She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S01E09: Whose Show is This?

© Marvel

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law breaks the fourth wall to shreds to mixed results in the season finale.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The season finale of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is called “Whose Show is This?” and completely decides to break from its chains entirely. The episode amusingly starts with its first significant fourth wall bleed with an extended reference to the old Incredible Hulk show that was pretty funny, but then immediately forgotten -- which is unfortunately the big issue with the finale.

I legitimately enjoyed the fourth wall explosion nonsense, which is classic stuff from the comics (they even had an actress play showrunner Jessica Gao while the real one was in the background). That was all fun even with the silly robot acronym “K.E.V.I.N” Matrix knockoff, and a lot of the back and forth meta stuff was cute -- the issue was how it ended.

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Jen correctly states that the final storyline of the big fight scene with Todd the “Hulk King” (which had been obvious for a while) was a pretty uninspired plotline, but that’s what the show has been setting up for seven episodes! The resolution that Jen simply wishes away the consequences of what she doesn’t want felt limp and dispiriting, because although it was amusing to hear her say that Matt should show up, the rest didn’t entirely track.

She says that the real villain is Todd and he should pay for his actions -- and that happens offscreen, I suppose? Same for what happened to Josh and the perfunctory nature of Emil going back to prison. Titania was 100% wasted entirely -- I guess she wasn’t erased by Jen at the end but was just there for some reason?

I understand that due to the fourth wall stuff logic isn’t entirely important, but I want some sort of consistency with either the rules the show establishes or the ideas the show wants to consider. There was a plot about the toxic dudes and their overreaction to non-white male superheroes, which is fine, but if we’re deleting the blood storyline, why spend so much time on it? It just feels like a lot of wasted time.

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So when Jen complains that “this can’t possibly be where the season is going”, fair enough -- but where was it going then? The idea seems to be that very light, cliched family picnic at the end of the show, which is that everything is back to normal -- except that Hulk shows up with his son “Skaar” (with not great CGI) and so everything isn’t back to normal?

Is the point of the show “screw you haters!” because if so, I’m pretty disappointed because the potential of a fourth wall breaking funny show was a really interesting idea to me. Instead I felt that the show cared very little about itself except as a tool to complain about online haters -- but they don’t really say anything interesting about that systemic toxicity or anything really innovative other than that they suck. Which is inarguable.

The end tag is similarly annoying -- the “jokes” about wi-fi and TV shows have already been made about Wong, including in this show already! The show ended up feeling very rushed overall, with a lot of “okay” moments and only two decent episodes that both were heavy on the cameos.

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I think that the show had a real uneven quality to it, perhaps more than any other of the Marvel shows so far -- none of its dramatic moments had any heft and the storylines were all other the place. When the MCU robot archly says that you could call it a legal comedy if you wanted, that’s because the show had presented it that way, so what should I have really expected?

Sadly the finale didn’t really save the show for me, as much as I liked the conceptual stuff behind the fourth wall break, the way it ended felt like coming down from a high into disappointment again. That has been the cycle for me watching She-Hulk and I really hoped for better than that.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S01E06: Just Jen

© Disney+

‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ sneaks in a plotline while jettisoning another one.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is called “Just Jen” and splits its storylines into one that’s indeed about Jen’s identity issues and one that only eventually connects to her. She (in the sadly one fourth wall break this episode) tells us it’s a “wedding episode” and that it’s intentionally inconvenient (debatable).

She’s brought in as a bridesmaid to someone she barely knows in a way that’s loosely explained even in the episode to Lulu (Patti Harrison). Jen keeps getting the worst of things, being first unable to look cool as She-Hulk because it draws attention away from the bride, getting annoying menial tasks while the other bridesmaids do nothing, and be assigned to walk down the aisle with a dog.

I was wondering if this would actually go anywhere, but it doesn’t really -- Jen gets drunk, flirts with seemingly decent dude Josh, and ends up in a stupid fight with Titania. At the start of their interaction, I was more intrigued when Titania gives Jen a fun hateful look, but the whole “I’m going to destroy you in public” by just fighting her... It makes no real sense for someone who seems like a plotter.

