Tag: Marvel Comics

Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 18: All Roads Lead… Recap

~ Metacrone

mv5bnjjkotixztutnznjyi00ngrllwjhn2qtmwrkzdrhnjkzmgizxkeyxkfqcgdeqxvynzq5ntawmji-_v1_sy1000_cr0015021000_al_

This week on Agents of SHIELD, the Gravitonium situation spirals further out of control, as things always seem to do when the Gravitonium is involved. Fitz and Simmons stay true to themselves and each other, having finally realized just how important they are to each other as anchors, not just as friends, lovers, and scientists. Back at the Lighthouse, love is in the air, but it’s confused and has taken a wrong turn or two. Plus, Talbot is still happy to comply.

As a matter of fact, HYDRAGlenn is riding the elevator and making his way to the armory as the episode begins, choosing a weapon while mumbling to himself that no one has to get hurt. He goes to the control room and checks for Robin’s location, plus messes with the surveillance cameras. Mack catches him there, but doesn’t act on any of the suspicious signals Talbot is sending.

In England, Fitz is working on repairing the infuser component while Ruby practices her aim with the chakram, narrowly missing Jemma’s head each time she throws. Fitz finally has enough of the circus sideshow, and insists that he needs Jemma’s help.

Ruby stares at them as they embrace for a moment, as if she’s never seen a couple express true emotions.

Ruby: Aw. You two are adorable. I ship it. I really do.

Continue reading “Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 18: All Roads Lead… Recap” →

Legion Season 2 Episode 3: Chapter 11 Recap

~ Metacrone

legion-chapter-11-645x370

Dreams come true in this episode of Legion, but not all of them turn out the way the dreamer hopes, as is so often true of dreams. My dream of SpyCatSyd came true, and was as perfect as I’d hoped. Ptonomy and Melanie were also quite happy in their garden and game dream mazes. The group dream of finding the Mi-Go monk also came true, and was a disaster. Lenny’s wish to be set free is as far from coming true as ever. The Carries appear to be in some kind of limbo. This is very much an example of “Be careful what you wish for…”

Chapter 11 starts with the parable of the week. Jon Hamm describes the “nocebo effect“, which is the opposite of the placebo effect. Instead of a fake treatment working as if it’s real in a good way, as with the placebo effect, in the nocebo effect the patient is given an inert substance, told it will make something undesirable happen, and it does.* We see an elderly man given sugar water by a nurse who tells him it will make him vomit. He projectile vomits. “Your mind had the power to create its own physical reality.”

This parable makes me want to projectile vomit. Be forewarned, I’m only writing about the rest of the parable under protest.

Continue reading “Legion Season 2 Episode 3: Chapter 11 Recap” →

Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 17: The Honeymoon Recap

~ Metacrone

marvelsaos-s5_ttvj_ep517_05-600x269

This week, the Invincible Three learn that invincibility, like magic, comes with a price, as the prophecy/time loop plays out all over again. Ruby’s dreams start coming true along the way, bringing her closer to becoming the Destroyer of Worlds. Deke confesses his feelings for Daisy, which doesn’t bode well for his long term survival, if history is anything to go by. But, hey, Ghost Rider was technically dead before he met Daisy, so he’s just banished to an alternate dimension instead. Maybe the guy from the future will get a creative send off as well.

It’s an action packed episode, with a few laughs, a few revelations and some heartbreak thrown in for good measure. With only five episodes left in the season, and possibly the series, we’re racing toward the big finish. Every episode feels like it’s part of the set up for whatever is coming in the grand finale.

Continue reading “Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 17: The Honeymoon Recap” →

Legion Season 2 Episode 2: Chapter 10 Recap

~ Metacrone

mv5bmjq5odu3mzczmv5bml5banbnxkftztgwmdu2otyxntm-_v1_sy1000_cr0015021000_al_

When watching Legion, it’s important to keep in mind the concept of the unreliable narrator. Jon Hamm is an unreliable narrator, no matter how much he sounds like the epitome of trustworthy patriarchy. David Haller is also an unreliable narrator, even though the audience finds him attractive and likable, and Farouk is supposedly no longer inhabiting his psyche. That means that we can’t trust much that we’re told in Legion.

This paranoid episode tries to determine if there’s anyone the characters and the audience can trust. Unlike season 1, when the sides and main conflicts became clearly established, in this episode it feels like everyone is gearing up for a war they don’t know is coming yet. Uniting Farouk and his body have become a means to an end rather than the end game itself. Jon Hamm’s discussion about perception vs reality vs paying attention to what’s in front of your face seems like it could be the theme of the season.

