Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and this week Agents of SHIELD wrapped up part 2 of the
first episode, introduced another big villain and set up a big arc that will spill over
into the phase 3 movies.
Lots of stuff to get through, so grab yourself some damn fine coffee and careful for spoilers...I’ll
wait just a sec while you get that coffee...okay.
Here we go, top 5 moments:
Number 5 - FitzMack hacks the Quintjet Cloaking Device and Absorbing Man
FitzMack is the new name of their team.
As an offshoot WTF is Simmons if they all think she bailed?
She’s in the promo pics for episode 3, so we won’t have to wait to find out.
Fitz on the other hand is going off the deep end.
I noticed he seemed much more lucid when he was hallucinating Simmons, but when he was
talking to normal people he seemed way crazier.
It felt a little inconsistent, but the hallucinations will have to be explained at some point.
Either his brain is going to explode from trauma or it will help him unlock secrets
of the universe and hack that obelisk tech.
Sometimes when you suffer brain injuries in the Marvel Universe, you can see across time
and space.
Really digging Fitz and Mack together, I know everyone wanted Mack to be Luke Cage.
But they’re probably going to roll that character out during the Netflix shows next
year.
I’m hoping the Fitz crazy person plot ties in with the Coulson crazy person plot and
the obelisk.
Number 4 - Coulson Needs Some Dry Erase Markers
Did anyone else wonder that while he was carving up that board.
When he’s done though he’ll be able to sell it on etsy and make enough money to pay
Hunter for his services.
I’m sure there’s a lot of demand out there for giant coffee tables carved with the ancient
language of the universe.
I feel like the 18 days is very important to what’s happening, it’s part of some
cycle Coulson is on.
Some early theories for what’s going on include Gem-related Tech, as in the Soul Gems
are conscious entities capable of exerting their will.
So maybe the obelisk is tied to a Gem and the Gem is just inceptioning all these different
people in the way the Tesseract inceptioned Hawkeye and Doctor Selvig.
What I think it’s doing is causing them to bring about some pre-determined outcome.
Like the power behind the obelisk, whether it’s a Gem or a Terrigen Crystal, is communicating
with Coulson trying to get him to do what it wants.
Terrigen Crystals don’t really work that way, but Gems can do that.
And based on the way Raina and Skye’s Father talked about the obelisk, it makes me think
it’s more gem related than terrigen crystal.
I don’t think the obelisk itself is a straight up gem.
I just think it’s connected to the gems somehow.
Number 3 - Absorbing Man absorbs the Obelisk
I like that it’s effect on him goes beyond his human physiology.
I think we’re just meant to take away that the Obelisk is more alien and more powerful
than anyone understands.
Not including The Captain.
He seems like the only one who has a clue.
The HYDRA person was able to talk him down and he fixed himself, so whatever the obelisk
did to him, it’s effects aren’t clear.
He did get away with Raina’s carbite ring.
The whole purpose of that was to make him near indestructible.
When she said “Store Energy” didn’t you just wonder whether or not it would be
able to absorb a hit from the destroyer gun?
I feel like that’s the real tease with absorbing man.
Like the obelisk and the carbite will make him so powerful, coulson and Talbot won’t
be able to take him down with energy based weapons.
They did neutralize him though.
But Coulson explained that he’s only been turned to rock and it won’t stick.
So expect Absorbing Man to be back in a future episode.
Number 2 - Black Panther Shout Out
This wasn’t necessarily a Black Panther teaser, I think the character is big enough
they’d intro him in one of the movies.
The reference was Operation Panther Claw.
They never said Wakanda.
The interesting thing about Wakanda though is that it has extremely advanced tech.
So if they’re dealing with Gem-related tech or Kree tech or whatever the obelisk is, Wakanda
could be somewhere for them to get help.
and my Number 1 moment - Meet The Doctor, Kyle Machlacan
His name right now is just “The Doctor”, they haven’t revealed his first or last
name.
Right off the bat here’s what I think, He’s human and very clearly not working with HYDRA,
which means we have our three factions:
Team Coulson, which you could also consider Team Avengers, HYDRA and Kraken and now this
new group Raina and The Doctor are working with.
He isn’t confirmed evil right now, just a separate entity.
The big question is based on the Big Plan Raina teased, who are they and what does it
mean about the obelisk?
The first thing my mind goes to is inhumans and Kree tech.
We only saw the kree in guardians of the galaxy for a brief second.
Not including Ronan.
But the Kree were behind Terrigen Crystals in the comics and the Crystals were responsible
for the creation of the Inhumans.
It’s possible that they’re modifying aspects of that story to work more with the guardians
of the galaxy gem story that the collector teased.
You remember the scene where he explains all of the gems and what they’re capable of.
The markings could just be the language of the celestials.
Like an ancient language of the universe.
That doesn’t explain who Kyle Machlaclan is.
He could be a character from the comics, but we’ll probably have to wait to find out.
Next week is a big HYDRA story.
Let me know what your favorite moment was and do you think the Obelisk is going to be
part of an Inhumans storyline?
Remember, they could just replace the terrigen crystals with modified gem-technology.
They’re changing ultron’s origins in the movies, so they can get rid of terrigen crystals
too.
Big things to watch for next week are Kraken, who we’ll learn a bunch more about and we’ll
learn what Simmons has been doing, with HYDRA aparrently.
My guess is that she’s been trying to infiltrate them.
I don’t think she straight up turned like Ward.
Overall I gave the episode an A minus for being a well executed second half of a two
part premiere.
Technically it wasn’t a two parter, but the story was such a continuation of the events
from episode 1, it should have been called part 2.
The show also earns extra points for wasting no time in mapping out the big players of
the season and what they’re going after.
The Doctor and Raina are trying to unlock the powers of the obelisk and get Skye.
Who is probably the key to controlling it.
Why else would he want her so badly.
It doesn’t seem like love is what inspired him to order Raina to grab her.
HYDRA and Kraken also want the obelisk, but at the same time want to grab as many remaining
SHIELD people as possible.
World Domination, so 1945.
And Coulson is trying to unlock the mystery of the Celestial Language while cleaning up
the HYDRA mess and keeping the world from falling apart.
The thing that’s really sucking me in to the story is trying to puzzle together how
everything is connected.
How all the side plots with the characters are going to come together at the end of the
year.
I totally think they’ll explain what the Obelisk is by the end of the season.
In terms of performances, I think Absorbing Man is going to be an interesting recurring
character.
He got a lot more dialogue in this episode, Coulson of course is always the most fun.
And I’m really happy to see Raina back, she was one of the more interesting additions
last year.
The show really is feeling more and more like a movie which I think is amazing.
I never expect that level of execution from a tv show, but SHIELD is throwing down the
gauntlet in front of the other comic book shows this year.
Arrow and the Flash will definitely be up to the challenge, it’s going to be a fun
year.
Because I have some extra time tomorrow, I’ll do another Q&A for this.
Be sure to subscribe and leave all of the questions.
I’ve also been live tweeting while the episodes are on tv, so you can follow me there if you
want to play along.
Right now click here for the Q&A, I’ll add the annotation tomorrow when I post the video
and click here for my episode 1 video.
Thanks for watching, everybody high five and we’ll meet up tomorrow!