So Titania as a villain is thrown aside, crying over her veneers to hide her British teeth (even though she’s never used her real accent) and I have to say: What a waste of a character and an actor! I mean perhaps we’ll get more from her later in the season, but I have been very displeased with the arc of the Titania/She-Hulk rivalry -- really ended with a whimper, and not a very funny one, that little fight between them was meh and it was very slapstick (she trips on ice to break her teeth!).

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In the other more interesting storyline, we get Nikki and Mallory working together in a pairing that really works well. Their legal case, the multiple divorces of Craig Hollis (or “Mr. Immortal”, a bit of a Marvel comics deep cut) where there actually are some interesting ideas about what could go wrong with someone who can’t die but uses “legal death” for legal loopholes.

That’s not really investigated much as the real point is to have a bunch of broad jokes about the couples and how “nice guy” Hollis isn’t so great after all, which isn’t such an interesting subject to focus on. More interesting is how Nikki is able to resolve the multiple divorcees and their various issues with Hollis, leading Mallory to compliment her on how she managed it.

It’s one of the only times Nikki has gotten more to do other than the “sidekick” so I was glad to see that part at least. Then the two go into a sketchy alt-right anti-woman sort of site where they uncover a lot of what appears to be legitimate death threats against She-Hulk (or as Nikki says, Shulky which I found amusing).

It definitely serves as a pretty good prediction of many of the overreactions from that crowd that ended up complaining about before the season came out, but of course, my complaints about this show aren’t that it stars women or anything so crude, but that it feels like the show is way too light and inconsistent.

The episode was entertaining enough, I suppose, but I really disliked how they ended up utilizing Titania and the underlying theme about Jen’s identity crisis disappeared like they forgot about it. Disappointing from that perspective. I wanted more fourth wall breaking and more from the Mallory/Nikki pair -- that’s a show I’m suddenly interested in (just like the Wong/Madisynn spinoff).

The preview for next week presents things a bit more weird and interesting than this week, so I’m hoping things improve -- I know this show has the potential, even if I haven't seen it meeting that potential so far.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S01E05: Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans

© Disney+

‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ goes light in an episode that teases more interesting episodes to follow.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The fifth episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is called ‘Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans’ and really only has two specific slightly connected storylines. In the main storyline, we follow directly from the last episode where Jen is being sued by Titania who has trademarked the name “She-Hulk” and everything gets easily wrapped up with a little bit of a callback to the dating scenes from last episode.

It’s still weird to hear Jameela Jamil use an American accent instead of her real one, but it’s also just mainly annoying that she’s essentially barely utilized here except for a couple of great little lines and well-considered physical actions. Of course, although there is continuity in this show, the legal stuff is highly suspect -- which I suppose isn’t necessarily a problem given the comedic bent of this show, but a lot of times the timeline feels weirdly rushed. I mean how long has it been since the last episode? Since the first episode? It’s all intentionally vague.

There are some funny moments from Jen’s boss and her interactions with the clearly more capable lawyer Mallory Book (Renée Elise Goldsberry) who was shown briefly in episode two and obviously had to come back for a more substantial role. She’s doing another sort of “highly competent intimidating lady” figure similar to her character in Girls5Eva which is an interesting sort of type casting to be found in.

The ultimate little trick of Jen bringing back the few dates she had as She-Hulk to verify she’s used the name was a nice little idea, if again legally suspect. I did laugh at Nikki saying, “Jen, that’ll be embarrassing” -- the cliched ways the men spoke on the stand less so, despite them completely lying of course. The ultimate point seems to be from Mallory, that Jen shouldn’t have to settle for these four specific men and deserves better (hint hint).

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This rapidfire legal battle leads into the other plotline, which is Nikki and Pug trying to track down a superhero clothier. They have a fun rapport, enough so that my complaints about Ginger Gonzaga being underused except for the “quirky POC best friend” role feels even more true now. One of the little standout moments was the set of the Avengers bootleg stuff, with cute knockoff designs in “Avongers” or “Avingers” designs (the details on the fake Avengers was fun).

They come across another sort of cliched character, the flamboyant and mean clothing designer Luke (Griffin Matthews), but the actor gives the material more depth than the writing really does. Ultimately this ends with a complete tease, where not only don’t we see her outfits, but then we see the newly designed helmet of Daredevil, who I guess is also using this exclusive costume designer.

