Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents of SHIELD TV series for ABC - General Discussion - Part 7

[Xeno]

The imbalances just comes down to lazy, bad writing.

I agree. The Extremis soldiers are as strong or as weak as the script requires them to be. They exist to be enough of a menace to keep the audience interested but not so much that they'll actually kill anyone. And the fact that nobody ever just pulls a gun and shoots one of them is just ludicrous. They don't shoot the agents, either, so I guess that makes it even.

On another note, anyone who paid attention while watching Iron Man 3 knows that Killian and Maya Hansen gave Extremis to the first subjects long before New York. They started developing it around 2000, after they met, and Killian himself had taken it before the test subjects seen in video in the movie were given it. The date on that video is June 2009. Ellen Brandt was given Extremis then.

 

[mkilban2]

Chronologically that doesn't seem to make sense, I'm completely unwilling to revisit the episodes to be sure but iirc they made an effort to make Extremis sound like preexisinting tech and that Centipede was an amalgamation of Chitauri tech, Super Soldier Serum and Gamma radiation...

I'm willing to bet that Killian had been working on Extremis long before the Battle of New York.

Yeah I know that all signs point against my stupid theory, but I just have a hard time accepting it since nothing from IM3 has been actually touched upon. In my theory centipede is an AIM development branch trying to get Extemis correct for Killian. It's about 100% wrong probably but idk haha. I just don't know why Killian hasn't been name dropped (something like "we've heard of extremis before because Killian the head of AIm was developing it and using it to secure the war on terror and control whatever.") nothing about the President being kidnapped or the VP being corrupt, nothing about the nationwide Mandarin broadcasts, nothing about Stark being presumed dead or at least MIA.

I think closer to Cap2 we'll see IM3 stuff and Cap2 stuff happening around the same time. It's probably wrong but I just don't know why nothing besides Extremis being named (which has been around for over a decade) have been mentioned.

 

[mkilban2]

Hey, so I was doing some late night TV show watching, catching up on Modern Family and for some reason got to thinking why it's earlier seasons aren't on Netflic and it led me to this article.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/11/11/netflix-gets-the-last-laugh-again.aspx

The reason I bring this up here is because it made me think of my point the other day of AoS needing to get to Netflix as soon as possible and how streaming apps like Netflix are in my eyes the future of how TV should be approached.

The article makes some good points about how shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men actually increased viewer ratings due to being exposed to the 30million+ homes with Netflix streaming service. It also talks about how Modern Family choosing to air it's reruns on USA dropped the viewership in those times slots by 40% compared to the shows that used to be in those spots (Law and Order: SVU and something else, which are also on Netflix)

I really hope ABC and the Marvel AoS higher ups are taking statistics like these into consideration in respect to what happens after this season. Exposing it to Netflix between season 1 and season 2 will not only put it in more homes (or at least a wider audience) than its week to week format, but will also most likely increase the live viewership for season 2.

Food for thought I suppose, just something I found interesting and related in a way to this show, thought others might enjoy it as well.

 

[TRM]

The Clairvoyant knows what President Ellis dreams about...Maybe he knows what Tony dreams about too

I know it kinda seems like a stretch, but I do still think there could be some incoming connections to AIM as well as IM3 to do with technological mind control, specifically connecting to Bucky and Winter soldier + Ellis's role in Winter Soldier. Explaining exactly why Raina said the Clairvoyant has access to the President's dreams, and why Akela Amadore asked her handlers if she could sleep. Akela was glad that she could sleep soundly again once the surgery removed the eye implant, she hinted it's not safe to sleep with the eye implant in.

There are weird things in IM3 where it almost approaches the surreal, Tony questions his sanity, but his conscious mind is fine... Tony wasn't sleeping properly, hallucinates at one point, and the whole movie is just a story or a memory he was telling Banner. IM3 was partially about coming up with cover stories, They were just "making TV". Killian needed a good reason to kill the president that would play well for TV so they made up the oil thing, and even "supply and demand" is kind of a misdirection... There's a demand for supersoldiers... They "strung up" the president between takes, welcomed him aboard, set the cameras up for the finale at the docks to capture the action in the best ways (we see Killian doing this), and played the dock scene to the world....But they were just making TV and wanted Rhodey to take the president back...Killing the president was never the plan..Mandarin doesn't work that way at all...He's the mastermind behind much of Hydra's takeover at this time...Vice President was never the plan...The President's mind now belongs to them...The PTSD meant Tony's subconscious mind was in a fragile state, yet his physical brain and conscious was find, the panic attack problem was an involuntary thing.. His brain is fine, his conscious mind is find, but he had been repressing his problems, trying to get away from the bad dreams by staying up, and this left his mind a little on edge. When he talks to Banner at the end, Stark is now obsessing over this story..Similar to the recurring dreams of New York he was having before...We might end up revisiting 1M3...Maybe his "panic" attacks only stop because the Mandarin helped him "handle" them.

