Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4 (2016-2017) (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

Jason O'Mara has joined the cast as the new SHIELD director.

http://marvel.com/news/tv/26536/marvels_agents_of_shield_casts_new_director?linkId=27164655

No word on the character's name, but he's a character "whose roots go back to the 1940s."

The new season starts Tuesday, Sept. 20 at 10 pm.

 

[Sam Favate]

I enjoyed the premiere, although it did seem a bit confusing at times. Still not sure who or what that Asian mob was up to toward the end. Ghost Rider seemed cool, although I'm still not sure how well he'll fit in with a show about SHIELD. Now, regarding that bit at the end in the chat between May and Coulsen, I really hope we're not going to get teased all season long about a major death on the show. There's been enough of that. Not sure how I feel about all the supernatural stuff - Arrow did something similar in its fourth season and it didn't work out so well.

 

[dana martin]

some confusion, i agree, but still an entertaining episode, i don't think the Ghost Rider will be here past the mid season break, only so much that they will be able to get away with on network TV. And they don't need to drag out the someone dies crap this tie either, better yet pull a game of thrones and just kill someone then let it sort out. make it a major character on the show and the chatter will go up, its on at 10PM now, so yea go darker.

 

[NeilO]

I also don't know how well Ghost Rider fits in with the world of Agents of SHIELD, but it looks like they will be dealing with it. Of course, with the Dr, Strange movie coming up, this is preparing us for the more mystical side of Marvel.

 

[Nelson Au]

I've been having serious reception problems, (audio drop and pixelation) so I didn't get this discussion between May and Coulson had. I'll look for a recap online. I'm sure someone did that. Is the Ghostrider character related to the Nicolas Cage films? I never saw those.

I'm hoping this darker Daisy Quake thing comes to an end too unless she's mean to replace Ward as a sort-of antagonist.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I enjoyed the opener to the new season.

I wasn't sure how Ghost Rider would work on the show, but he seems pretty well done so far.

To those wondering, there have been several different "Ghost Riders" in the comics. This is one of them, Nic Cage's was another (Johny Blaze). And of course the Cage movies are completely separate from the MCU.

Daisy clearly has no interest in registering with The Accords, so that forces her into the position of being a vigilante.

Interesting about that ghost box. Not clear what the deal is yet. Some kind of curse maybe? I don't see how some are thinking May's vision of Coulson is supposed to be foreshadowing. The way it was presented in the episode was that people exposed it to see others around them as specters and that leads them to freak out and kill each other. May seems to have been affected, but she isn't freaking out.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Now, regarding that bit at the end in the chat between May and Coulsen, I really hope we're not going to get teased all season long about a major death on the show.

I don't see how some are thinking May's vision of Coulson is supposed to be foreshadowing. The way it was presented in the episode was that people exposed it to see others around them as specters and that leads them to freak out and kill each other. May seems to have been affected, but she isn't freaking out.

Yes, just was about to post what Sean said after reading Sam's post. I don't see it at all as teasing a death. Just showing that May was affected by the box.

 

[Sam Favate]

Yes, just was about to post what Sean said after reading Sam's post. I don't see it at all as teasing a death. Just showing that May was affected by the box.

Clearly, I have to watch this episode again. Thanks, guys!

(I guess the bad taste of the show's marketing back in the spring lingers!)

 

[Sam Favate]

Was it explained who or what these "ghosts" are?

And was May screaming on the plane filled with Congresspeople? (Is that a political statement?)

I liked the new director, and I'm interested to see where it goes.

 

[Nelson Au]

Yes, it looked like May was on a plane with all those politicians who just toured the SHIELD headquarters. So this new Director's intentions are questionable, appearances are quite deceiving.

 

[NeilO]

I was glad that there is a pseudo-science explanation coming for the ghosts.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I'm guessing the 'Him' that the ghost group keep referring to is Ghost Lowrider. And the 'book' is probably the artifact that gave him his powers?

Why in the world are they already taking a week off, after only 2 episodes? I was wondering why it wasn't showing up on HULU, and finally had to look up the air dates to figure it out.

 

[Sam Favate]

This week the show had to skip because of the Vice Presidential Debate.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Rather than become that guy who rains on everybody else's parade, I bailed on this show midway through season two when I found that I had nothing but complaints about every episode.

But I never deleted the series record, and the first couple episodes of the new season showed up on my DVR. I was pleasantly surprised; the current configuration of the show is much closer to what I originally envisioned the show to be: A team of agents trying their best to deal with extraordinary situations while operating within a shadowy organization lead by figures that cannot be entirely trusted. The original configuration of the show was a little too sunny and jokey for my tastes, too "A-Team" and not enough Le Carré. It seems like they've finally found the right balance.

Promoting Simmons to be basically the deputy director of the science/technology side of the reconstituted S.H.I.E.L.D. was a smart move. It very organically creates a wedge between her and the rest of the team, and gives a character that could be a bit too much of an "aw shucks" apple polisher some interesting new colors to play. I was never in favor of pairing off Fitz and Simmons romantically, but in this context it works, because their professional relationship has become so unbalanced. She is on a much higher rung of the ladder than he is, and gets to see a much bigger slice of the pie. On the flip side, he needs to keep things from her than he never would have in the past, because he needs to give her plausible deniability with the director. And then there's the interesting power inversions with Coulson and May. Seeing her put May in her place with a cutting but well-reasoned argument was a surprising and satisfying scene. Simmons has adapted to the new order of things in a way that May hasn't.