Of course, there is a 63% chance that I’m lying about all of this, and a 27% chance that this recap will blow up in our faces. But Melanie Bird has awoken from her stupor and is talking back to Fukyama, so something 100% good has already come out of David’s partnership with Farouk. Who am I certain we can trust? Melanie.

Continue reading “Legion Season 2 Episode 2: Chapter 10 Recap” →

Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 16: Inside Voices Recap

~ Metacrone

mv5byjkwnzdmotetmzyzzs00mjm0lwfkzjitmwi1yjq2mmrlmtm3xkeyxkfqcgdeqxvynjazndixnjm-_v1_sx1777_cr001777999_al_

This week Agents of SHIELD features two daring prison breaks by two death-defying groups of people who are being treated unfairly by their captors. The captors themselves feel that their prisoners betrayed them and their trust, and that the prisoners aren’t listening to reason, so they feel justified in containing the prisoners indefinitely, while they attend to other matters.

The prisoners also feel like they aren’t being listened to. They seek out unlikely allies and use their wits, skill and reckless bravado to pull off their escapes. Someone almost dies in each escape. Meanwhile, the leaders and seconds in command are distracted with their own plots and plans, so they underestimate their prisoners need to escape and deal with issues. The leaders don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late to prevent the escapes.

Hale and Daisy are mirrored as soft-spoken leaders who fail to pay attention to what’s happening within their teams, and the HYDRA and SHIELD gangs both rebel as a result. Neither leader has either the history as team leader or the watchful muscle to back her up in order to be able to expect absolute loyalty from her best people. As a result, they lose the control they’re holding so tightly.

Continue reading “Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 16: Inside Voices Recap” →

Legion Season 2 Episode 1: Chapter 9 Recap

~ Metacrone
mv5bmjiznjy1otayml5bml5banbnxkftztgwmtu2otyxntm-_v1_sy1000_cr0014991000_al_
The Monster still lurks. But who is the monster?

Our hero, David Haller, has returned to his Summerland friends and his lover, Syd Barrett, after his journey within the mysterious orb. He claims to have no memories of his time away, which he thinks was only a day, but was actually a year. His friends are now working with their bitter enemies, Division 3, to find Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King, their even bitterer enemy, who used to live in David’s head, and still might have some kind of hold on him.

Farouk is infecting people, normals and mutants alike, with a strange psychological illness that brings on paralytic catatonia and obsessive teeth chattering. Division 3 is being run by a basket-headed mutant cyborg with mustachioed female clones who speak for it. Welcome to Legion, season 2. You didn’t think things would settle down, did you?

The Division 3 headquarters has the best staff restaurant ever, so they can’t be as evil as they used to be. Everything will definitely be fine.  Continue reading “Legion Season 2 Episode 1: Chapter 9 Recap” →

Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 15: Rise and Shine Recap

~ Metacrone

kntm0enhuhmxezpa7mus

Hale HYDRA! Hail the squid-bellied Destroyer of Worlds! Hail the Calamari Mata Hari, and the return of that silver-tongued devil himself, (former) General Talbot!

This week, we get a HYDRA history lesson and a nostalgic visit with some old friends. (RIP, Jasper Sitwell. I will always believe that someone saved you after the Winter Soldier crossed you off in the most spectacular of his on-camera assassinations.) We also discover just how deeply the misogyny ran in HYDRA.

After the Hydra background reveal, Hale takes Coulson on a tour of HYDRA and its goals as it stands today. The two leaders have a surprising amount in common, until Coulson slips and tries to give Hale orders based on his experiences in the future. Hale thinks that he’s just another male authority figure deciding that his gender makes him smarter than her, and shuts down in anger. Did they just bring us one step closer to the end of the world?

Continue reading “Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 15: Rise and Shine Recap” →

Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 14: The Devil Complex Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

mv5bndkym2iyy2qtnze3my00ngi3lweyzwytztzjzde4ytdkzjjmxkeyxkfqcgdeqxvyodiwmty0njm-_v1_sy1000_cr0014651000_al_

This week’s episode confronts levels and layers of fear and loathing, and the ongoing question of when the solution becomes worse than the problem. How far is too far? At what point would it be better to die with your integrity or identity intact, rather than make a deal with the devil that potentially wipes out everything you thought you were or the good you were trying to accomplish?

