Amy Acker is kind of the best, and I say this not having even seen her in Angel. (I know, I know. What kind of Joss Whedon fan am I? I blame Mekaela St. George for this one, and really, you should too.) But I liked her in Dollhouse, Warehouse 13, and Cabin in the Woods, and I LOVE her in Person of Interest. (Seriously, she’s so awesome in PoI. It kills me that more genre fans aren’t watching that show.) And now Amy Acker is set to guest star in Agents of SHIELD as the cellist. Coulson’s cellist.
(Across the world, a billion Coulson/Hawkeye shippers are weeping that Clint Barton isn’t secretly the cellist after all.)
I know a lot of people have given up on Agents of SHIELD, and I get why, but I also don’t know that its awkward beginning is nearly as bad as some people have been making it out to be, and honestly, I think it’s gotten so much better in the last four or five episodes. I’m actively looking forward to its return next week. Especially if it keeps getting such quality guest stars — not only is Amy Acker scheduled to appear, but we’re also going to see Patton Oswalt and Adrian Pasdar pop up, not to mention Bill Motherfucking Paxton (who’s returning as Agent Garrett).
I don’t know. Maybe it will just fizz out and be the disappointment everyone seems to be taking it for, but I’m really feeling like Agents of SHIELD is building to something good as this first season closes, and I’m eager to see, exactly, just what that is.
My Geek Blasphemy 
Did you see the episode where Sif (from Thor) turned up? I’d been quite enjoying the series to start with, but that episode with Sif just really had me shaking my head. If you know you are dealing with a villain who can control men and you clearly have a huge number of female agents at your disposal, why would you send in ANY men to meet this villain? Nearly all the SHIELD agents involved seem to be men! And they send one of our main male characters in to check out the back exit, seemingly with no idea what could go wrong. It was ludicrous.
I mean, there’s one bit where they enter the hotel room belonging to the villain in Las Vegas. A whole bunch of heavily covered SHIELD agents move in. None of them look female, but I figure I can’t really tell because they are all so covered up. Then Coulson walks in and it was just such a facepalm moment. This is the hideout of the villain whose main strength is that she can control men and make them into allies to her cause who will fight to defend her, so WHY is your main MAN in charge standing right outside the door? Why is he even there? Stupid stupid stupid!!!
They are trying to make Skye into a special macguffin to make up for the fact that she is such a lame character. Mai is kind of badass (though it was VERY dumb of her to take on an Asgardian figure with her bare hands when she knows they can easily move trucks with their own bare hands). Grant is a bit dull and while they are trying to open him up, I just feel like I am interested in him less and less as a character. Coulson is the main reason for the series, but he seems to be getting all anxious over alien stuff when the main appeal of him in the movies was that he DIDN’T get anxious over alien stuff.
I just wish the writing did a better job of acknowledging who the best characters are here. It’s obvious right? It’s Fitz and Simmonds. You can get rid of everyone else. Those are the two I actually care about.
Just my two cents.
It’s Fitz and Simmonds. You can get rid of everyone else. Those are the two I actually care about.
They’re the least interesting. Just stock techie characters. Everyone’s just a stock character, though.
the villain whose main strength is that she can control men
There’s not a whole lot of difference between male and female brains. Does that power make any sense? At least Starfox could use his power on anyone.
I think the characterization is getting better on pretty much all fronts.
I agree with you on the stupidity of the men-against-Sif plan, but it didn’t really bother me that much, like, I just rolled my eyes. I think I enjoyed enough of the episode to forgive it, even if it didn’t make much sense. It would have been a lot cooler if they had brought in an all female team of SHIELD agents, though, and found some other way to have Lorelei get Ward. I think that was the part that annoyed me, more than anything else.
Skye has some moments I like, but I wish I liked her as much as the show clearly wants me to. (Although I don’t hate her the way other people seem to.) I like May a lot, and Ward’s actually growing on me. Honestly, I also had to warm up to Fitz — and I have, mostly, but he’s another one that I felt like the show wanted me to love cause, hey, nerd — and I do normally love the geek characters, but there was something about him that didn’t sit right with me at first. I’ve started enjoying him more lately, though.