It’s one of those “running in place” sorts of episodes, which only barely moves anything forward in terms of character or plot, but at least does spend time with some interesting side characters that have been given short shrift until now. I wouldn’t say that the episode is bad, per se, just not really as fun as the last one or really what I was hoping for this show. Hopefully the addition of Daredevil into the show will give it a new burst of energy -- and maybe more interesting fourth wall stuff, which really wasn’t there much this time around.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S01E04: Is This Not Real Magic?

© Disney+

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law combines fun and frustrating storylines in a still mostly entertaining episode.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is called “Is This Not Real Magic?” and it marks when we must officially realize that logic is no longer relevant for this show. In the end of the last episode, Wong is informed he’s broken US law and immediately runs away, in what was admittedly a funny beat. Here though he tries to sue someone entirely in a civil court, but there’s no real continuity other than the fact that Wong is simply aware that Jen is a lawyer.

We start here with a seemingly “normal” stage magician named Donny Blaze (Rhys Coiro) who has a classic low effort magic act, even referencing “the great Billy Shakes” which I thought was a funny line to make him look worse. But then in the twist, Donny actually does know how to use magic and creates a portal that sends drunken party girl Madisynn (a pitch perfect Patty Guggenheim) into a demonic hellscape.

Madisynn’s lubricated matter-of-fact slurring is one of the main consistent sorts of comedy this episode, like asking what happened to the goblins or referencing a demon named Jake. I can imagine that her shouting out “Wongers” in glee or spoiling The Sopranos (are we past the point of no spoilers now 15 years after it ended?) will rub some people the wrong way (or the Wong way if I’m getting into the spirit of the humor of this show) but I thought she was the first broadly written character so far on the show that didn’t annoy me.

The idea of Wong suing to prevent unlicensed people from using magic is an interesting idea, certainly, although this show is so ridiculously light that it doesn’t really think about it past the just minimal surface level. Jen is correct with her fourth wall break that I do look more fondly on the show when Wong is in it.

I also enjoyed Donny’s hype man friend, who didn’t really have much else to do but be funny in that way. The action scene later with She-Hulk and Wong fighting off demons is fun enough for what it was, but nothing particularly amazing.

© Disney+

However what really frustrated me was the entire dating subplot -- it starts with Jen somehow getting no matches on her dating app which really strains credulity. Then we only see a cliched bad date that I’m sure has happened to many people before, but it’s nothing new in pop culture so it mainly feels like hammering the point home.

The idea of Jen trying dating as She-Hulk feels like something that should’ve had a little more thought, like maybe if she had had a lot of bad dates or bad matches, or maybe if the dudes kept referencing her superhero form. Instead we get a few additionally cliched bad dates, which again, I’m sure have happened to many women, but then we get the even more cliched “good guy” date.

This pediatric oncologist (helping kid cancer patients, of course) drops the “I don’t want to talk about myself, let’s talk about you” line. It really did feel like a line and a manipulation that Jen (or the show) should be able to understand. Instead it lightly again touches on the idea that the dude is playing a game when he immediately leaves in the morning upon seeing the regular Jen (which should imply that it was all an act, but the show doesn’t bother to think about it that deeply).

It’s overall a mixed episode to me because of these different storylines, with both pretty silly, but one that I at least found sometimes funny and mostly entertaining. The dating stuff was more broad than I’d prefer to see or at least less nuanced than I think the show should be capable of -- in fact I’d prefer more fourth wall breaks, because that at least keeps shaking things up. A real mixed bag of a season so far.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S01E03: The People v. Emil Blonsky

© Disney+

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law brings us all back to the Wong Cinematic Universe.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law essentially continues from where the last one left off, with Blonsky telling Jen that he only ended up in that Shang-Chi fighting arena because Wong forced him to. This is one of the parts of the episode that absolutely made no sense given Wong’s characterization thus far.

During the later trial, Wong says he let Blonsky out because as the Sorcerer Supreme he needs to practice against challenging opponents and even offered the dude asylum. None of this fits with his no-nonsense, pragmatic and competent persona we’ve seen thus far, and why would he offer the Abomination asylum anyway? It really makes no sense. The only part I was even a little okay with is him immediately portaling away after the parole board tells him he just admitted to a bunch of criminal activities. I was wondering if that meant he’d be let off the hook, and he so far completely has been.

