guy in darkness for eternity which is certainly a cruel fate and even hid secrets away from his wife and inner cabal. This is because at his core, Black Bolt doesn’t trust anyone. The only part that I guess could be frustrating for Black Bolt is how Medusa is his interpreter, but she rarely repeats what he actually said and likes to come up with her own version. He definitely needs to find some way to talk through writing or electronically.

I also have to say that his abilities were not impressive in the slightest compared to what you would expect. The show spends the entire season building up his raw power but the big moment at the end where he finally lets loose only amounts to some rocks being broken and the metal cube not even getting a dent. All I’m saying is that I just didn’t find this impressive and the show could have done a whole lot better if you ask me. As a whole, the Inhumans just seem fairly weak and wouldn’t last long against the Avengers or the X-Men. They are all glass cannons with no real defense.

Karnak is a hand to hand fighter with the unique ability to see all of the angles. It is definitely a cool power to have since he can think things through so clearly that he can basically get a do over on any situation. While this ability isn’t as all encompassing as the famous Spider Sense as Karnak won’t know about attacks from behind, it’s good for any fight that he jumps into. Naturally since this ability would likely be too good, Karnak inexplicably trips and loses his ability for most of the season. That’s just annoying since of course now he is just a normal human who needs help from everybody. He also gets the worst subplot in the show as he goes to this place where they’re growing drugs. He helps for a while, but one of the guys goes crazy and starts murdering everybody. Karnak manages to escape with the girl and then they part ways, but the romance was absolutely brutal. This is mainly because Karnak is another one of those characters who doesn’t know much about social behavior and as such he has to be taught romance. It’s all very cringe worthy stuff.

Then we have Crystal and her subplot. She was taught that humans are all beneath her so she should not speak to her, but Lockjaw gets run over by a car for the edge factor so she has to find a vet. She meets up with a surfer dude, well he is the one who ran over her dog and he introduces her to his ex girlfriend who is a vet. The whole scenario is so absurd that it is almost funny. The guy gives her pretty bad advice the whole time as he says things like “your family can wait” as having a fun time at the beach is just a better way to spend the day. He isn’t a positive influence and the problem is that he’s supposed to be the person who gets Crystal to see that humans aren’t so bad. So much for that plan right? Crystal is also annoying because of how extremely powerful she is. She could destroy Maximus at any point in the show, but hesitated too much and loves firing warning shots. She could have saved quite a few people if she had actually made a move instead of waiting. Big mistake on her part if you ask me. So she isn’t a bad character but she is definitely an annoying one. I wanted her to take more initiative so having her become the Queen of the Inhumans would have worked really well.

We can’t forget the actual queen though. Medusa serves as the voice for Black Bolt but as she is basically a yes man for a while, her role barely matters. She does seem to have a little more humanity than Bolt though and at least gets him to be less strict on the corrupt rules that were in place. She can come off as rather mean at times and a little overdramatic when it came to her hair. Still, I have less faults with Medusa than the other characters. She is at least a character who tries to make a change in her situation.

Then we also have Gorgon with his strong stomps. I guess he is super human when it comes to physical abilities but they definitely aren’t at a particularly high level. He is the tough member of the group, but always seems rather outmatched in the various fights that he is in. You never really expect him to win although he does look good when going up against the humans. I guess we will give him some credit for that. There is a big decision that has to be made involving whether they should try to bring him back or not. All I can say is that the group’s bickering and indecision is another reason why they will never be as good as the others. Karnak was Bolt’s most trusted adviser and even he ended up defying him. Considering that Bolt was going to destroy him for this one choice I can definitely say that Karnak made the right move.

There is also a human scientist thrown into the mix who looks like someone out of the Supergirl show. Louise serves as the general audience character who does her best to help and even defies her bosses when she really wants to pursue a story. She doesn’t add a whole lot to the story if we are being honest and just works as a plot device to help the Inhumans secure cars and other necessities in order to reform the team. She could have definitely been worse, but I wasn’t really a fan of the character.

The best character in the film is certainly the regenerating assassin who serves Maximus. Having excellent hand to hand skills in addition to a healing factor is certainly crucial to have at the ready and it’s a shame that her boss was so crazy. Auran definitely was hoping that Maximus was going to be a just ruler, but it simply wasn’t to be. Auran ended up making the right calls by the end and is someone you can trust to keep her word. Being honorable is always a good trait for a protagonist or an antagonist. It shows that he or she has confidence in winning a battle with anyone. If you have to cheat or resort to sneak attacks, then you clearly aren’t as tough as you thought you were. It’s even worse if the villain is one of those people talking about survival of the fittest. So much for that right?

