Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 Episode 14 "Tahiti" Discussion Thread

[cph9fa]

I find it amusing that until this episode, people were complaining that SHIELD was using kid's gloves, wasn't acting enough like a real spy agency, and didn't have enough credibility to be a serious threat in the field. Now they undertake (yet another) successful legitimate field mission, without the kids gloves, like a real spy agency, and its too much! You can't please everyone, I guess.

 

[JC00]

I find it amusing that until this episode, people were complaining that SHIELD was using kid's gloves, wasn't acting enough like a real spy agency, and didn't have enough credibility to be a serious threat in the field. Now they undertake (yet another) successful legitimate field mission, without the kids gloves, like a real spy agency, and its too much! You can't please everyone, I guess.

It is very amusing. But ya, you can't please everyone especially the trolls and complainers of the show that continue to watch only so they can troll and complain about the show.

 

[Alex_Kidd]

I find it amusing that until this episode, people were complaining that SHIELD was using kid's gloves, wasn't acting enough like a real spy agency, and didn't have enough credibility to be a serious threat in the field. Now they undertake (yet another) successful legitimate field mission, without the kids gloves, like a real spy agency, and its too much! You can't please everyone, I guess.

quote, sir.

 

[Human Torch]

I find it amusing that until this episode, people were complaining that SHIELD was using kid's gloves, wasn't acting enough like a real spy agency, and didn't have enough credibility to be a serious threat in the field. Now they undertake (yet another) successful legitimate field mission, without the kids gloves, like a real spy agency, and its too much! You can't please everyone, I guess.

 

[Dark Raven]

The way "Tahiti" was initialled (T.A.H.I.T.I) was as if it were some kind of acronym for something

 

[C. Lee]

There's no insults.........

Yes there are. Saying that the argument that someone states is "the single dumbest argument you have heard"....is essentially calling the original poster dumb for making it. And calling someone dumb for stating a point that you do not agree with is flaming, rude, uncivil, and gosh darn, not nice. I prefer for people to be nice. So....be nice from now on.

 

[Gr0oT]

Well hey, hard to find nice amongst the supporters of the Agents of MURDER, I should just feel lucky not to be close enough to any of them to sustain grievous injury!

 

[C. Lee]

Well hey, hard to find nice amongst the supporters of the Agents of MURDER, I should just feel lucky not to be close enough to any of them to sustain grievous injury!

Sounds like you want to disturb my calm too. Why are you taking a post I made saying for people to chill out and using it to digress off to start a fight?

 

[Gr0oT]

Sounds like you want to disturb my calm too. Why are you taking a post I made saying for people to chill out and using it to digress off to start a fight?

Oh come now good sir, 'twas simply a jest.
Although I do find Agents of MURDER sort of catchy.

If someone is so facile as to take the bait on that one and start an actual fight I'd be surprised.

 

[C. Lee]

If someone is so facile as to take the bait on that one and start an actual fight I'd be surprised.

New to this internet thing huh?

 

[Gr0oT]

New to this internet thing huh?

The online community portion anyways.
Anyways I'll take a hint and try not to be needlessly provocateur.

Still, the moral ambiguity of SHIELD this week isn't trolling on my part. I still think that given the limited information they had it be like shooting a soldier when he shot at you for breaking into Fort Knox.

Not the same as Cap killing Hydra super-nazis or Tony killing the terrorists that kidnapped him.

 

[cherokeesam]

The facility isn't SHIELD, period. It's not even Fury's.

"WWFD?" Fury would hide the damn place, that's what he'd do. He'd also have the tightest security possible at a place that was housing aliens, super blood, and god only knows what else. He wouldn't have rigged the place to blow in ten minutes; he'd have rigged it to blow in ten seconds.

The writers made a concerted effort to show that this place was virtually unguarded. Even before Coulson showed up, these two cannon fodder ("Bob, Agent of HYDRA") were literally sitting around, eating cereal, and not even getting any information from HQ (wherever *that* is) about when they were getting relieved, and by whom.

This place screams HYDRA. Screams it from the highest rafters.

 

[C_Carmichael]

I had one teeny-tiny critique about the episode.

That explosion, when Garret and Coulson are running onto the plane...looked hideous. I know, it's a TV show, not a movie, therefore the CGI budget isn't up there with The Avengers. But damn, that looked awful.

Now that my *****in' is over...