I’m 3/4 out the door with this show – if someone created compilations of all Fitz’s and Simmons’ scenes, I’d be perfectly happy just watching those instead of the actual show – but I’ll have to see this episode at least.
Angel was my introduction to Amy Acker, but I didn’t think her character was very good in it, after her first few episodes anyway. I love adorable nerds, but she was kind of damsely and useless and boring, and then stuck in a terrible love triangle for aaaages.
Yeah, again, I’ve grown to like Fitz, but he’s certainly not my favorite character. There’s something about Elizabeth Henstridge that’s appealing to me and probably has a lot to do with how much I enjoy Simmons, but Fitz . . . I struggled with him for the first half of the season. Which annoyed me because I always like geek characters, and geek characters with Scottish accents? I mean, what’s not to love? But it almost seemed . . . lazy, like I was immediately supposed to love him because he was a Scottish geek, and I just . . . didn’t. I don’t know. I’m having trouble articulating it, at the moment.
Well, shit, I heard about the Hydra takeover and the Ward reveal, and suddenly I’m back in again. I watched most of the episodes I missed, and I agree that they’ve been better.
That being said, I’m concerned Ward will turn out to be a triple agent, or worse, brainwashed. This is basically the first time I’ve found anything about him interesting, so I want it to be for real, damnit. Also, I respect the “Nice-guy-action-hero main character was actually secretly evil the whole time,” twist, and I don’t want them to chicken out and reverse that.
Well, now that we’ve had a couple of episodes go by — as I’m ridiculously late to replying to comments, even for me — I’m pretty sure they aren’t going to go the triple agent way for Ward. Brainwashed is still a possibility, but I honestly think they’re going evil. Loyal evil, to be sure — I get the impression Ward doesn’t give two shits about Hydra, that he’s just following Bill Paxton around, but that actually makes him more interesting to me. I have a thing for loyal right-hand-man types.
I do suspect that he will ultimately be a little redemptive and die a semi-noble death because of the Power of Love . . . but, cliche as it is, there are ways to make that work. Or maybe I’ll be wrong, and they’ll do something more interesting. (I’d kind of like to see him ultimately turn against Paxton, but drop out of the team because he’s not good enough for the good guys, and maybe appear as an antihero guest star from time to time, doing good deeds in very evil, violent ways.)
If they are going with brainwashed, apparently it would be the entire time we’ve known Ward, which would be more interesting to me at least. It’d still mean that the Ward we knew wasn’t who we thought he was. But yeah, it really does seem like he’s genuinely on Hydra’s side. Or rather, on Garrett’s side, as you say.
I’d prefer he didn’t do a full Heel Face Turn and join the team again, but I’m all for him having a little bit of redemption. I can see how they might be laying the groundwork for that now, with his sympathetic backstory, apparent feelings for Skye, and possible affection for the rest of the team? Since the audience now knows he’s a mole, I think the purpose of his last scene with Fitz might’ve been to tell us that he cared to some extent about the team beyond just Skye, which is nice. (I read this totally excellent fanfic on AO3 where he’s about to shoot the Science Twins and make his escape, and can’t do it, because he’d never thought it would be an issue, and hadn’t steeled himself for it the way he did for killing the other members of the team.)
Because if they’re going to go for a The Power Of Love-style redemption, or semi-redemption, I’d prefer it if it wasn’t only over their romance, which I haven’t really been interested in. Although it was kind of fun watching them play one another this last episode. Also, doesn’t Skye have the others’ phone numbers or email addresses? She could just send them a message telling them everything.
Oh, and by the way, Amy Acker’s guest spot kind of sucked. Not her acting, but the character herself was flat as a pancake. And now she can’t get a better role in the Marvel Universe, which is a bummer.