Mordis is one of the other big villains and he gets a ton of hype. Everyone fears him including Black Bolt. The thing is, he’s basically just a weaker Cyclops. He completely relies on his eye blasts and is otherwise a normal mortal. His constant joking around is a nice change of pace from all of the ultra serious Inhumans, but he really couldn’t live up to the hype. He ends up going down pretty quickly when the adventure actually gets tough.

The pacing is fairly good at least since this is basically just an extended movie turned into a short show. Either way, something is always happening and it doesn’t have time to be all that drawn out. Certainly a good thing. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of the show thanks to its lackluster cast and it not striving to have quality writing instead of random romances, at least it didn’t keep in going and going for too long. It knew to end before going too far off the deep end.

The show isn’t all that violent which is a good thing. It never gets quite as intense as the Agents of Shield or anything like that. We have a regenerative character and we see her heal from a wound but it’s nothing too crazy. There is also the animal violence of the dog being run over. If he had died or something then the show would have really done down the tubes. It’s definitely good that the show avoided that land mine.

I suppose I’ll give the show’s scenery and costumes some props. I thought they did a good job with Black Bolt and Crystal’s costumes. They seemed to be pretty comic accurate. They weren’t really trying with Medusa since most of the plot revolved around her losing the hair anyway, but I suppose the actual costume was on point. The suits may have a hard time translating into live action for many heroes since they just feel like cosplay at times, but as long as the look is right then it’s fine if it looks rather fragile. That’s a very slight stretch of disbelief to imagine that the fabric is just really tough.

The fight scenes may have been scarce but we still got a few good ones like Medusa vs Auran. Lets face it though, Auran should have absolutely clobbered her. Medusa is tough because of her hair, but Auran is an advanced master of hand to hand combat. Throw in the regeneration and this is absolutely no contest. If they said beforehand that Medusa was also known as one of the best fighters or that she had super strength then maybe it would be believable, but otherwise I just couldn’t take the fight’s outcome seriously. Too bad we didn’t get more hand to hand fights like that, but the show at least did give us a lot of posturing between…well everybody. Every character here has a huge ego and they are intact by the end so if we get a sequel prepare for a lot of “I told you so” remarks and smirks. I really don’t see this show getting a sequel anytime soon though.

The best part of the show is probably when the villains and heroes have their first major encounter in the forest. The heroes spend a lot of that time running away and surprisingly there isn’t actually much of a fight but I was done with the whole “Heroes scattered in an unknown town” plot. The actual confrontations are what we came here for after all. Black Bolt did appear to be incredibly naive when he met with Maximus for the first hostage exchange though. In what world would Maximus actually release control back to Black Bolt in exchange for his life when he could just destroy Bolt where he stands? Maximus went as far as to betray his whole family and risk being assassinated to become the ruler. A few words wasn’t going to switch that at any point. Naturally this just causes Black Bolt to fume a little more, but I don’t see how he became the King with those tactician skills. Oh right…he was born into the crown, Bolt didn’t actually earn it. That’s the whole premise of the show.


Overall, Inhumans was a failed experiment of Marvel’s which likely won’t be remembered all that much in the future. It wasn’t a terrible attempt, but it just didn’t have enough good fundamentals to stand on its own. Some guest stars would have really gone a long way into making this a better show. Even if it had to be human guest stars like throwing the Agents of Shield in. That would have worked for me.

Overall 4/10

Agent Carter Review

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It’s time to finally review the Agent Carter show. I have to admit that I got off on the wrong foot with this shoe right from the get go since the first episode was pretty bad. While the show mostly never got quite that bad again, it did suffer from a fairly unlikable cast and a rather boring plot. Not much of note ends up happening in this series and while you can argue that this is the point of a spinoff, I would counter with a Scientific Railgun. I do think this show beats Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but the latter is certainly more exciting. All right, lets dig into this review!

The show takes place before Peggy helped found SHIELD. While you may have thought that the point of the show was getting to see her form the team, that never happens so you should try to forget about that. She works with the SSR, but they don’t respect her because she is a lady. This also means that most of the guys don’t know how to do their jobs so Peggy has to help them all constantly. There are only 18 episodes between the two seasons so the show is fairly short, but each season has a plot. The first one involves villains stealing a lot of Stark tech and now Peggy has to get it all back. The second involves a corrupt politician and a lady who learns how to use dark matter. Peggy may not have any fancy super powers or anything like that, but she has a can do attitude and a lot of “witty” comebacks. The villains will have to tread carefully.