Loved this episode. Paxton was great, May beating the snot out of Quinn was golden (really starting to despise that guy) and we got a lot of interesting stuff to chew on in regards to Coulson's resurrection, which I have a feeling is going to become a mega important plot point down the road. While the place that revived Coulson was destroyed, the Clairvoyant still got the answers he sought, in the "how" was it done, so, as we know from all comic book villains, it's only a matter of time till our bad guy makes it happen.

The series just keeps getting better and better! Loving it, and actually getting attached to the characters, even the ones I didn't really care for before.

Can't wait for Sif's visit to Midgard! Wonder if the end of the episode will see Sif heading to London, in search of a particular love-sick God of Thunder.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

I had one teeny-tiny critique about the episode.

That explosion, when Garret and Coulson are running onto the plane...looked hideous. I know, it's a TV show, not a movie, therefore the CGI budget isn't up there with The Avengers. But damn, that looked awful.

There's a few shots like that throughout the show. I've mentioned the dog-sledding scene from one of the early episodes a few times.

 

[JC00]

Well hey, hard to find nice amongst the supporters of the Agents of MURDER, I should just feel lucky not to be close enough to any of them to sustain grievous injury!

Still, the moral ambiguity of SHIELD this week isn't trolling on my part. I still think that given the limited information they had it be like shooting a soldier when he shot at you for breaking into Fort Knox.

Are you really this butt hurt about two random guards getting offed? They opened fire and were aiming to kill. Kill or be killed and those guys got killed.

Show gets a little dark and gritty, which a lot of us have wanted to see and of course there is someone complaining about two "innocent" guards getting offed.

But I guess I shouldn't expect anything different from someone who has been constantly complaining about the show since you started posting on here.

 

[fixxxer]

SHIELD base or not, it was a top secret base that had extremely, um, "sensitive" information that called for security measures. Coulson and co. were clearly the aggressors here.

Now, it could very well turn out to be a HYDRA-run base. However, based on what Coulson knows at the moment, he has zero cause for running an assault on the facility.

The only information privy to Coulson at the moment is that Fury used this base for "experimental" medical procedures, one of which was resurrecting Coulson himself. He knows at least one SHIELD doctor worked on premises to revive him. Wouldn't the logical assumption be that Fury kept it off the books to hide things from the HYDRA double-agents that have already infiltrated SHIELD or other folks that Fury didn't trust?

How on Earth can an assault on the Guest House be justified based on what Coulson knew at that point? An assault that resulted in the death of two security guards, and the destruction of the base. The security guards biting it is pretty insignificant in the larger scheme of things, but it's shows a level of inadvertent (from the perspective of the show's creators/writers) callousness.

Look, if there was any evidence that it was in fact a HYDRA base or something like that, then please go ahead and raze it to the ground. No complaints there whatsoever. However, based on all the evidence that Coulson had at the moment, he had absolutely no reason to believe it was anything other than a SHIELD-aligned facility. I don't understand how this can be seen as anything but shoddy writing.

They've made no effort to show how Coulson knows (or even would suspect) that the base is aligned with the show's (hidden or out-in-the-open) antagonists. I don't see how anyone could think this puts Coulson anywhere other than in Fury's cross-hairs.

I find it a little disheartening that any criticisms of the show (or aspects of the show) get shouted down as "dumb" or "trolling". We're on these boards to discuss the show... it's strengths, it's flaws, and everything in between. Especially considering the fact that I've been pretty vocal in my appreciation of the more recent episodes.

 

[kosh33]

but what choice did coulson have.. let a team mate die?.. ask the shield higher ups about treatments which they would deny exist especially when he couldnt even get through to fury? the intentions of the team were peaceful, but they were doing their job, same with the guards at the base...

it was a shoot or be shot mission, and the team did their job.. people should stop worrying about the right thing to do when the guards were guarding a machine extracting something without consent from an alien body

also, there was nothing the team could do about the bomb.. it was a timer that they tried to defuse but couldnt

what about the fourth episode when ward killed.maimed an unnamed person who was guarding a alien writing when he took over akela's mission or when they disposed of all of quinn's guards in malta... they were also just doing their jobs

 

[Gr0oT]

Are you really this butt hurt about two random guards getting offed? They opened fire and were aiming to kill. Kill or be killed and those guys got killed.

Show gets a little dark and gritty, which a lot of us have wanted to see and of course there is someone complaining about two "innocent" guards getting offed.

