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‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Season 2 Review

Posted by Josh on September 16, 2015 in Comics, Entertainment, Movie Review |

 

After an epic, action-packed, and suspenseful end to it’s first season, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ really needed to keep up their momentum and have a good, exciting second season from start to finish, and it was well delivered.  Whereas its first season’s beginning was very slow and not too exciting, and only did the last several episodes finally really grab the viewer’s attention, the second season started with a bang and ended with a bang.  Now, the second season still was a little slow to start off, and the tone of the first half of the season was a little darker and more depressing with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fall and Fitz’s mental problems, but the show’s winter finale sped the show off into an exciting second half.  The season’s second half was exciting and more light heartened, feeling just as good as the first season’s epic second half, with Coulson having to face threats such as H.Y.D.R.A, Real S.H.I.E.L.D., and the rise of the Inhumans.  All this and the season’s epic and stunning season finale adds up to a great season 2 that was every bit as good as the first, and that certainly gauged the show’s growth and development.

 

Warning: If You Have Not Already Watched Season 2 Nor Know Anything Of The Plot, Do Not Continue Reading!  Major Spoilers Ahead!

 

What I didn’t like about ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’ Season 2:

 

Triplett’s Death

Honestly, I felt the most disappointing thing about season 2 was Agent Antoine Triplett’s death in the season’s tenth episode, “What They Become”.  Even though he died heroically, trying to save Skye, by destroying the Obelisk and its terrigen crystals, his death still left a void in the show that not only the characters felt but the audience did as well.  B. J. Britt’s character was well-beloved as being a lovable character not only for being a cool, action-ready agent, but also for having a good personality and being quite funny.  Also, he was a very wasted character because he went very under-developed during his time on the show, despite being the grandson of one of the Howling Commandos.  While he was a main character at the end of season 1, after filling Ward’s position on the team following his betrayal, he wasn’t really that big a part of season 2, other than being just another member of Couslon’s main team.  Antoine Triplett was a great character that sadly went under-developed, so it was one of the down-sides of season 2 to see him die.

 

Coulson’s Loss

Another disappointing part of season 2 was Couslon losing his hand in the season finale when he and Mack and Fitz fought Gordon.  After Gordon, was dispatched and dropped the terrigen crystal he was holding, Coulson dove and caught it to stop it from hitting the floor and killing them all.  The crystal started to kill him, but Mack stopped it by lopping off the hand Coulson was holding the crystal.  I mean, I guess I get the point of “If Coulson didn’t do that they’d all be dead, so losing his hand wasn’t so bad”, and the fact that it would be unrealistic if there were no consequences and everyone escaped unscathed every time but how much can happen to Coulson?  How much can he take?  He got killed by Loki in ‘The Avengers’, was resurrected but still has backlash from it because of the alien blood he was injected with, went insane because of the carvings that same alien formula caused him to draw, and now he gets his hand cut-off?  Coulson is such a great character, the best on the show, and the show should stop messing with him and giving him a new hardship practically every episode.

 

What I did like about ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’ Season 2:

 

Director Phil Coulson (of course!)

Coulson’s the best character on the show as it is, but now having him be Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the best thing ever, and he is even cooler!  In season 2, Coulson was even more funny, witty, and crafty then before and always can make you crack a smile at least once an episode (like Coulson make jests at Gonzales even after he has been captured and handcuffed).  Also, he was much better after the first half because all the hangovers from his death and his eventual resurrection had been resolved and he once more actively went on missions in the field, even fighting the likes of Agent 33 and the super villain Angmar.  Seeing him once again actively fighting on field missions and being funnier and less serious and as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., only made the character of Phil Coulson that much more lovable and funny.

 

Lance Hunter

 

Lance Hunter is like Phil Coulson 2.0.  He is witty, funny, and definitely the best character of the trio of newcomers to Coulson’s team in season 2.  Plus, the British (or is it Scottish) agent is a better and tougher agent than meets the eye.  So yep, he is just like Phil Coulson and that is probably what makes him so cool and such an enjoyable character.  He is a cool character for a couple other reasons besides being just funny.  Hunter is the first agent to discover let alone suspect the existence of the “Real” S.H.I.E.L.D. faction, and was Coulson’s right-hand man for the latter part of the season, because after the fall of Coulson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. at the hands of the “Real” S.H.I.E.L.D., he was the only main agent, besides Leo Fitz and Deathlok, to truly stand by Coulson, and was the main man that helped Coulson to take back S.H.I.E.L.D.  Especially after a shaky beginning and introduction on the show, being just a reluctant and less important member of Coulson’s team, Lance Hunter has shockingly become one of the show’s coolest and most important characters.

