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Monday, December 16, 2013

Agents of SHIELD: The Bridge Review

Thoughts: Agents of SHIELD's mid-season has come and it starts to reveal some of the secrets that we have been waiting for.
*Spoilers*
After last week's episode kind of disappointed we are treated with an overall strong mid-season finale featuring some nice twists and the return of J. August Richard as Mike Peterson, the super-powered guy from the pilot episode.
The opening of the episode actually reminded me of the opening to the Dark Knight Rises with the military soldiers dropping in, similar to the airplane take down, just on a much smaller scale. The best part of the episode was the surprise twist that Centipede wanted Coulson and not Peterson, even though Raina and Poe indicated that Peterson was the key to making the soldiers fictional. While I do not believe Peterson is dead, the cliffhanger ending was effective and finally indicated that we will finally receive some answers, although the way the series has been going, we will get our answers by season five. Seriously, give us some backstory or something please! Come on Joss, help your brother out with the series. We need a season two, and having the series air at the same time as the number one show on television, NCIS, is incredibly stupid on ABC's part. It is almost as if they wanted the show to fail.

There was one particularly odd exchange of dialogue during the scene between Raina and Edison Poe, where Raina is trying to discover more about the "The Clairvoyant." I suppose she was trying to seduce Edison since she gave him the cute "puppy dog look." But, the scene just felt a little awkward.

As a whole, one of the main things this series needs is a great villain, although great villains are a hard commodity to come by on network TV shows or television in general because they usually end up with the "just shoot him already" syndrome and never die. However, a few great shows like the Walking Dead and Firefly did have great villains without being annoying in that way.

Why is the series continuing to be adverse to psychic and super-powered when, like Skye said, Thor was a myth. Seriously, how do they not know that there are aliens that have psychic powers. I know psychic powers are more rooted in the X-Men verse with Professor X and Jean Grey, but that is still odd.

Hopefully J. August Richard as Mike Peterson will return and will become a regular on the series since his character is more relatable and likable than some of the characters in the series. His acting is a big improvement over his first appearance.

Even though I like Skye for the most part, she has become one of my least favorite characters in the series with Coulson obviously being my favorite followed by Fitz and Simmons.

The Ward and May relationship is actually kind of working. They are probably a better pair than Skye and Ward, especially since no one saw it coming. The conversation between them about Ward taking a punch for May was great. May was mad that he did it, then Ward was like "it was tactical, don't flatter yourself." This (below) is what I was thinking when he said that.

We finally get a solid reference to Coulson's girlfriend "The Cellist." I wonder if she has anything to do with his revival as well. But I hope to hear more about her and possibly have a reunion of the two. Considering that the next episode in January or February is named, "The Magical Place," we can assume that we might finally discover Coulson's secret to revival, or at least a few more clues. Since Coulson and SHIELD seem to be so adverse to possibility of magic, and the fact that a Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme movie is in the works, it would be an interesting twist if magic had something to do with his revival, although science would be more likely.

Action: At least Agents of SHIELD is offering us some impressive action scenes throughout and "The Bridge" does not disappoint in that respect.

Production Value/Special Effects: Super strength seems to be fairly easy effect to create since most of the effects for Peterson vs. the Centipede guys was handled fairly well.

Comedy: Seeing Fitz jealous when Simmons shows interest in Peterson was hilarious! "When did you stop talking?" "About three embarrassing sentences ago."

Overall: 9.2/10- The overall success of "The Bridge" really relies on if we will finally receive the payoff we have been waiting for concerning Coulson's death and the many other secrets that the show is holding back. However, as a standalone entry, it was fun and entertaining with J. August Richard as Mike Peterson being the highlight.

Also, please check back tomorrow for my review of the fantasy epic classic, Princess Mononoke.

Below is the full episode.



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13 comments:

  1. I haven't seen this ep yet because we decided to watch a Sherlock on Friday night instead (will post my thoughts on it soon!), so I haven't read this post of yours yet, but I just wanted to say that it is amusing me no end to have that little Loki gif on my Blogger dashboard this morning. Thank you! I'll be back once I've seen the ep with more relevant thoughts, I promise.

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    1. Glad you like the gif! I think you will like it more when you read it in the context of the review.

      -James

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    2. I finally got to watch this last night, and while I don't feel it's as strong as some of the latest eps have been, the last few minutes were breathtaking. Literally, as in, I was not breathing for a little while there. They took Coulson!!!!!! Noooooooooooooo!

