A bit late to the party, but here’s the review/recap for the first episode of Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
This review contains spoilers for the whole episode, so if you’ve yet to see it, look away now.
In New York City, Charles Gunn (played by Charles Gunn off of Angel) is shopping with his son, Gunn Junior. They look at Avengers toys in the shop window, because this show ties in with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (although they keep that quiet). Suddenly a building explodes, and Gunn throws up his hood and - quicker than you can say “We don’t need the rights to Spider-Man anyway, bitch - we’ll make our own Spider-Man” - he crawls, sorry, climbs up the wall using Superhero powers, and rescues Lindsay from The OC from a fiery death. Yay, Gunn!
Meanwhile, in France, Agent Ward of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on a mission to recover a Chitauri artefact, because this show ties in with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (although they keep that quiet). After doing some bitchin’ real-world spy stuff that is probably supposed to contrast with SuperGunn, he breaks into a hotel room and gets into a fight while being watched by a weirdly unphased blonde lass.
She's either going to be important later, or she's the worst extra ever
Normally, the spy thing to do would be to flirt with her, but there’s no time for that, as Maria Hill off of Avengers Assemble wants a word with him back in America.
Maria is vexed that a hacker group called Rising Tide seems to know a lot more about S.H.I.E.L.D. business than S.H.I.E.L.D. do - including having film of SuperGunn. But that will have to wait until later in the episode, as Phil Coulson shows up. When Ward asks how Coulson is still alive after the events of Avengers Assemble, Phil shrugs and says he got better in Tahiti.
Anyway, Phil has an offer for Ward. He wants Ward to head a team to find Gunn. Ward points out that he shouldn’t be involved because he lacks charisma and people skills. Coulson agrees but hires him anyway. Shepherd Book briefly turns up as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s doctor (because Amy Acker had already taken the role of Base Doctor in Dollhouse, and Joss Whedon doesn’t want to be accused of reusing the same people all the time). Book and Hill make vague comments about Coulson actually believing that he survived the events of Avengers Assemble, because Plot Arcs, and then both vanish from the episode.
Gunn, meanwhile, is confronted by Skye, a Flustered, Quirky and Adorkable girl, who tells him that she knows his secret, and that he should totally not trust S.H.I.E.L.D. She then steals his driver’s license, showing that she is far more trustworthy.
Coulson continues his recruitment drive by visiting Agent May, who seems equally as charisma-less and anti-people as Ward.
You can tell by how dark her office is.
May flies the bus to New York, where they kidnap Skye for probably working for Rising Tide. Thinking that they’ve got their hands on a tech-savvy spy who is one step ahead of them, they take her right to the heart of their base. Coulson then stabs Ward with a truth serum because he was fed up with how charisma-less and unpeoplepersony he is, and leaves him alone to tell the truth to suspected cyber-terrorist and spy Skye.
This totally makes Skye join up with S.H.I.E.L.D. and spill knowledge to them - she’s been tracking something called Centipede, which turns normal people into superheroes using gamma radiation from The Incredible Hulk, super serum from Captain America, and alien tech from Thor, because this show ties in with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (although they keep that quiet). No-doubt evil scientists were experimenting on people in the building that blew up, and it turns out that the Extremis tech they were using caused a previous experiment to turn into a human bomb. It’s been at least three weeks since Iron Man 3 came out, so this feels fresh and new again.
Gunn, meanwhile, has realised that he’s only the guest star, so he starts to turn evil and heads off to beat up his douchebag former boss. He doesn’t like being a baddie too much, though, and goes to visit Lindsay in the hospital. She’s a bit of a bitch, and yells at him for exposing the centipede program. He leaves, and decides to go visit Skye.
She seemed like such a nice girl, too...
Skye is hanging out with S.H.I.E.L.D., and though she tells Gunn that he can totally trust them after all, he beats up Agent May and kidnaps Skye.
Phil and the gang realise that Gunn could explode at any time, and the only thing that can stop him is shooting him in the head. But they all like Gunn deep down and want to save him, so Flustered, Quirky and Adorkable English girl Simmons and Flustered, Quirky and Adorkable Scottish guy Fitz set out to find another solution.