 

Grant Ward

In season 1, before he turned bad, he was tied with Coulson for being my favorite character on the show.  I still had a soft spot for him, so even though during season 2 he walked the line of good and bad, being more of antihero than villain, he was still one of my favorite characters.  Until Hunter really became solidified in his position on the team, the show didn’t feel the same without Ward as such a main character on the team.  His qualities of being intimidating yet soft and sometimes dryly funny, along with how good of a fighter and agent he is all make him a really cool character that adds a lot to the show and every episode he is in.  However he might not be one of my favorite characters by the time season 3 comes around because in the new season he won’t be a good guy or an antihero, but the biggest bad guy of all, the Head Hydra.  His shooting, capturing, and torturing Bobbi Morse just solidified his turn to evil in the season finale, but hopefully, he will be as good as a bad guy as he was as a hero or even an antihero, or the show, to me at least, won’t be the same.

 

Fitz’s Recovery

Next to Coulson, Hunter, and Ward, Leo Fitz is one of my favorite characters on the show.  He is a good solid character, and has that geeky funniness to him that makes him, well, funny.  While the rest of the team with the exception of Jemma Simmons are all fighters and active in the field, Leo Fitz adds the geeky scientist/mechanic aspect to the show which makes his character unique.  So, that’s why it was so depressing to see him in his pitiful state of having trouble with his memory, speaking, and with hand-to-eye coordination, and becoming in the process less involved with the team.  That’s why it was so good to see Fitz pretty much back to normal after he had recovered a little after the second half of season 2 rolled around.  Having back as an integral part of team again and once more going on team missions as his nervous self made it seem like the good ‘ol times again.  He may not be as funny but at least Leo Fitz is back.

 

‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ Crossover

One of the coolest parts of the season was when, in the episode “The Dirty Half Dozen”, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ tied into ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’.  Especially after last year’s major tie-in to ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, that changed the whole structure of the show and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe as well, the show definitely needed to have a good tie-in to the latest Marvel movie that crossed-over with ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’  And it definitely did.  The show set-up the events of ‘Age of Ultron’ by Director Coulson infiltrating a H.Y.D.R.A. base to find out the location of Loki’s scepter which was in H.Y.D.R.A.’s possession, and then relaying this info to Maria Hill, and telling her that it is “time to bring in the Avengers”.  This sets-up the opening scene of ‘Age of Ultron’ where the Avengers assault Baron Strucker’s base to retrieve Loki’s scepter.  Also, to top things off, they introduce Theta Protocol, that oh so mysterious protocol teased throughout the entire season, as the repairing of Helicarrier #64 that S.H.I.E.L.D. saved from H.Y.D.R.A., which is the same Helicarrier that Nick Fury uses in ‘Age of Ultron’ to aid the Avengers in their climatic battle with Ultron.  So it might not have been as huge as crossover as with last year’s ‘Winter Soldier’ but all the same it was pretty cool.

 

Two-Part Season Finale

Well just word sums up this season’s season finale: stunning.  So many plot-lines were wrapped up and so many things set up for season 3 and left the audience flabbergasted.  The only down-side was Coulson losing his hand but beside that it was awesome.  It was totally action-packed; Coulson, Fitz, and Simmons had to fight Mr. Hyde who was loose at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, the Inhumans waged an all-out war with S.H.I.E.L.D. with an incredible climatic showdown, Coulson, Mack, and Fitz fought Gordon, and Bobbi fought Ward and Agent 33 after having been tortured by them.  And it was so cool how it was split into two parts (“SOS Part 1”, “SOS Part 2”), thus being a two-hour long season finale which was just awesome.  Plus it set-up for and let loose so many possible plot lines for season 3.  What happened to Simmons when she got sucked up by that Kree artifact?  Is Ward the new Head H.Y.D.R.A.?  Are May and Bobbi going to be leaving eventually?  Seriously, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season finale set-up for so much in season 3 and was as action-packed as they come.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. Vs. H.Y.D.R.A.

