Remember Phil Coulson, the secret agent and Captain America fanatic who died in the middle of The Avengers? Turns out he’s still alive and kicking, going on classified S.H.IE.L.D. missions with a top-notch team.
This is the premise of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which aired on Tuesdays at 8 on ABC for most of this school year and will return for a second season this fall. The last episode, “Beginning of the End,” aired on May 13th. It is the first TV show Joss Whedon has directed since the cult classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The first half of the season is mostly episodic, connected by a couple sinister characters and vaguely nefarious organizations. The second half has a linear, fast-paced plot where the recurring villains join forces to destroy our heroes. While the self-contained episodes aren’t bad, they pale in comparison to the second half of the show. If you like the characters after watching episodes 1 and 3 and want to see them develop and go through emotional situations together, then you will enjoy the first half of the season. If the characters bore you and you’re just here for the superhero hijinks, skip straight to episode 9. After that the show is consistently action-packed and awesome with enough drama to keep fans of the first half of the series happy.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. features a colorful ensemble cast that will grow on the viewer as the series progresses. While some characters (like the inseparable scientist duo Fitz and Simmons) are instantly likeable, others (like Coulson and new team member Skye) will take a while to warm up to. Every character has at least one episode centered around them that provides excellent development and makes even the blandest characters (like the stoic special ops agent Ward) immensely likeable. Except for the mysterious Clairvoyant (who doesn’t appear until the last fourth of the series) and his henchmen (one of whom is masquerading as a member of Coulson’s team) the villains in the show lack the oomph and over-the-top nature one would expect from a superhero villain, though a few of them do have interesting motives and backstories. Nefarious billionaire Ian Quinn is especially boring.
Any fanboys looking for references to the comics will be sorely disappointed during the first half of the show. The second half, on the other hand, features Asgardians, Deathlok, and a reborn Hydra thanks to Captain America: The Winter Soldier along with a smorgasbord of Easter eggs with interesting implications. While the Marvel Cinematic Universe does not have the rights to the X-Men, they could be able to introduce Canadian and British mutants to the show as well as members of at least a dozen alien races.