Everyone meets at a train station, where Gunn has taken Skye and his son (remember him?). Lindsay shows up to try and kill Gunn, but don’t worry, she doesn’t. She escapes to be mysterious another day.
Gunn, meanwhile, looks like he’s about to explode, and gives a big epic speech about what it is to be a hero, and how superheroes changed everything for everyday folks like him, before announcing that this is his “origin story”. Fed up with Gunn’s corny thematic info-dumping, Ward totally shoots him in the head, right there. He really isn’t a people person.
Gunn is okay, though, because fuck it there’s only a few minutes to go, and Flustered, Quirky and Adorkable English girl Simmons and Flustered, Quirky and Adorkable Scottish guy Fitz use SCIENCE to help save his life and stop him from blowing everyone up ever again. Yay!
Later on, Skye and Coulson are chilling in the countryside, and he asks her if she wants a job with S.H.I.E.L.D. Then a call comes in for a new mission, hundreds of miles away. They get in Coulson’s car, and he tells her she has ten minutes to decide whether she’s in or out. She scoffs that it’ll take more than ten minutes to get there.
“Ten minutes? Where we’re going we don’t need ten minutes” Coulson probably replies, as his car flies off into the sunset.
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Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t get off to a bad start, as such, but it’s probably the weakest of Whedon’s pilots.
The main problem is that it’s so damn Whedon.
Joss has in the past been praised for his witty one-liners. And so this episode has them in every damn scene, to the point that it becomes wearisome. Joss has been praised in the past for how he writes great Quirky, Flustered and Adorkable characters (see also: Willow, Fred, Bennet, Topher…), so this show has three. In fact, I’m going on the record now as predicting that one of Fitz or Simmons will be dead before the season is out, to show that “anyone can die” - there really is no need for the two of them, since they fill the same role, and Joss loves killing off his lovable geeks. But even then, there’s still one too many characters of that type.
And while the three geeks are throwing their personality down our throats, Ward and May are conversely so devoid of personality at this point that it’s hard to root for them. There’s hints of anguish in May’s past, sure, so there’ll be some good development along the way, but they just felt like utter character vacuums at this point.
It’s a bold move to make the guest star the most memorable aspect of a pilot episode, but that’s really what happens here - J. August Richards utterly steals the show as the super powered Michael. Hopefully we’ll see him again, as the show could use its own roster of superheroes, assuming that the main big-screen crew won’t show up.
That said, though, it was still a fun hour. Sure, it was irritatingly slick (lens flare from a briefcase being opened? Really?) but it was incredibly watchable. The new characters may fall into either “Quirky Geek” or “No Characterisation” at this point, but the cast all do a good job, and there is a real sense of chemistry between the lot of them. And in Clark Gregg, the show has a brilliant leading man - sarcastic, cynical, yet exuding warmth and charisma at the same time, Phil Coulson was the break-out star of Marvel’s Phase One, and it’s great to see the character explored more, without a superhero to draw attention away from him. It’s also good to see that his return from the dead won’t be glossed over - there’s an arc to be played out there (not to mention the Rising Tide arc and the Centipede arc, both of which were also set in motion this episode), and it should be a source of endless internet speculation as to how it plays out. Coulson’s death was a very emotional moment - his resurrection should feel earned. Hopefully, through this mystery, it will.
Ultimately, this episode had to bring back Coulson, introduce new viewers to the concept of S.H.I.E.L.D., introduce the new characters, set up a season arc, and try to contain a storyline as well. That’s a lot to fit in to 42 minutes, and this pilot episode (just about) manages to do everything it set out to do. That it doesn’t do it as well as previous Whedon pilots shouldn’t detract from that too much.
Weirdly, given its status as a set-up, the end impression of this episode is of a mid-season filler episode. There’s a hell of a lot of potential there, and once the witty comments are toned down and the characters are fleshed out a bit more, this will no doubt be a weekly pleasure.
So, no, not a bad start.
But the best is (hopefully) yet to come
Geekin' Out Verdict: 6.5/10
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