Coulson is also in an interesting position. He's sort of like the Douglas MacArthur of S.H.I.E.L.D. now, where he has a lot more cachet within the organization than his boss, and more de facto power as a result than his position would imply. It's also a tough adjustment going from giving the orders to following the orders. Mace clearly recognizes that Coulson is someone who needs to handled carefully; he wants to avoid conflict with Coulson since Coulson's a legend, but he also needs to keep Coulson in line.

These episodes also reminded me that I liked Skye/Daisy once. When the show started revolving around her, and boxing her into being the sad little girl who got abandoned by her parents, I grew to resent the character. But the Daisy here was much like the Skye in the early episodes of the first season: jaded but driven, a relentless and resourceful investigator with a talent for manipulating people toward her ends. That's a character I'm interested in watching.

I'm sort of mixed on them coming up with a scientific explanation for Ghost Rider and the "ghosts". Given that Doctor Strange and "Iron Fist" are approaching on the horizon, it might be the right time to just embrace the magical side of the Marvel universe.

 

[Josh Dial]

I'm sort of mixed on them coming up with a scientific explanation for Ghost Rider and the "ghosts". Given that Doctor Strange and "Iron Fist" are approaching on the horizon, it might be the right time to just embrace the magical side of the Marvel universe.

Is that where they are going? I thought I read that this season of SHIELD was specifically being used as a jumping-off point, introducing the viewers to the mystical side of Marvel (and that there would be a direct tie-in/explanation in Doctor Strange).

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Is that where they are going? I thought I read that this season of SHIELD was specifically being used as a jumping-off point, introducing the viewers to the mystical side of Marvel (and that there would be a direct tie-in/explanation in Doctor Strange).

I was just going off NeilO's post. I'd much prefer what you've described. The Marvel universe is big and strange, and that's all to the better in my book.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I usually find myself agreeing with everything Adam writes - as far as television-watching spirit animals go, if there was such a thing, Adam would probably be mine. So I find it very surprising to hear that he had bailed on the show previously and is enjoying it again now, whereas I've stood by it since day one and am now finding my patience really being tested by these first two episodes. I'll stick around for a while longer - I tend to be a loyal viewer in the first place, and since I've invested so much time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the past eight years, I'm willing to cut this more slack than most things.

But with that said, almost everything about these episodes has had me saying "nope". I'm not enjoying the Ghost Rider character, plotting, or effects work. I just don't buy it. And I'm not loving that they're going more overtly supernatural. I liked how the early movies in the MCU tried to be grounded in some kind of a reality - not the Christopher Nolan-Dark Knight level of realism, but a little bit more real than the "ooo look, magic!" level of unreality that the show has been heading towards more recently.

My biggest issue might be just that the show isn't the show I expected it to be, and I can't really fault anyone else after all this time. I thought this was going to be a show that took place between the different movies, and served as the connective tissues between the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I thought that the movies would essentially serve as season premieres or season finales and the TV show would stitch those things together, weaving in connections and characters. I liked most of how they did that tie in around The Winter Soldier movie, and how that movie changed the show. But I think the show also kinda blew it in some regards there too. (To me, after watching S1 of SHIELD live and then seeing Winter Soldier opening night, the mysterious "Clairvoyant" character should have turned out to be the all-seeing Zola algorithm from Winter Soldier - it seemed so obvious to me that's what it should have been, so for it to have turned out to be Bill Paxton was a big too ordinary for me.)

But I think for me one of the larger problems with the show is that the characters exist in the same world as Iron Man and Captain America and all of the other heroes, and yet, three seasons completed and they've never called in the big guns. Which is fine in and of itself, if you tell stories that would never make you think of their absence. But the finales of all three seasons so far have raised the stakes to global cataclysm levels, and to me, it's just inconceivable that the world would be in that much danger, and that no one would ever call an Avenger. I think the show made a mistake raising the stakes that high if it couldn't then hand off to the movies to resolve the issues that they started in the cinematic way stakes of that nature deserve. Or raising the stakes when they knew in advance they could get the Avengers cast to do cameos. They could have easily done smaller stakes stuff that was still exciting but also perfectly logical for the Avengers to not be mentioned during.

I came to the show with years of goodwill towards Marvel built up in general, and specifically with a vested interest in seeing more of Phil Coulson onscreen. But the show continues to underuse or flat out sideline him, and having everything revolve around Sky/Daisy/Quake all the time isn't working for me.

I really miss the Agent Carter show right about now.

 

[todd s]

I do hope they make some kind of reference to the Netflix Marvel heroes. How can Shield supposedly be looking for Inhumans and other powered people. Yet, make no mention of the heroes in NYC? Especially, after in Luke Cage he is on tv.

 

[Sam Favate]

My suspicion is that Clark Gregg will appear on Iron Fist to organize the Netflix heroes into the Defenders, much like Fury put together the Avengers. Gregg's a big fan of Iron Fist and has said he wants to appear on the show.

 

[Nelson Au]

I thought last nights episode was pretty well done. Nice to see Quake and Simmons working together and how Coulsen worked out a deal with the Ghost Rider to fight fire with Fire in this case. So it was nice to have the team back together after that mysterious book.

The business with the Android was interesting too and we'll see how Simmons deals with it.