Some of these ideas could be be played with, although I still can't work everything out yet..."it's complicated", parts of their true plan would involve mass hypnotism of the TV audience in the Marvel world, and anticipating some would still view Trevor as Mandarin. Trevor is more subtle than Killian, he hinted at things with the fortune cookie line. And repeated the fortune cookie line as Trevor... I don't think Killian wrote this line...It hints towards Mandarin being fake, which is the opposite of what Killian wanted. Stark might have picked up on the subtle fortune cookie line early on without knowing it, and Trevor sort of led his subconscious mind to certain conclusions sooner. The conscious mind is often unaware of what's going on with the other side. Psychologists still don't really know all that much about the subconscious. Stark might have been forced to remember things a certain way, had lights shined on the memory of 1999 (only Happy remembered Killian at first), or made to tell the story his way...He almost has prior knowledge of things that are about to happen within the story, shown in subtle ways like "I've got a team of guys coming tomorrow to blow out that wall". He figures things out ahead of time, he pieces things together and starts suspecting Killian early on. The song that starts off the movie says "listen up here's a story", stories can be misremembered. A good cover story will tell parts of the truth, half-truths mixed with lies, and leave many things vague. This helps you get away with lying, and makes the act look completely real. Genghis Khan would know this, his massive spy network practically invented propaganda. Killian lacked subtlety, he admits it in the movie, he was see-through in 1999. He became a better salesman over time, because part of making the sale involves presenting yourself a certain way and putting on false faces. Trevor's hints and forewarnings were more subtle than Killian. pepper didn't have to be a genius to figure out the way Killian said "see you soon" meant something bad. Killian dislikes false faces so he never lied completely, but he's far less subtle, and it was about supply and demand...a demand for supersoldiers.

There's "no two ways about it" there are actually 3, and Mandarin and Killian lie and tell the truth at the same time: AIM/MIA also rearranges to I AM, and the subcoscious mind can read words forwards and backwards instantly, fill in gaps when letters are missing, and rearrange letters, or flip them around to make instant connections so things can be read the right ways. Stark's ego might be his weakness, he may think that "he's the best" and he can't be bested, however Killian and the Mandarin played to his ego, and only allowed him to think he had won...Killian said "by this time tomorrow I'll have the president in one hand and the world's most feared terrorist in the other". By the next day one of them made good on his promise.... Trevor said he gave Tony "nothing". Even after losing the vice president it didn't change Killian's plans...He had plans and backup plans, and the vice president was just a misdirection. It was alright for "Trevor" to lead Tony to the VP. They hacked the VP's phone call at that exact moment to actually determine where Air Force one was, and tricked Tony and the VP into locating the president/air force one for them, after monitoring the calls... They were gaining live feeds to many phones, brains, and minds...Not only hacking the body, but also hacking the mind with the mind chip and the tech that allows us to see through Killian's head into his brain..Possibly even beyond. Possibly similar to the tech that allows you to see through walls, but even greater...Able to see inside the mind, able to see tumors developing, and able to see Coulson's brain and memories had been tampered with. The tech killian showed off that gives a live feed to the brain is just the tip of the iceberg..Killian wasn't showing off his big brain to Pepper, he's not as egotistic as Stark and Trevor, he prefers anonymity, doesn't like being false unless he has too, he was just hinting at what the mind chip is truly capable of...She never let him finish explaining how it can be used to affect all areas of the brain as well as the body...Kllian had knowledge of what every area of the brain does.

 

[Pokkle]

AIM is already an evil organization in Agents of shield.

 

[seahammer]

Hey, so I was doing some late night TV show watching, catching up on Modern Family and for some reason got to thinking why it's earlier seasons aren't on Netflic and it led me to this article.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/11/11/netflix-gets-the-last-laugh-again.aspx

...

Food for thought I suppose, just something I found interesting and related in a way to this show, thought others might enjoy it as well.

Interesting article, thanks! As you said, I hope the folks at ABC are paying attention to what's happening around them and learn from the mistakes of other networks. It's what any good professional would do, in my opinion.

If I remember correctly, past seasons of "Once Upon A Time" are streaming on Netflix, so I can't imagine a reason for them to do something different for AOS.

 

[mkilban2]

Interesting article, thanks! As you said, I hope the folks at ABC are paying attention to what's happening around them and learn from the mistakes of other networks. It's what any good professional would do, in my opinion.

If I remember correctly, past seasons of "Once Upon A Time" are streaming on Netflix, so I can't imagine a reason for them to do something different for AOS.

Yeah, I've neve really thought the wont take the show to Netflix, but some shows seems to wait until they have a few seasons under their belt to do so. I'm just hoping AoS does it after its first season.