      I agree that Mike Peterson is likely not dead, at least, I hope not. This is a show with the name Joss Whedon attached to it, so he very well might be. We shall see. I do like that he got into a SHIELD training program, though his fixation on Captain America wavered between endearing and annoying. But J. August Richards seems to have figured out what he wanted to do with this character, so I'm really hoping he returns.

      I'm not really buying the theory that May might be Skye's mother -- if I hadn't already had a friend suggest that to me, I don't think it would have entered my mind. Much more likely that she either knew Skye's mother, or killed her, or something. Or Skye's mother is actually evil and May is trying in her own prickly way to protect Skye from that. Hmm.

      But yes! We need some answers, pronto! I hope they take a page from the Lost handbook and start trickling out some answers even as they raise more questions so we don't start to feel it's all hopeless and lose interest.

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    3. Agreed, that ending was shocking! I expected them to take Peterson and then the team would follow him just like every other show on TV. But since it broke the typical cliched plot line, it made it a lot more exciting!

      Considering what Peterson has been through in the past in terms of injuries, I am sure he survived. but you never know with Whedon.

      Me either, even though the actresses that plays Skye is half Asian, I still think that May killed Skye's parents. Maybe it was during the mission that gave her the name "The Calvary."

      Thanks for the long comment!

      -James

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  2. Great review! :) I also liked this episode, and I agree, I really enjoyed J. August Richards this time(hes the type of actor he gets really good once he gets comfortable with a role, since he did something similar on Angel) and I hope he becomes a season regular(which I'd been hoping for from the beginning). I also loved the ending, and I can't wait to see what happens with Agent Coulson(I heard somewhere that the plot line of how he died would be wrapped up this season). About Ward and May, I agree, it was definitely not as expected as Ward/Skye would have been, so I'm okay with it now(just hoping they don't go into it too much).

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    1. Thanks again! :D Cool, I did not know that about Richards. Hopefully how he died will actually be answered, along with the millions of mysteries the series has hidden from us. I agree, the Ward/May thing is working, just don't do too much of it.

      -James

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  3. Well, I liked this episode. Apparently some people think Coulson knows how he was revived, which info they think they can use to make their minions unkillable.The idea of May actually being Skye's mom, or at least that they want to have you believe that to keep you hanging, is increasingly obvious w/ Coulson's claim that May is looking at restricted files (only she isn't) and the keeping it between themselves and that awkward pause moment when May lied and claimed Coulson wanted Skye to quit. I wish they would just stop already and have May admit to it. Either May is Skye's mom or Skye's parents are vanquished supervillians...

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    1. Glad to here you liked the episode as well. Yes, apparently that is what they think, which should hopefully answer our questions. May being Skye's mom is a strong possibility, especially since the way she is handling the situation, however the brief picture of the restricted files showed a dead person most likely, which would work with you vanquished supervillian idea. Maybe, May killed Skye's parents, and maybe it was when she was named "The Cavalry." You know, the situation Coulson referenced.

      -James

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  4. It will be interesting to see where the show goes from here. It's taken so many odd turns so far, I'm not at all sure what to expect or look forward too; except for more Coulson and Fitz and Simmons. :) Hopefully they won't mess with those three too much. :P

    ~Jamie

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    1. I agree, I look forward to see where the show goes and how the plot resolves. I also hope the show does not mess things up too much.

      -James

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  5. Because of internet troubles, I was unfortunately unable to watch the episode. However, today I'm hoping to try to watch it. It sounds interesting. I'm surprised that they've done a mid-season finale so soon, but as they're still filming episodes it makes sense. Anyway, hopefully when the show comes back it will be top-notch. Don't get me wrong, I love the show, but I think it has to reach that near level of perfection if it's going to survive because the ratings keep dropping. I really hope this show won't get cancelled because it's growing to be one of my favorite shows. I think my top favorite characters would be FitzSimmons, Skye and Coulson. Coulson usually gets the best one-liners. Hopefully I'll get to see it later today! Excellent review, James!

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    1. I agree, the show needs to get better if it wants to stay on air. As with a lot of Joss Whedon shows, the ratings are not good enough and they end up getting cancelled, which sucks. Thanks T.M.!

      -James

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  6. Click agents of shield season 3 netflix watch free online now. WHAT IT'S ABOUT Created by Joss Whedon, this picks up from where his big-screen "The Avengers" left off, following the battle of New York with -- surprise -- agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) still very much alive. A new threat called The Rising Tide looms. His new team: agents Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet). As with "Avengers," everything takes place in the Marvel Universe, peopled by thousands of characters.

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