In the realm of “oh you’re doing this now?” we get a tiny look at a colleague played by Renée Elise Goldsberry, who I sure hope they got for more than the three seconds they used her for in this episode. There’s also a subplot of Cliché Sexist Dude getting catfished by an Asgardian shapeshifter pretending to be Megan Thee Stallion, who appears as herself and then “twerks” with Jen at the end of the episode in a moment of extreme cringe.

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The actual trial is a bit silly, with the elf Runa actually pretending to be the judge, which easily could put her in prison but they brush it aside, and then getting someone on the stand to say that Dennis truly is deluded enough to think Megan Thee Stallion would be dating him. All that stuff and especially the “Hollywood Hookups” moment is a little broad, honestly, a kind of comedy that didn’t really work for me even if the idea of prosecuting a shapeshifter is kind of an intriguing idea for a legal show.

The parole board hearing is fun enough, with Tim Roth really putting some relish into his absurd role and his love of his seven soulmates. The fourth wall breaks continue here to a lesser extent, with Jen calling out the “cameo every week” nature of it by saying it actually isn’t that at all. The only “action” part here is the mysterious strangers trying to steal Jen’s blood, a classic overarching mystery that I think could be interesting.

I am a neverending fan of Wong played by the “real Benedict” Benedict Wong, and his performance is always a lot of fun, I just felt like they gave him really illogical motivations here. But I know there’s still more to be done with his character and I don’t mind him getting more a center stage here even if that also serves to minimize the rest of the characters.

I was hoping that the parole hearing would be a little bit more complex than mostly “Wong will be here soon, I hope” because this is theoretically a lawyer show. I guess I’m just still kinda disappointed by how this show has gone so far, which hasn’t really gone past “okay” for me yet.

I’m entertained by it just fine, I just know that the Marvel folks are capable of more than that.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S01E02: Superhuman Law

© Marvel

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law shows us the sort of show it’s really trying to be in its second episode.
by Jeremy Fogelman

At this point it is somewhat widely known that the first episode “flashback” was actually intended to air later in the season, but creative decisions moved it to the beginning to lessen confusion. Now we’re back for She-Hulk Episode 2 where things continue from the hints it started with and the beginning of the sort of potential “superhuman case of the week” conceit the series has the potential for.

Things start off with Titania being called a “Superpowered Influencer” (which honestly is a great idea that should be unpacked further) but that’s all we see of the character for this episode and entirely off-screen. The “She-Hulk” moniker comes from a random sort of person calling Jen that, as per usual -- the Marvel movies do this sort of joke a lot, Bruce mentioned this the last episode the same way about being called “Smart Hulk”.

The new setup is that Jen is fired for being too famous and a distraction -- a liability for the DA’s office who are trying to prosecute criminals. Instead Jen struggles with finding something where people don't care about a superpowered lawyer, but it’s slow going. We get a cute and slightly sweet scene where Jen visits her family and gets some classic family jokey lines from them, like her mom Elaine (Tess Walis Kincaid) wanting Jen to talk to a family friend about being a superhero or her dad Morris (Mark Linn-Baker) asking an Internet nitpick question about what happens to Hawkeye’s arrows.

But this new world is perfect for Jen to get approached by what I suppose is one of the big evil law firms in the MCU, and gets an offer from the former opposing lawyer Holliway (Steve Coulter) to be the face of their new “Superhuman Law Division”. Potentially decent guy and potential love interest “Pug” (Josh Segarra) shows up to be the mild comparison to our old friend Dennis the Sexist from Episode 1, but not much otherwise from the new characters.

© Marvel

Instead we get reintroduced to Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), last seen as the CGI Abomination in Shang-Chi and as himself way back in the second MCU movie The Incredible Hulk. Our new mission is for Jen to get Emil paroled despite having destroyed much of Harlem and likely hurt or killed people. Tim Roth is clearly having a fun time in this ridiculous role, talking about his seven soulmates through the prison pen pal program (seven times fast), and seeming to convince Jen that she might actually be able to defend the guy.

As for the other characters from the episode, Mr. Cliché Dennis continues to be the overly awful dude while Nikki also remains Jen’s “spunky best friend” in those diminutive ways. I liked the family people for the most part, despite the cliched writing, because there was a realness to those performances. It was sweet to see Jen helping out around the house in the end credits too, a decent callback.

