March 12, 2018

MCU Viewing Part Nine: Agents of SHIELD and Captain America Civil War

Falon Marvel 1 Comment

Aaaaahhhhhhh. That’s my nice long sigh of relief to be back in the Marvel world that I love the mostest. Y’all know I have been struggling with the Netflix/Marvel partnership series and it has been putting a serious kink in my motivation to get this shizz finished before Infinity War. But I flew through this section because it was all the things I love about the MCU! If you need to catch up on my MCU challenge, check out Part Eight before you read this post! (And here’s the original post if you’re interested in going back to the beginning.) And now, bah bah bah bum! Onto the best chunk of the list so far!

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episodes 11-19

The Basics: Produced by Marvel Studios and ABC, season three premiered in September of 2015 and featured all of the original lead cast. Season three is available on Netflix.

One Sentence Summary: The fate of the Inhumans is in the balance as Hydra and Hive (aka the former Grant Ward) try to experiment on them to create a crazy powerful army.

Full Summary: Check out the detailed episodic breakdown here.

My Reaction: ALL THE FEELS. First and foremost, when the team gave Bobbi and Hunter the “spy’s goodbye” I cried my mother effing eyes out. Like tears streaming down my face, huffing in my breath, actual sobs. On top of that, we FINALLY got our Fitz-Simmons love connection and I was living for it. Some other things I loved in this chunk: Mack calling Daisy and Lincoln “Shake and Bake”. Coulson, always Coulson. Finally getting sexy Ward back, even though he’s now an evil POS. Brett Dalton is pretty so I’m okay with it. We finally saw the take down of Hydra, which I was ready for a season ago. And May battled the Chairman from Iron Chef, and it was everything I hoped it would be.

My Rating: 9 out of 10, just for the spy’s goodbye and Fitz-Simmons action.

Captain America: Civil War

The Basics: Released in 2016 by Marvel Studios and Disney, Civil War brings together all of the Avengers except for Thor and Hulk (who are off on their own badass adventure, but we’ll get there soon enough). Civil War is available on Netflix.

One Sentence Summary: The government wants to regulate the Avengers, Tony is on board and Cap is not so the team splits on this issue as well as the issue of Bucky (aka Winter Soldier) and his brainwashing/crimes.

Full Summary: A lot goes on in this movie, so if you want the full lowdown, you can read it here.

My Reaction: This movie marks a turning point in the MCU, not just in terms of the characters’ storylines, but in terms of the quality of the films. We all know both Avengers films were great, and we know the Guardians of the Galaxy films are great, but for the most part, up until this point, the individual movies have been just okay. Not terrible, but not stellar. Civil War changes that (maybe because it feels more like an Avenger movie than an individual movie?). But from here on in, the individual movies are pretty freakin’ awesome. I love that this movie tackles some real issues: mainly the idea of government regulation, and the morality of sacrificing the life of one to save the lives of many. All interesting things to think about. In terms of things I loved in this movie: I love meeting Black Panther, I love seeing the evolution of Bucky, I love the quote “conflict breeds catastrophe”, I love Baby Spider-man. I love that Bucky’s cell is D23. I love Paul Rudd. I don’t love Cap and Iron Man fighting. I don’t love Peggy dying. I don’t love Cap kissing Peggy’s niece. I don’t love Vision and Wanda falling for each other considering Paul Bettany could be Elizabeth Olsen’s dad. And really, truly, how the eff am I supposed to believe that a nerdy 17 year old Peter Parker doesn’t know what an AT-AT is? I mean, my three year old knows what an AT-AT is. Writing fail. It’s a glaring error in an otherwise practically perfect script.

My Rating: 9 out of 10, by far the best of the individual movies up until this point.

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episodes 20-22

The Basics: Same as above.

One Sentence Summary: The hot guys die.

Full Summary: Click here if you want the full breakdown of the final three episodes.

My Reaction: In the aftermath of Civil War, the world is dealing with the Inhumans and making them register themselves so the government can track them. All kinds of changes are happening at SHIELD. There’s some great acting in these final episodes, particularly from Brett Dalton, as we see the final take down of Hive, which sadly comes about due to Lincoln sacrificing himself for the greater good (an ongoing theme in the MCU that I think we will see again in Infinity War). Lincoln and Ward were two of my favorites, so to see them meet their end in the same episode was heartbreaking, though it was needed. I’m kind of scared about season four at this point because we lost a lot of team members this season, and from the last little snippet in the finale, it seems like we may be losing Daisy too. I don’t love the events themselves, but I loved how the season finale played out, the whole thing was really well done.

My Rating: 9.5 out of 10, the best SHIELD finale so far.

I might as well make this announcement now because I have reached my breaking point. I have decided to eliminate the Netflix standalone series from the remainder of my MCU challenge. Life is too short to watch shitty TV. I’ve watched two seasons of Daredevil, one of Jessica Jones, and half of Luke Strange. I’ve given it my best effort. I’m going to attempt The Defenders and Inhumans, but I make no promises to finish them. Honestly, the movies and Agents of SHIELD are the core of the MCU and that’s where I’m going to focus the rest of my attention from now on. Word.