Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I look forward to Fitz trying to come up with a scientific explanation for someone having a flaming skull for a head.

So this was quite the episode.

Oh shit! It got May! How did it get her? She never went near the box!

So, does the fact that all the new titles spell funny things like S.A.D.I.S.T and W.I.M.P makes me think of the last time someone gave something a funny acronyms to their stuff.

B.A.R.F. anyone?

It's pretty unlikely, but I'm gonna put it out there anywhere.

During the scene where May and her team take down the Triad guys, we see the ghost pass near May and it's implied she gets infected with it like the Triad was.

So that was cool. Yay for Yo-Yo! Seriously, I love Yo-Yo and I'm glad to see her continuing to show up. She's the best.

I'm a big fan of Robbie in the comics, of course, so I really enjoyed him here. During that intro, when the guys shoot his car with a goddamn rocket? Taken directly from the comic. So I love that little nod. The skull transformation was awesome. Great job there, really cool and creepy. I'm not sold on Gabe yet. I like that he's still in a wheelchair. But Gabe, in the comics, was full of youthful enthusiasm. I got the distinct impression he had some sort of mental disability, but he was so goddamn happy and it just made the relationship between Robbie and Gabe so much more endearing and wonderful. On the show, they definitely still seem to have a close relationship, but it's not quite the same. Gabe is just a normal guy, so some of that heart is lost.

I like Daisy's fashion, but she goes a bit thick with the eyeliner.

All in all, I did really like this episode, and I'm excited to see where the season goes.

I really enjoyed Gabriel Luna's acting. I'm kinda getting a Punisher-esque vibe off Robbie Reyes, espcially with that interrogation scene inside his garage, and even more when he tells Daisy that the people he's killed were not innocent, like the teacher that Robbie says was a pedophile. These Saint Agnes kids have to fight all the crazies don't they?

Shit, now I want to see that team-up◊. And yeah, Luna's acting was really good. He has a nice blend of menace during the Ghost Rider scenes and warmth when he's with his brother.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:42:37 AM by comicwriter

I wanna see Daisy and Matt Murdock in a bar drinking and discussing their vigilante run ins.

Great start to a promising season. Ghost Rider's transformation was great, but Robbie doesn't seem capable of controlling it yet. I liked how Quake's issues from last season tied into her search or Ghost Rider, and the end of their fight was really tense.

I didn't think they'd go there with Yo-Yo and Mack, but I've no objection to their romantic fling.

The Life Model Decoy development is gonna be interesting to see over the season.

A V.I. Virtual Intelligence.

Like the man said, she'd never pass the Turing Test.

Think Friday and Jarvis.

She's a Life Model Decoy. I mean, I thought that was pretty obvious.

edited 21st Sep '16 10:07:13 AM by higherbrainpattern

Yeah but in terms of what kind of intelligence she has

You could probably put an AI in a Life Model Decoy so they're not mutually exclusive.

I saw it as in-universe hair splitting.

Well, that dude mentioned that AI was banned. Think about that for a second. How many everyday services you use nowerdays run on some sort of rudimentary AI? It would make sense for the corporations developing that AI's (google, facebook and so on) to rebrand them so they could still use them.

edited 21st Sep '16 10:55:31 AM by ZheToralf

I'm really curious about the box. Not really what's in it (that's clearly some sort of malevolent entity), but rather who sent it and why.

Clearly nether the Aryan Brotherhood nor the Triad knew what they had on their hands. The only Ao S character with any experience with outright mysticism is Ghost Rider and I got the impression that he was looking for it, not that he sent it (or even that he was the kind of person who would send it), so we can rule him out.

So who then? Who could of possibly had access to the thing and the motive to use it in such a manner?

Or did I just miss some key piece of information in the episode...

He specifically mentioned Ultron. Presumably he's why AIs are banned. I think the rebranding might have been caused directly by the law, rather than as a way to loophole around it. What I mean is, when the Supreme Court (or whoever) passed this law banning Artificial Intelligence, they said "There are a lot of things currently being sold as Artificial Intelligence which are nowhere near Ultron's level. They're not banned by this law, and it would be nice if someone could come up with a new name for them to avoid confusion."

So did Daisy get burned or not? I didn't see her get burned, but she seemed really worried when the guy said anyone who gets burned dies. Someone explained to me later that her real problem was that she doesn't have her special gauntlets, so she's damaging herself every time she uses her powers. Is that it?

I wonder if May is going to be able to Heroic Willpower her way out of the spirit's influence. She managed to No-Sell the Berseker staff, after all.

She didn't get burned. She told the Rider to kill her, but he left her alone.

I meant earlier, in the first scene. Like I said, I didn't see her get burned, but she seemed too worried about the flames ultimately killing anyone who gets burned. I mean, whatever. Maybe she was just worried because it sounds like a dangerous ability in general. The confusion was because the next time we see her after that scene, she's bandaging up her arms.

So it was just me reading too much into it.

I got the impression that yeah her abilities are damaging her body.

I mean, I dunno I never watched the show regularly, and pretty much missed all of season 3, but that was what I thought it was.

Just started watching S4 after skipping the end of S3 because I was sick and tired of Wardever's face.

Apparently, during her off-time, Daisy started taking fashion advice from Orphan Black. Add a cockney accent and you basically have Sarah Manning.

Dude, you missed a lot of good stuff in Season 3.

I only had a little interest in the Hive storyline - it felt like a hasted mixup of the Hydra and Inhuman stories - and the fact that, once again, there was Ward in it, killed it. I seriously hated the midseason finale which ran on several tropes I dislike. And I also didn't like the "flashforward to someone dying" any more than I did with Arrow's grave.

So instead of watching it and bitching about something I would pretty clearly dislike, I just skipped to S4, which is made much easier by the flashforward. The antagonist looks 100.000.000 better just by virtue of not being Hydra or Ward.

edited 21st Sep '16 3:57:19 PM by Julep

Do you at least want to be filled in on what happened?

If you really didn't like Ward I'd say you got out while the getting was good. Long story short, Hive was the Inhuman equivalent of Satan, complete with his own cult, and he brainwashes other Inhumans into loving him like Jasmine.

This season's off to a good start, though. That skull effect does look pretty good in motion. I like that May has minions now.

edited 21st Sep '16 4:02:47 PM by Unsung

With the exception of any fight scene involving Daisy, Season 3 was kind of meh. It started good, dropped off when Ward came back, picked up again when Squidward showed up, and dropped off again after Lash died.

I ended up not really caring about Lincoln despite how much the show tried to make me care. He had two modes: "pissed off because SHIELD won't trust me for acting like a lunatic" and "pissed off because I have to trust SHIELD".

The Mallicks were a big bag of whatever. HYDRA turned out to be an ancient doomsday cult instead of an offshoot of those wacky nazis. I liked "evil Nazi swat team" HYDRA, better than "sacrifice our assets to an ancient alien god demon creature in the hope that it will bring us prosperity" HYDRA.

The really good episodes were "4,722 Hours," "Spacetime" and "The Team." Also the episode where Coulson choked a guy out with his robot hand. That was amazing. But seriously even if you hate Ward watch those episodes. They're some of AOS's best for storytelling and tension alone.

Season 3 mopped up the Inhumans plot so that topic could be brushed under the rug until the eventual Inhumans movie.

edited 21st Sep '16 4:19:29 PM by Soble

I actually kinda liked Lincoln...

I mean, his last scene on the show was amazing.