 

Well, after last year’s fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and in ‘Captain America: The Winter Solider’, and with H.Y.D.R.A. coming back into the light, the war that was bound to result between the two organizations was something almost everyone wanted to see the continuation to in season 2 and the result was quite satisfactory.  The show made the war between S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.Y.D.R.A. exciting and suspenseful, and seeing Director Coulson and other members of his team like Lance Hunter go toe to toe with the Heads of H.Y.D.R.A., like Daniel Whitehall, Sunli Bakshi, and Octavian Bloom, and just ordinary H.Y.D.R.A. agents in general was pretty cool.  Plus, it quite pleasing to see Director Coulson actually able to do a pretty substantial job of destroying H.Y.D.R.A. once in for all by destroying several of their main bases, and taking out most of the Head of H.Y.D.R.A.’s such as Sunli Bakshi, Daniel Whitehall, Octavian Bloom, the Baroness, and the Sheik, and helping the Avengers take out the biggest, baddest of those leaders, Dr. List and Baron Strucker.  Now, even though Grant Ward has become the new Head of H.Y.D.R.A. in the season finale and is going to try and rebuild the tattered organization in hopes of likewise destroying S.H.I.E.L.D., the organization has been greatly destroyed.  Hopefully when Ward’s H.Y.D.R.A. returns this season to return as the antagonist organization, lets hope the show does an equally great job with S.H.I.E.L.D. vs H.Y.D.R.A.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. Vs. Inhumans

The main focus of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ season 2 was to introduce the Inhumans to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I think the show did a great job with that so important introduction.  Although more obscure than other mainstream characters in the Marvel universe, the Inhumans are still a very important part of Marvel as they are important characters to the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and are connected to the Kree.  So having them in the MCU was only logical since the MCU is ever expanding with how many characters it has adapted from the comic books to its shared universe on the big screen.  So with the Inhumans being really the only major superhero team that hasn’t been showcased in the MCU so far, (alongside the Fantastic Four and X-Men because Marvel doesn’t own the rights to them) it was really only inevitable an Inhumans movie should come, and come it will but not until 2019.  Even though that is four long years away it isn’t to early to set-up for their entrance to the MCU, and ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ wasn’t only the perfect tool to use to set-up for them, but they also did it wonderfully.  The show did a great job with the Inhumans’ origin, but also introduced a major Inhumans, Quake, who Skye was revealed to be and even introduced a rogue faction of Inhumans and Mr. Hyde.  Besides introducing them, we also got to see them fight S.H.I.E.L.D. all-out when they attacked the S.H.I.E.L.D. ship Lliad and Mr. Hyde attacked the S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ.  Honestly, I have always liked the Inhumans so I’m excited to see them in the MCU and I loved seeing them be introduced on ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and go toe-to-toe with S.H.I.E.L.D. itself.

 

“Real” S.H.I.E.L.D.

After last year’s end to season 1 showcased the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the hands H.Y.D.R.A. and the didn’t-see-it coming of many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents showing their true colors including Grant Ward, which was so shocking, that the show kind of needed another “traitor in the house” scenario to achieve that kind of level of excitement from season 1.  “Real” S.H.I.E.L.D. did this perfectly, by providing a similar enemy for Coulson and his team.  Especially with Bobbi Morse and Mack being revealed to be “Real” S.H.I.E.L.D. spies, season 2 really did a good job duplicating and re-creating season 1’s successful storyline.  I also liked “Real” S.H.I.E.L.D. because it solidified the fact that their are still plenty of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents out there that Coulson hasn’t found and brought into his organization yet.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. Is Back!

 

Ever since the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and his becoming Director, Coulson has feverishly been trying to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D.  However, the odds were against him since even though his HQ is a huge S.H.I.E.L.D. base he doesn’t have that many other bases or planes or even agents.  So S.H.I.E.L.D. was facing huge obstacles toward rebuilding and truly becoming itself once more.  But after initial conflict with “Real” S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson convinced its leaders to merge with “his” S.H.I.E.L.D.  So, now combined, they have a lot more resources are almost as formidable even though still not quite as big as before.  Now, along with his S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, Coulson has hundreds of quinjets and agents, he now has the huge S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier Lliad, and the Theta Protocol Facility along with the Helicarrier it houses that Coulson repaired.  I mean, when Coulson snapped his fingers in the season finale, 20 fully armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents would come running!  There is nothing wrong with being small but in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s case, bigger is better and I’m glad its back.

 

After an incredible ending to season 1, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ needed to have a strong season 2 start to finish to keep up the momentum and it was certainly delivered.  New character Lance Hunter was a great addition to the team, Coulson is awesome as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fitz has recovered from his injury, S.H.I.E.L.D. has recovered from its destruction, Coulson effectively dealt H.Y.D.R.A. a huge blow, the Inhumans were introduced and who didn’t love the ‘Age of Ultron’ crossover?!?  All in all, season 2 was probably even better than season 1 in all respects, and with Secret Warriors coming to the show in season 3 and more Inhumans and more H.Y.D.R.A. there is even more to look forward to in the future on ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’

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1 Comment

  • Gramma says:

    Basically the same goes for the show to. A little to much action for me/ Maybe if I crocheted and watched part of it, then it would not be so bad.

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