Clik here to view.
One step forward?
Two steps bajust slip and fall right on your ass, I guess.
Reminder: If you're reading this, you either a) watched the episode already or b) don't care about spoilers. Because there's gonna be spoilers. So if you're ready (ish), let's take the next elevator past the jump and leave the hopes for this week's show to ash out in a whirlwind of computer generated fire.
Before watching tonight's episode, I saw the following post on Facebook:
The ensuing discussion under that post? No disappointed viewers. No angry audience. Not even people saying something like "Good - the show was garbage anyway" or sentiments of that sort. 20 some-odd posts commenting on that announcement, and not one of them was actually about Agents of SHIELD.
Before tonight, I might have thought that was a little unfair. But that was before tonight.
The Girl in the Flower Dress, credited to Brent Fletcher, is the most "serious" of all the episodes, with a minimum of goofing off and a premium on characters speechifying and/or expressing serious disappointment. Hey, maybe consciously subtracting the show's try-too-hard jokey tone could be a nice change of pace! Nope. Instead, everything completely flattens out, and all the characters become even more annoying, as the weight they're being asked to carry presses down so hard that whatever modicum of presence, likability, charisma, or vibrance the characters had managed to scrape together just dribbles out the show's hindquarters and spreads across the floor.
The show further indulges its annoying habit of dangling mysteries in front of the audience like you'd lazily dangle a toy in front of a puppy. But you can't just show a dog a toy and expect it to flip out, hopping excitedly for the chance to chase it. You've gotta make the dog want the toy. And maybe it's mildly insulting to television audiences - sophisticated as they've become throughout the last decade-plus of the Golden Age - to compare them to dogs. But this dog? He's got his furry ass planted directly on the carpet, staring at SHIELD with a cocked head and an inquisitive look like "why are you waving stupid dolls at me?"
Speaking of indulgences,SHIELD tends to ape all the wrong things from the superhero genre: A continuity cultivated solely so you can reference it every 10 minutes. Heroes who regard their status as heroes like one regards their shoes after stepping in something soft. And, most annoyingly, a habit of setting up cool(ish) villains/antagonists, and then tossing them aside at the end of the story. SHIELD is really good at this last one. This week, they introduce another minor villain from the comics, a guy named Scorch, and while a few instances of genuine humor spin out of Scorch's pride at getting a supervillain name, he is pretty unceremoniously aced out by Agent May and blows up before the credits roll.
The show does finally settle (kinda) one of it's mysteries: Skye's loyalty to the Rising Tide, the half-assed Wikileaks of the Marvel Universe. It tells us (kinda) why she's in Rising Tide, and shows her finally making a choice (kinda) as to where her loyalties lie. But in order to do this, the showrunners introduce a bearded anus of a boyfriend, a hairy, self-righteous balloon-knot squeaking smugness skyward with every line of dialog, making Skye an even less likable, less sympathetic, less believable character than she already was. So again - one step forward, two steps baslip and sprain your fuckin' tailbone.
Flower Dress does shed some light on the closest thing to a "big bad", the anonymous entity responsible for "Centipede", which is probably AIM from Iron Man 3 seeing as Centipede is a variation of Extremis. I could probably be convinced to care about this if I thought for a second this might lead to a live-action M.O.D.O.K. as the main villain for Coulson in the final episodes of the season.
So far as positives go - I can't really think of any. I was alternately irritated and bored by about 35 of the episode's 42 minutes. I guess the Science Twins weren't in it that much, although they still managed to get off one of the dumbest exchanges in the episode, expressing befuddlement at the idea Skye could possibly betray them, after all they've been through together. I don't think this was meant to be played as a joke, either. The show seems to have forgotten the four episodes previous, the ones that establish at least twice-per-episode, that this team is greener than unripened bananas. Also, it's weird to question her trust when the only reason you're in the room agonizing over this "betrayal" is because the probably-a-robot leader of your team ordered the emotes-less-than-a-robot veteran to watch Skye fuck her dipshit boyfriend from inside the room. Seems like a bit of a violation. Coulson's moment telling Beardy McFuckstick to kick rocks off of the Bus with SHIELD's house arrest bracelet was pretty cool, though.
I don't know. I'm getting tired of this show. Maybe the disappointment is greater this week because last week showed how this show about a team could work. The "villain-of-the-week" shit isn't helping, and maybe I'd think differently on that note if they were at least executing that gameplan well. But they're not, and there's only so many opportunities you can botch before I just get up and leave you to fumble stories into your own lap and hope there's enough generous people in the audience willing to give you credit for simply trying to do something, as opposed to having the skill and talent to legitimately tell your tale.