When ABC announced that they planned to bring the Marvel franchise to the small screen in the form of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the geekdom at large all but imploded. Expectations were high. How could they not be? This wasn’t just another superhero franchise (technically, it wasn’t a superhero show at all, but I think most people chose to ignore that fact). This was part of the big picture formed in Marvel’s current mega franchise, the combination of Iron Man, Captain American, Thor, and uber-successful The Avengers, which finally tied it all together (and earned billions in the process). And that was only Phase One. As we can see in Phase Two, the universe is getting bigger, starting with some slightly lesser known heroes such as the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant Man. The show would be taking place after “New York” as everyone in the Marvel universe has taken to calling the final battle in The Avengers. It had Joss Whedon (sort of)! It had Agent Coulson, back from the dead! (I don’t know what made him click with the audience so much, but he really did.)
The pilot itself received rave reviews. A standing ovation at Comic Con. The number of people who checked out the episode when it first aired was 12 million (plus another 5 million caught it online or by DVR). Agent Maria Hill made an appearance, as if to say “look, more proof that we’re connected!” References to characters, incidents, and objects from the movies were rampant.
But the second episode came and it was just…fine. Standard TV fair at best. (The weakest episode of the entire series so far, in my opinion.) The episode mostly made you think “ok, we don’t know everything there is to know about these people” but that was to be expected. (Granted, we did not know this episode was also laying the groundwork for a larger reveal regarding Skye’s identity as an 0-8-4, which gives the whole episode at least a little more meaning.) Enthusiasm quickly waned and the skepticism crept in (or flooded in). How much was Joss Whedon really involved in the series? (It didn’t seem as emotionally complex and powerful as the normal Joss fair.) Is there really no one with superpowers on the team? (There was never supposed to be, based on what we were told, but that doesn’t mean people weren’t expecting it or hoping for it despite what Marvel and the network said.) Nick Fury made a cameo that was sort of worthless and it begged the question, how helpful was it really for the show to continually remind us of its connection to the franchise at large? It reminded people of the high production values that a TV series could never have (not that they’ve been all that bad but certainly not movie blockbuster-worthy). It reminded us that this isn’t about superheroes, no matter what we think/want/hope/dream. This is about the people who are, at best, Natasha Romanoff-level skilled. Don’t get me wrong, I love Black Widow, but despite comparisons of skill to her made when we first meet Agent Grant Ward, I’m not convinced he or The Tank could hold her own against the former KGB spy.
(ASIDE: I can’t help but wonder if one of the reasons we haven’t seen an announcement about Black Widow getting her own movie is that they can’t really figure out how a story centered around her would fit into the big picture world they have created. The movies have made it very clear that she is extremely skilled and despite being only human, she can kick butt with the best of them. We see her save Captain America’s life in the newest movie, after all. But, Cap has to shield her several times over the course of the movie because she is, after all, only human. And if the entire movie is centered around a powerless human fighting powerless humans, are we really in the Marvel universe or are we just watching another spy movie? If she does fight superpowered beings, would we spend the whole time thinking, I’m not sure I believe she could live through all of this without some superhero help of her own?)
Here and there we got hints of things that were otherworldly or superhuman, but the show just felt like it was waiting for something. We watched the team bond, which was fun. We watched Coulson grow increasingly suspicious about his recovery time in Tahiti (T.A.H.I.T.I.). We watched a relationship develop between Skye and Ward (and then find out that Ward was sleeping with May so…you know). We watched FitzSimmons be the cutest nerds we’ve seen on TV in a long time (single name because they are one entity). We watched and we watched and we…wondered if all we were really going to get was this formulaic mystery of the week thing. Because that was beneath Marvel, right? And Joss, who has done many a series with this villain of the week style plotting, always had some bigger picture building. There had to be more, but the audience was shrinking as people got tired of waiting to find out what that bigger picture was.
Around episode 10 is where things started to get really interesting. Mike Peterson (who first appeared in the pilot) made his return, helping to kick off the chain of events that would allow the show to make some big reveals–T.A.H.I.T.I. was certainly not such a magical place, Coulson’s resurrection had been torturous, Skye is an 0-8-4 (aka object of mysterious origins), Deathlok is revealed/created. It seemed like events were finally kicking into high gear.
But there was still something much bigger at play, we just didn’t know it.
NEXT: And then Captain America happened…
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