I would also prefer if any redemption or semi-redemption story wasn’t solely about Skye. I liked the scene with Fitz, too, and I could see Ward having some small guilt or mixed feelings about betraying Coulson. Also, do you still have the link to that fanfiction? I’d like to check it out.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed with Amy Acker’s guest spot. I was like, really? You could have gotten ANYONE to play that role. I will hold out some meager hope that eventually the cellist will come back and will actually be given something to do . . . but in the meantime, I’ll just try and enjoy Acker on PoI. (Lord, please don’t kill off Root just because I said that.)
I’ve seen a couple of Season 1 episodes of Person Of Interest and they didn’t particularly capture my interest. But still, I should check out one or two of her big episodes sometime.
I’m sure I can find the fanfic again… Here you go.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1474030
PoI definitely took time to grow on me. Not to badger you, cause I hate when people do that — you only have to wait until the seventh season, why don’t you love my show, YOU ARE THE REASON ALL INTELLIGENT SHOWS GET CANCELLED AND DIE — but just in case you’re ever interested in trying it out again. I decided to give it a full season, mostly because I enjoy Michael Emerson so much, but figured I would probably drop it by the end of Season One if it didn’t pick up . . . and it definitely picked up for me. Their season finales tend to be pretty game-changing, which I like. Amy Acker herself pops around here and there — she has a good origins episode Season 2, I believe — but she doesn’t become a series regular until Season 3.
Oh, also, I liked that fic. Ooh, and I’ve read this author’s work before, so, cool. Thanks for the link!
I’m thinking maybe I’ll check out her whole S1 finale Alan Tudyk-in-Dollhouse turn, and then go from there. It would be sort of cool if I found regular role of hers I actually liked, because although I’ve seen her in a fair amount of stuff, the only times it’s been as a regular cast member have been as Fred on Angel and a damselly wife in two episodes of Happy Town, or the Poor Man’s Twin Peaks. (Although you could also say that Season 2 of Twin Peaks is the Poor Man’s Twin Peaks.)
Oh, by the way, in my most recently heard episode of Night Vale, the weather was actually about Fred from Angel. I actually found a lot of that storyline demeaning and sexist in execution – but I’m fine with it in concept, so it didn’t bother me in the song, which was very good. Also, it’s just such a deliciously nerdy thing to write a song about. I think it was one of my favourite weather segments. It is spoilery though, so instead of just saying I thought I’d ask, do you want to know which one it was?
Sure. I have to get back into Night Vale — I LOVE the humor of it, but I’ve always had a little trouble focusing on podcasts, so I kind of fell out of it for a while. But I’ve been spoiled for all sorts of things in Angel, so go ahead and bring it on. I know some of what happens to Fred, anyway.
Cool. The episode is “The Whispering Forest,” and the song is “Winifred,” by Seth Boyer.
I kind of wish it was about her character at the start of her run, when I found her interesting if underexplored – I even wrote fanfic – instead of my least favourite thing Joss Whedon has ever written, but oh well.
Agents of SHIELD did pretty much exactly what I wanted with Ward – kept him a bad guy while developing him as a character. Colour me pleasantly surprised. I’d be okay with them somewhat redeeming him now, though, if it was done well.
Oh yeah, where are you up to with Night Vale, also?
I actually can’t remember offhand . . . it’s been so long since I’ve listened to it. I miss it. I should actually start downloading the episodes and listening to them on my phone or something when I walk home. Anyway, I’m not very far, probably not even to episode 20 yet. I get distracted. 😦
Oh, cool, I don’t have to worry about being spoiled then.
I was really pleased that the show has ongoing storylines, instead of essentially being a series of one-off gags about town creepiness without a lot of continuity (episode storylines aside, of course.) As funny as the show is, that could get a little tiring. But no! Instead we have loads of ongoing characters, running gags, and world building. And the continuity is so gooood.
I’m also surprised at how much of the music I’ve truly enjoyed, since I usually have a hard time finding music I really like.
I’m with you on Agents of Shield. It’s a decent show and has done some surprising things. Having seen The Winter Soldier, I can tell you that they’re definitely building something through the show.
Ooh, jealous. Seeing it tomorrow night, though.