 

[Eddie]

I agree. The Extremis soldiers are as strong or as weak as the script requires them to be. They exist to be enough of a menace to keep the audience interested but not so much that they'll actually kill anyone. And the fact that nobody ever just pulls a gun and shoots one of them is just ludicrous.

Regular bullets don't work on Extremis soldiers (as seen in Iron Man 3).

Yeah I know that all signs point against my stupid theory, but I just have a hard time accepting it since nothing from IM3 has been actually touched upon. In my theory centipede is an AIM development branch trying to get Extemis correct for Killian. It's about 100% wrong probably but idk haha. I just don't know why Killian hasn't been name dropped (something like "we've heard of extremis before because Killian the head of AIm was developing it and using it to secure the war on terror and control whatever.") nothing about the President being kidnapped or the VP being corrupt, nothing about the nationwide Mandarin broadcasts, nothing about Stark being presumed dead or at least MIA.

I think closer to Cap2 we'll see IM3 stuff and Cap2 stuff happening around the same time. It's probably wrong but I just don't know why nothing besides Extremis being named (which has been around for over a decade) have been mentioned.

In the last episode, AIM was mentioned as an evil organization. Regardless of the little details, it looks like AoS is set after Iron Man 3 after all.

 

[Xeno]

Regular bullets don't work on Extremis soldiers (as seen in Iron Man 3).

Bullets ought to work on these guys because fists and kicks do. Also, they apparently lack the exact sort of instant healing that Killian's Extremis soldiers had, as shown by Mike's inability to regrow his lost leg and eye as well as his and the others' vulnerability to injury. Mike got a wound to his side that did not heal and he was able to stun one of Po's troops with a single punch. Neither of those things would have phased the Extremis subjects in Iron Man 3 one bit.

 

[Just_Human]

Bullets ought to work on these guys because fists and kicks do. Also, they apparently lack the exact sort of instant healing that Killian's Extremis soldiers had, as shown by Mike's inability to regrow his lost leg and eye as well as his and the others' vulnerability to injury. Mike got a wound to his side that did not heal and he was able to stun one of Po's troops with a single punch. Neither of those things would have phased the Extremis subjects in Iron Man 3 one bit.

I was going to post something about this

Yeah for someone who has Extremis, Peterson is weak

 

[Pokkle]

Because Extremis wasn't a good serum it wasn't stabilized too much explosion.
Now no explosion thanks to Scorch but no super healing and fire power.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Also Mike wasn't dosed with straight Extremis but a mixture of it and other components.

 

[metaphysician]

Batman is just an ordinary human and yet he can and has beaten Deathstroke, who's a super soldier, in a straight up fight. "Super soldier" gives you an advantage, but it doesn't mean that a human can never beat you.

Eh, being fair, I don't think Batman *should* be able to beat Deathstroke in a straight up fight. This isn't because Deathstroke is "superhuman", its because of the actual advantages he has, combined with the weaknesses he hasn't. Or, Deathstroke doesn't beat Batman because he's superpowered. He beats him because he's a highly skilled combatant, who is *also* superpowered.

 

[metaphysician]

Chronologically that doesn't seem to make sense, I'm completely unwilling to revisit the episodes to be sure but iirc they made an effort to make Extremis sound like preexisinting tech and that Centipede was an amalgamation of Chitauri tech, Super Soldier Serum and Gamma radiation...

I'm willing to bet that Killian had been working on Extremis long before the Battle of New York.

He certainly was. Centipede just isn't Extremis. Its a cocktail of stuff that happens to include knock-off Extremis.

 

[metaphysician]

As for bullets, I'm actually iffy whether simply shooting one of the Centipede troops would do the job. We have good reason to believe that a sniper rifle hit to the head would kill Mike, but that is *not* equivalent to any and all other bullet wounds.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Finaly got caught up, just spent the last hour or so catching up in the forum. Really excited for where this show is going for the rest of the season. Deathlok, Sif, Etc etc. Really good stuff. I've loved this show from the start and accepted their shortcomings as growing pains.

Here is to hoping that the show last for many seasons and introduces us to many characters we wouldn't get a chance to see otherwise

 

[fixxxer]

The fact that AIM was name-dropped as an evil organization by Simmons basically invalidates the "IM3 has not yet occurred in AOS' timeline" theory, which was interesting, but quite tenuous to begin with.

Yea, but I find the show writers' silence on Killian to be a little frustrating and confusing. I mean, give us details, dammit. Clearly, AIM's super-soldiers in IM3 were considerably more powerful in terms of power and regenerative abilities than Centipede's. Tell us what's different. The story's all laid out. Basic script writing would mandate that they bridge these inconsistencies. In fact, a more comprehensive explanation should have come quite some time back.