We do get a little cameo again from Bruce, who offers some nice words before getting flown away on a spaceship (a setup for a new movie, perhaps?). But the episode does feel pretty thin in general with a sort of “setting things up” vibe after the first episode which did the same thing in a different way. For now it’s breezy enough and Tatiana Masliany is an appealing enough performer to keep my attention, but it’s not really as substantial as a lot of the other MCU shows so far.

I’m more interested in the potential parole case to come than the little setup here, but I suppose that’s a good way to keep some interest for the next episode, assuming they don’t keep slowing things down too much.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law S01E01: A Normal Amount of Rage

© Marvel

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law starts off in a fun if pretty messy way for the first Marvel sitcom.
by Jeremy Fogelman

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law starts with the episode called “A Normal Amount of Rage” and includes constant fourth wall breaking and meta-commentary by the main character Jennifer Walkers (Tatiana Maslany), who literally talks to the camera about being in a TV show and the nature of the genre. The first episode starts where it begins, a typical sort of wrapping narrative conceit.

We first hear words about the obligation of those with power and the nature of consequences if you have it. After that we are introduced to two supporting players, fellow lawyer and clichéd awful chauvinist Dennis (Drew Matthews) and paralegal and Jen’s best friend Nikki (Ginger Gonzaga). Neither of these characters gets much other than the thinnest of characterization, as Dennis is the classic “A women lawyer? Please” type who assuredly exists in real life, while Nikki is the classic “best friend” character and that is entirely it for her character -- except that Ginger Gonzaga is a great comedic performer and thus is severely underutilized here.

The mini-arc of this premiere is how Jen is starting to realize that perhaps she and her new Hulk side (with the on-set She-Hulk reference played by 6’5" Malia Arrayah) must coexist in a way. We find out that the origin of her new Hulk powers is a pure accident -- she was on a road trip with cousin Bruce and his blood accidentally gets “mixed up” with hers. He is bleeding due to a powers inhibitor and apparently she gets Hulkified due to the mysterious powers of this blood, I suppose.

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After that they have a series of scenes about Bruce helping Jen get more acclimated, but she’s already different, not for any reason that they know about, but it’s true that their exposure happened quite differently. She doesn’t have the alter ego of the Hulk at all and is easily acclimating to the new powers, but she doesn’t really want to stay that way. Bruce’s perspective is the whole “great power, great responsibility” angle that they have to help protect the world, but Jen prefers her legal approach to it (smaller scale, less chance of breaking buildings, I would imagine).

This leads to a pretty quick escalation to a fight between them which is fun if oddly rushed, both in how it started and how it ends. There are a few unsubtle lines about her being different because she’s a woman, and a few “your mileage may vary” lines about Bing Bong, and Captain America being a virgin. That part is tied into the end tag, where Bruce, annoyed, corrects his cousin that Steve did indeed lose his virginity during his USO tour, which makes perfect sense and has long been suspected and debated upon.

It doesn’t really bother me one way or another, but I was a little annoyed by the weird, blatant Cheetos inclusion. The rapport between Bruce and Jen is mostly decent, at least at an actor level, but there was definitely a lot of unfunny lines and there was a weird thing I noticed where Mark Ruffalo’s dubbed Hulk voice sounded a bit off. He didn’t have that issue as a human, nor does Tatiana Masliany as her Hulk form, so perhaps it’ll be fixed in the release version.

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After all that, we arrive back in the courtroom where human Jen prepares to deliver a “lawyer show” to us with another fourth wall break. Then suddenly someone attacks -- we later find out it’s Titania, played by Jameela Jamil without a British accent for some reason (I can’t imagine why, but maybe it’ll be explained later). After a quick, awkwardly filmed fight scene, we close to credits and get that “amusing if not funny” end tag.

It’s all a very setup heavy sort of episode, and it’s fun if not particularly great. I was able to see the first four episodes in advance, so I do have some thoughts about the upcoming ones that I can’t speak on yet, but I can say I found them mixed too. But comedy is pretty subjective and Tatiana Maslany is a winning personality, so I wouldn’t be surprised if other people liked this episode more than I did. Not like I hated it, just a little underwhelmed.