In case you can’t tell, I didn’t like Peggy Carter at all. She does a very terrible job of holding up the show and usually just helps to bring it down. I could go on a long rant about Peg, but lets just stick to the basics. For starters, she’s the tough female lead. That’s her character trope and she doesn’t get much personality beyond that. That’s fine, we’ve had many good characters like that such as Wonder Woman, Medaka Kurokami, Bra, (From Dragon Ball Multiverse anyway) and Dorothy from MAR. The issue with Peggy is that it feels very artificial. Medaka is an exaggerated version of the trope, but the series has fun with it and hey, Medaka actually is pretty tough. She could easily destroy planets by the end of the series. Wonder Woman is self explanatory as she’s a very strong character, but also has a winning personality. Dorothy’s nice and vicious and isn’t afraid to brutally murder someone if she feels like it. Bra just beats up everyone and then insults them afterwards. For Peggy, the writers seemed to think that people wouldn’t take her seriously so they really overplayed their hand by underplaying it.

In the very first episode, Peggy has to use her feminine wiles to solve the case. Naturally, she spits after going through with the plan to show us all that she’s tough and that doing this wasn’t personal. Sure…doesn’t change the fact that her skills as an agent were not enough and this is only the first episode. James Bond does this as well, but he’s one of the worst characters in cinema history (Lets not go extreme folks. Just main characters) and I’d put him in the tr-sh tier. Peggy’s not quite that awful. I just don’t get the logic from the writer’s point of view. This was literally the very first episode of the series, how are we supposed to take her seriously after that? She spends the rest of the series knocking guys out and getting a lot of verbal burns in. To help show that she’s the tough one of the group, her partner is Jarvis. A very frail, weak man who can’t fight for beans and is always very nervous. Ah, I see what the writers are doing here. The contrast will make her appear to be even tougher eh? Very slick guys!

Maybe….mayyyyybe this could have worked….but then the romance sets in. If you thought Carter was unbearably annoying in the first season, she gets worse in the second. A random joe shows up and they basically fall in love at first sight. Remember the guy from season 1? Forget about him, Carter’s ready for a new fellow this time around. Unfortunately, the guy turns out to be someone who lets others step on him and joins the villains. He quickly joins up with the heroes again on his dying breath and that’s that. Carter gets over it, but these romances aren’t really helping her toughness angle. Carter is also used for fanservice on more than one occasion which doesn’t help either. The worst part though is the fact that Peggy just isn’t a likable character. There was never a moment where I thought…”Here’s a good character”. None of her scenes really gave me that impression.

No worries, her supporting cast is just as bad. Lets start with Howard. You’ll remember him as Tony Stark’s father? Well, he has all of Tony’s bad qualities without possessing any of his good ones. He’s just another guy who flirts with everyone and it’s supposed to be endearing and funny. It’s funny in a “Ah man, when’s this guy gonna leave the screeeeen” *cue fake polite smile* way. He is supposed to be smart, but since the villains are always getting the best of him and his stuff keep getting stolen, I’m going to go on a limb here and say that he’s not very smart. Luckily, he doesn’t appear all that often.

We’ve got Jarvis at the ready and I guess he’s the best character. He’s portrayed as incredibly inept at just about everything and it’s handled well. I typically tend to like that kind of character, but they can be handled badly. He’s fun to have around and the only annoying part was his spat with Carter towards the end of the series where he decided to go in a full rage mode. I was actually on his side as opposed to Carter’s (Okay…I guess that’s not a surprise) but he really made his side look terrible by being held hostage. Now that was just embarrassing. He may never get to be all that tough, but at least we finally got to see him in the Cinematic Universe.

Next up is Jack. He’s the “tough” male lead. Oh boy…this isn’t going to end well for him is it? If that’s what you’re thinking, then you’re absolutely right! He starts off as a fairly intimidating character of course and he’s actually decently good at his job. This goes downhill fast though as he gets to see some real action in a gun fight. This traumatizes him and he freezes up so Carter has to come to the rescue. She promises not to tell anyone though. Jack’s never the same after that and then he’s naive enough to trust the villains and allow bribery to slow him down until one of the very last episodes. Ultimately, he does break away and decides to blow up a building, even though an innocent man is still inside. Hey…at least he’s hardcore right? Jack never seems to do all that well against the villains, but he is good at taking the credit. He’s the kind of character that you want to like, but just isn’t actually good enough to be likable. If he’d win a little more, then that would definitely help quite a lot.