We are theorizing that this wasn't Killian/Hansen's original formula, but rather a knock-off that they are desperately trying to stabilize with all kinds of super-soldier-related stuff thrown in there. It would be nice to know that the show's writers are thinking about these things as deeply as we are.

 

[mkilban2]

AIM could have been considered evil before IM3, but then I don't know why the military would let them rebrand War Machine so yeah they probably were just under the radar evil then.

I know the most logical sense is that AoS is post IM3, but as you said it would be nice for some more clarity or even any acknowledgement of anything that happened in IM3.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

I know the most logical sense is that AoS is post IM3, but as you said it would be nice for some more clarity or even any acknowledgement of anything that happened in IM3.

what more do you want than Extremis soldiers popping up every two seconds and AIM being named as being on the same level as Hydra? All evidence is here. Do you really want one of the characters say: 'Hey, remember last christmas and the huge fight on the Roxxon oil platform? I'm glad the vice president was arrested!', because that would confuse a whole lot of viewers who have no idea what this is about.

 

[Pokkle]

Extremis, AIM they are not going to tell all the film it is already enough.

 

[hopeless]

Wasn't mentioning Extremis in the first episode enough to clarify that it was set after IM3?

I assumed Extremis only turned up after it was introduced in that movie, now there's comments wondering if Iron Man 3 has actually happened yet as far as the Agents of SHIELD series is concerned?

About the only good thing about Extremis is that it couldn't have been used to resucitate Agent Coulson since I can't see Killian using it on him and still keep its existance a secret from SHIELD especially given his grievances with Stark that would have been revealed since Fury would have had him researched and I can't help wondering who screwed that mission up given SHIELD wasn't able to do anything to mitigate the events of IM3!

 

[HunBoy]

Clark Gregg:

“What I heard mentioned here at the TCAs was that Hayley Atwell, who plays brilliantly Agent Carter in the first Captain America movie, may be getting her own show here on ABC. It’s frustrating for Agent Coulson who, as a big fan of Captain America, knows and admires her because she lived in the Forties. So unless S.H.I.E.L.D. stumbles on some kind of Hot Tub Time Machine, I don’t know how I’m going to interact with her. On the other hand, if there is a show where there is a time machine, we’ve certainly got Captain America from that period, I’m sure.”

 

[Gr0oT]

The fact that AIM was name-dropped as an evil organization by Simmons basically invalidates the "IM3 has not yet occurred in AOS' timeline" theory, which was interesting, but quite tenuous to begin with.

Yea, but I find the show writers' silence on Killian to be a little frustrating and confusing. I mean, give us details, dammit. Clearly, AIM's super-soldiers in IM3 were considerably more powerful in terms of power and regenerative abilities than Centipede's. Tell us what's different. The story's all laid out. Basic script writing would mandate that they bridge these inconsistencies. In fact, a more comprehensive explanation should have come quite some time back.

We are theorizing that this wasn't Killian/Hansen's original formula, but rather a knock-off that they are desperately trying to stabilize with all kinds of super-soldier-related stuff thrown in there. It would be nice to know that the show's writers are thinking about these things as deeply as we are.

Oh no, we couldn't have too direct a reference to any of the films for fear of ostracizing the television viewer! Their whole asinine strategy is to profit from the MCU by using it as little as possible, so instead of fleshing out the world it cheapens it.

R_Hythlodeus makes the point that it be a bit too much to make blatant references, and I agree, but it still feels like yet another missed opportunity to enrich the history of the Killian character by exploring some of what we might not have seen in IM3.

Instead we get a show too insecure to reference material that has already banked them over 5 billion dollars and we get a shallow episodic format that ostensibly can please as many people as possible but really makes for a show that is increasingly unpopular.

Honestly my cutoff point will be next episode and in how they decide to honor a character on the dawn of his fortieth anniversary. I've got a feeling he'll be Deathlok in name only and will be proof positive that AoS isn't interested in expanding the universe, just deconstructing it to fit its petty needs.

 

[TheHeatKitchen]

On one hand, we want references to show the deep ties with the MCU. But on the other, we don't want every episode to be solely based on what happened in the films. We would all complain that the show does nothing new and just rehashed what the movies did, on a smaller budget.

 

[Gr0oT]

On one hand, we want references to show the deep ties with the MCU. But on the other, we don't want every episode to be solely based on what happened in the films. We would all complain that the show does nothing new and just rehashed what the movies did, on a smaller budget.

It's all about striking a balance.
Right now they seem content on mentioning THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK any chance they get and they are throwing little easter eggs, but I mostly feel like I'm watching an unfunny sitcom instead of an extension of my beloved MCU.

And although we've been all clamoring for the integration of Marvel characters onto the show we'll just have to see how they go about it next episode, I honestly believe that Deathlok's look will be reduced to that of a space pirate with his metal leg and eyepatch.