HOTCHKA Daily News: Comic-Con Edition - July 23, 2022

COMIC-CON NEWS

★Zack Snyder will guest star on the 365th episode of Cartoon Network's animated Teen Titans Go! series. In the episode titled '365!', the Titans want their 365th episode to be extra special, so they head to the Warner Bros. Studio lot to find a director. Enter Snyder. The episode will premiere this fall on Cartoon Network. It was also announced that hip-hop group De La Soul will return for another guest performance.

★While The Orville's third  -- and final? -- season is currently streaming on Hulu, Seth MacFarlane announced that all three seasons will be available to stream on Disney+ beginning August 10.

★The Simpsons producers announced that for the first time in the show's 34 season, there will be two 'Treehouse of Horror' episodes this year. The first will be the traditional three-segment episode, while the second will be a single episode parody of It with Krusty the Clown in the Pennywise role.

★Marvel Studios has announced the return of Charlie Cox as Daredevil in the new Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again. An 18-episode season has been ordered for Spring 2024. Cox will also voice the character in the animated Spider-Man: Freshman Year also coming in 2024.

★Marvel's Phase 4 will end with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which will be released on November 11.

• Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantummania kicks off Phase 5 in Feb. 17, 2023.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is May 5.
• The Marvels is July 28.
• Secret Invasion is coming in the Spring 2023.
• Hawkeye spin-off Echo and Loki are looking at Summer 2023.
• The Blade reboot will hit theaters November 3, 2023.
• Captain America and the New World Order will hit May 3, 2024.
• Ironheart is looking at a Fall 2023 release.
• WandaVision spin-off Agatha will hit Disney+ in the Winter of 2023-2024.
  

★Marvel has also announced that Phase 5 will end with a Thunderbolts movie which is currently set to release on July 26, 2024. But that's not the end as Kevin Feige revealed the Fantastic Four will finally get their own MCU film as part of Phase 6 which is set to be released on November 8, 2024. Also part of Phase 6 are Multiverse Saga-ending movies Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, which will end Phase 6, to be released in 2025.

★Paramount+ revealed there will be a Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks crossover episode during the second season of SNW, which will include both live action and animation. The episode will find Ensign Beckett Mariner, voiced by Tawny Newsome, and Ensign Brad Boimler, voiced by Jack Quaid, from Lower Decks, joining the U.S.S. Enterprise. It will be directed by Jonathan Frakes.

TRAILERS

SDCC Trailer: Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire | New Series October 2

 

Sneak Peek At Season 21 | FAMILY GUY

 

The Sandman | Official Trailer | Netflix

 

Tyrannis Hosts A City Meeting About Dealing With Medusa | KRAPOPOLIS

 

The End is Nye | Official Trailer | Peacock Original

 

Mythic Quest – Season 3 Official Teaser | Apple TV+

 

Star Trek: Picard S3 | Teaser | Paramount+

 

Official Trailer | She-Hulk: Attorney at Law | Disney+

 

Meet The Batwheels | Cartoonito | @DC Kids

 

SEE — Season 3 Official Trailer | Apple TV+

 

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever | Official Teaser

Agents of SHIELD S07E12: The End is at Hand / S07E13: What We’re Fighting For

© ABC

There's a whole lot to process in these final moments...
by Brandon Coulson

Now that the giant two part finale to Agents of SHIELD has come and gone, did it live up to expectations? Did our heroes get the send off they deserved?

Eh, kinda?

Now first off, these episodes did remember to give us multiple instances of that humor and snark we love from the series. Even in the opening moments as the gang waited for a torrent of warriors to storm the ship, and waited, and waited some more, eventually wondering if the Chronicoms are just doing the same outside. That kind of poking the fourth wall and playing with expectations is what we love.

There was a lot to get done though so very quickly we see Gemma injected with something to dissolve her implant and supposedly return her memories of Fitz’s location. Sibyl is back in person though she nor Malick ever really made themselves worthy villains by the end the largest glaring error of this season. Following last week's destruction, we find that the Lighthouse is the only SHIELD base left standing though not for long as Garrett is sent in to line the place with explosives.