But I guess I shouldn't expect anything different from someone who has been constantly complaining about the show since you started posting on here.

Their names were Alpha and Beta... Show some respect won't you?!

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

So... Is Coulson now obligated to go all cowboy and launch deadly assaults every time anyone might be saved by the process used to revive him? That actually is a question, among others, of an ethical nature they just breezed on by.

 

[fixxxer]

The thing is... it's not just about killing the guards. If the Guest House facility was deemed by SHIELD to be a threat, and it was a mission objective to eliminate said threat, then Coulson and team would have every justification to do exactly what they did. But what mission were they on? Save Skye? Nope, not a mission. I'm sure agents are killed in action all the time. No orders (that we know of) came from higher up.

From everything Coulson knew up to this point, it's stupid of him to assume that the Guest House was a threat rather than an asset (on the books or not), and ultimately be responsible for its destruction. Again, I understand that it's not a SHIELD facility, and that it might, in all probability, turn out to be the property of some nefarious organization... HYDRA mostly. However, based on what Coulson knew at the time, that assumption is completely unjustified, and thus, his course of action, ridiculous.

And if Coulson knows something that hasn't been revealed on the show, i.e. the ol' unreliable narrator trick, well, then that's bad writing in it's own right.

Logically, Fury would be livid at this situation. He'd pull a Jules and come after Coulson with "great vengeance and furious anger". However, I'm sure we'll basically be back to status quo in the next few episodes. See, that's my main problem with the show... it's internal logic is contradictory at it's worst, and inconsistent quite often. The show-runners ought to know better.

Look, I loved everything about the episode in isolation. Like I said, the (probable) Kree? Arrrrgggghhh!!! Loved that. Trip and (especially) Garrett? Awesome! New blood! Paxon, at that! Yay! Fitz-Simmons holographically querying SHIELD databases? Nice. Quinn mugging for the team and being "overconfident evil guy" even though he came close to having his tongue ripped out? Hell, yea! Love me some over-the-top villains. The airborne docking sequence? Awesome.

Unfortunately, the overall plot did not rationally bind together all those independently cool elements.

 

[kosh33]

coulson is a team leader, and will resort to any means possible to save his team... that what his team did when he was captured as well...

 

[fixxxer]

The facility isn't SHIELD, period. It's not even Fury's.

"WWFD?" Fury would hide the damn place, that's what he'd do. He'd also have the tightest security possible at a place that was housing aliens, super blood, and god only knows what else. He wouldn't have rigged the place to blow in ten minutes; he'd have rigged it to blow in ten seconds.

The writers made a concerted effort to show that this place was virtually unguarded. Even before Coulson showed up, these two cannon fodder ("Bob, Agent of HYDRA") were literally sitting around, eating cereal, and not even getting any information from HQ (wherever *that* is) about when they were getting relieved, and by whom.

This place screams HYDRA. Screams it from the highest rafters.

We know that. Or at the very least suspect that. Why would it possibly scream HYDRA to Coulson?

 

[Pokkle]

So... Is Coulson now obligated to go all cowboy and launch deadly assaults every time anyone might be saved by the process used to revive him? That actually is a question, among others, of an ethical nature they just breezed on by.

If they to kill Coulson when he ask for peace, yes.

 

[kosh33]

they didnt go there to eliminate any threats.. they went there prepared to not get eliminated themselves..coulson expected a location where secret unethical experiments were conducted to be heavily guarded, and the reception he got when he clearly stated his peaceful objective was hostile..

like you said, people die on missions and wars.. so why so much concern over two agents who tried to kill people who came to save someone.. coulson's been handed a select team to do as he pleases since fury trusts his judgement... he didnt have a mission, but he also didnt have any directive not to go to GH or to save his team

 

[fixxxer]

they didnt go there to eliminate any threats.. they went there prepared to not get eliminated themselves..coulson expected a location where secret unethical experiments were conducted to be heavily guarded, and the reception he got when he clearly stated his peaceful objective was hostile..

like you said, people die on missions and wars.. so why so much concern over two agents who tried to kill people who came to save someone.. coulson's been handed a select team to do as he pleases since fury trusts his judgement... he didnt have a mission, but he also didnt have any directive not to go to GH or to save his team

But Coulson's team were the aggressors. They're the ones who broke into the facility. A facility that simply has to be considered between neutral and SHIELD-aligned based on the information at hand.