Uh oh, we’ve got another “tough” character. Daniel is quite easily one of the worst characters in the show and that’s saying something. Here’s the problem, Daniel has crutches because one of his legs is basically broken, but the show still wants to paint him as one of the best agents in the business. This resorts in completely unbelievable battle scenes where he beat someone even though he can’t actually stand upright. He’s essentially beating them up while holding on to his crutch. I don’t care how little battle experience these thugs have, I just could not believe it. The show didn’t do a good job of convincing me of it at all. It gets a little worse for Daniel when he becomes Daniel the rebound guy. Basically, Peggy wouldn’t go out with him so he just finds someone else and then they get into a super
“serious” relationship. Daniel immediately breaks it off when Peggy’s other boyfriend dies off since he now has a chance and she’s eager for the rebound. It makes both of the characters look so shallow and petty the entire time. They are basically just using everyone else until the situation is just right for them to get together.

Dooley was a fairly good SSR boss to have. He was also rather naive though and talking to one of the big villains in his office with the door closed was not a smart move. I don’t put any stock into the whole hypnotism thing so that was just embarrassing for him to fall for. He got a dramatic end though as he broke into a pretty intense sprint with the most high budget explosion of the series. Everyone finally started to get their act together after that moment.

Dottie was one of the main villains of the series. She’s pretty tough and acts as Peggy’s main rival. She’s also involved for most of the series violence. Carter’s typically not that violent although Dottie getting tortured was pretty high up there and the implied death to the crazy dentist. I don’t recall much more than that and it’s a lot more tame than Agents of SHIELD. Dottie’s a fairly good character and she certainly has a very twisted personality. I think it’s safe to say that she’s the best villain of the series. Her boss was more of a generic evil scientist so he didn’t steal the show quite as effectively.

Whitney was the big boss for season 2. She may not have had Dottie’s experience, but she got alien abilities where she could zap people with black energy and destroy them pretty easily. She just needs to grab an opponent to defeat them so she was fairly overpowered. There wasn’t much that the heroes could do to stop her so they utilized the powers of plot hax. It’s economical and effective. She wasn’t bad, but she did use her powers to destroy a lot of mice so that definitely hurt quite a bit. She was also maybe a little too eager to have some help from Jason with the experiments since I don’t see how he could have offered much help at all. She got most of the last laughs though and I can safely say that Jason did not have a pleasant time.

Jason was the annoying love interest from season 2 that I mentioned earlier. He doesn’t last that long though and his character circle from “likable” supporting character to villain to heroic death dude was very rushed. I never really got to like the guy. His plan wasn’t great though and getting strapped down and tortured by the villains should have been an inevitability that he saw coming given how he really couldn’t trust any of those guys for beans.

Aloysius is a scientist who showed up in season 2. I had to bring him up because he’s pretty crazy. His romance is probably the worst in the entire show and he just acts like a jerk to everyone for no real reason. That’s when he’s at his best of course. The romance just ruins him though and there wasn’t much of a point to his character. He had his funny moments, but they were few and far between. Still, I guess it’s good to have a disgruntled employee into the main cast mix once in a while to spice things up. Other minor characters that I didn’t get to discuss include Jarvis’ wife. She’s a likable character who definitely has a lot of spirit. We’ve got the corrupt politician who’s just annoying. There’s a gangster boss who helps Whitney out in season 2. He was all right, but never really got past the “generic gangster” bit.

This show just suffers from the ripple effect. You know how people say that a really good character can make everyone around him good and improve the show as a whole? Well, the reverse must logically be true as well. Since I didn’t care for Peggy or the show as a whole, it makes sense that the rest of it would appear to be negative as well. I feel like they all helped to bring each other down and that’s why they all seemed pretty unlikable to me by the end. I also just don’t really have any fond memories of this show. It’s not as if it’s rotten to the core, but I don’t see any real reason to recommend it either.

Of course, I don’t expect many live action shows to get a positive rating as it is. It’s why I don’t watch very many of them. At the moment, the only live action show I’m even watching is Agents of Shield. Live action television has never really been able to do all that well and I think it’s because cartoons are just able to perform any plot a lot better. Live action is always limited by its budget and ditto for the action scenes since actors/actresses can only perform so well. An animated character doesn’t have to worry about choreography and can just launch into any battle. As a result, they’re typically a lot more fun. That’s not even getting into the soundtrack differences.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend Agent Carter. There are certainly better things to do with your time than watch this title. It doesn’t really add just about anything to the mythos and you certainly won’t be missing any important tidbits of information if you skip the series. I’d sooner recommend watching a recent action movie like Avengers Confidential where the action scenes are incredibly good and the Punisher gets his best portrayal of all time. If Peggy ever gets a film, hopefully it takes place when she is actually a SHIELD Agent so there can be some more stakes or she can time travel and help the heroes on an alien planet or something. Adding in some sci-fi elements never hurt.

Overall 3/10