These questions have been a core part of the show from the beginning, both politically, with the revelation that HYDRA and SHIELD had been interwoven since the beginning, and scientifically, as the question of the appropriateness of the use of the TAHITI protocol to revive Coulson has been reflected on by many characters through all five seasons.

The question of Fitz’ and Simmons’ genius, and when they need to rein it in for the good of the world, rather than following the science to its logical extreme, has also been with the show since the beginning, and explored in a new way each season. Season 4 seemed like it should be the peak of that issue, with Fitz helping Radcliffe create murderous LMDs and perpetrating genocide and mass torture on inhumans inside the Framework as his alter ego The Doctor.

Instead, we come back around to it again this week, in an even more chilling scenario, as Fitz needs to follow the science in order to save the world, but comes close to losing his own humanity while doing so. Cooperation with HYDRA is also on the table again, this time with SHIELD as a willing participant, with the goal of saving the world from a ruthless invading enemy. And, with the appearance of a Kree in the tag, the ethics and science of saving Coulson’s life using TAHITI or another advanced method, with or without his consent, are an issue once again.

This time, Coulson’s made his feelings on the subject very clear to everyone close to him, but he and everyone around him seem to be operating based on fear as much as on logic and reason. Daisy’s powers are also an important piece of the puzzle, with the science vs fear conflict driving her story as well. Fear anomalies continue to arise, and Hale continues to send surprises the team’s way. The situation is building in emotion and suspense and the team has 1/3 of the season left, about the length of the final pod in season 4, to prevent multiple catastrophes.

Continue reading “Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 14: The Devil Complex Recap” →

Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 13: Principia Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

MarvelsAoS-S5_TTVJ_Ep513_04

This week, SHIELD goes back to its roots as a spy organization, and does some legwork that the Black Widow would be proud of. It’s a quieter, more light-hearted episode after last week’s emotional roller coaster ride, but family and loss are still themes. Deke figures out who his grandparents are and remembers his beloved mom, while Mack reaffirms that he’s not going to think of Elena as a robot just because she has robot arms. In the run up to Infinity War and Thanos, the show also brings up familial abuse, both as physical abuse and as the abuse of power. Hale becomes a stand-in for Thanos, and her team, especially Ruby, become alternates for Thanos’ children.

And Werner von Strucker is back! He’s still institutionalized, but out of his Ward-induced vegetative state and being threatened with heavy doping via Thorazine. He’s also using his favored alias of Alex Braun, but his therapist seems to know his full history and identity anyway.

His therapist wants Werner to show motivation toward making progress in therapy by revealing as much information about his past as possible, so that Werner can avoid the thorazine. Werner, however, has developed powers after being trapped in a particular memory in the memory recall machine while in a persistent vegetative state, then being shocked out of the memory loop by Lincoln Campbell zapping Werner with inhuman electrokinetic powers.

Now Werner remembers everything that’s ever happened to him, and every detail of his surroundings, no matter how small. He also seems to have enhanced senses, though I’m not sure Werner realizes that yet (or the writers 😉). He read the small type on an envelope in the trash from across the room, and heard the other side of a phone conversation through a wall. That’s not normal hearing or vision, and may be part of why he’s so out of control. Both hypersensitivity and psychic powers have a long tradition of driving people mad until they get a handle on their powers.

Continue reading “Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 13: Principia Recap” →

Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 12: The Real Deal Recap

~ Metacrone

AOS512CoulsonDaisyMay.jpg

The 100th episode is here, and the showrunners went for an emotional episode that tugs on the heartstrings of longtime viewers, rather than loading this installment up with cameos from every past cast member they could get to show up. Mike Peterson, who played such a big part in the pilot and in season one, returns for the episode, and Hive gets a cameo, remembering longtime cast member Grant Ward/Brett Dalton. But most importantly, the focus is on SHIELD as a family, facing their fears together, and on upcoming major life transitions for the Agents of SHIELD, including birth, death, and marriage, making this a satisfying episode no matter what the show’s fate is at the end of the season.

The cold open begins with one of Fitz’s dwarfs scanning the technology storeroom after the explosion has died down. It looks like the bomb site that it is. The dwarf spots bloody three-toed footprints (from Vrellnexians), the remains of the beacon and a black robed figure. Also, this, which has been blown into the Marvel Universe from the Dr Who Dimension:

Continue reading “Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 12: The Real Deal Recap” →