Kora is back with Malick and quickly confronts him about her mother though he is able to at least temporarily calm her with the most basic of lies and misdirection that even a child should see through. Again Kora was introduced too late and given far too little for me to really care about her at all so literally making her the linchpin of the plan, as we find out later, just makes the whole climax just a bit underwhelming.

The other running thread that felt too late in its introduction to have weight is Gemma’s memory loss. As Daisy is left to her own devices because Sibyl thinks the odds of her triggering the memories return was a big cheat to not have to fight their way into the ship, and then we spend the better part of the two hours with Deke and Daisy trying to jog her memory. There was a great running joke attached to this though as Daisy is so dismissive of getting Deke back along with Gemma. Between this and his eventual line about her being a better fit with Sousa, it seems the writers are aware that Deke has become a bit of a leftover on the team.

Lots of fakeouts and set-ups for misdirection through the episode. Mack about to unleash hell in a blaze of glory only to have his missiles fizzle against the ships defenses was an hysterical moment which even paid off bigger and better later when they jury-rigged Chronicom bodies with duct tape to become a homemade bomb. They really had Sousa setting us up to think he would be the big sacrificial lamb after finally putting the moves on Daisy and ready to offer himself up multiple times through the episode. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Sousa and I’m glad it was a fakeout but it did leave me wondering if having at least one death wouldn’t have made things seem a bit weightier.

There was some significant drama anyways as once Garret lined the Lighthouse with bombs and then was subsequently trapped by Coulson and Yoyo in a trap both ingenious and somehow also worthy of Looney Tunes, giant red X and all. Here again an obvious set-up for sacrifice as after Garrett is left to die by Malick, Yoyo runs the bombs off to one section saving their lives while still destroying the base, It seemed certain Yoyo wouldn’t survive but nope she's fine ...  actually only poor Garrett died after finally turning good and helping the team back to our favorite bar for a SHIELD meetup as he was quickly shot in the head. Sorry li'l buddy, maybe there’s an acting classes in Heaven.

© ABC

At the bar it’s revealed that Enoch kept busy during his years on Earth and seeded the parts for the machine that, with Gemma’s help, would be assembled to transport Fitz and answer the biggest question of this whole season: how the heck are they going to fix things?

The answer is, as expected, a huge cheat. After dropping a little Quantum Realm reference on us and tying into the MCU film side of things, we found out that this is, like Endgame, an alternate timeline and the original still very much exists and they need to just hop back to it. Not only was this cheap but now we know that the team has ruined an entire other universe and left them to pick up the pieces is kind of messed up, like really messed up!

It did however provide Deke with his moment to shine, staying behind to operate the machine. Deke is set up pretty sweet though, already a rock star and seemingly the new head of that world's SHIELD along with a young, not dead, Victoria Hand (Season 1 callback y’all!). He’s gonna be A-Okay.

Once everyone got back to the original timeline that's when things got weird and a little bit genius. Arriving just before the end of last season, we see this time that the whole team was actually there as their future selves at the temple setting up the pieces that would make their trip possible. Even the blast that they barely dodged last season that took out the temple was actually fired by the Chronicoms chasing the future versions of them … yes, it was a bit confusing. But together with the flashes from Gemma’s memories showing the years, yes years, that she and Fitz worked things out it all did make sense. Bringing Flint and the Monolith in the plan were nice callbacks and the back half of this finale was certainly loaded with information to absorb.

The Chronicoms provided a few more opportunities for some amazing action, however brief, as Yoyo and Coulson went on a vicious assault of their ship leading to the badass moment of the night as May got to drop in to be the Cavalry one last time. While still not up to the standards of the best fights on the series (May vs May still holds that title), it was still great to see some great stunt choreography and Coulson and May working together one last time. Less impressive was Daisy and Malick’s final fight which after a lot of build up was just okay.

The biggest shock of course coming when Daisy decided to sacrifice herself?! Yeah we saw Daisy floating dead in space, thanks for that! Oh, but Kora has magical healing powers … did we know this?! I swear nothing about this was ever established or maybe I’m crazy, but sure, yeah, Kora has all the powers now I guess. She even boosts the signal using May’s empathy to give said empathy to the Chronicom race, in effect making thousands of Enochs.

This felt also very out of left field and I think somehow uploading Enoch or something like that would have felt a bit more earned. But this late in the game, fine, whatever, bad guys are good now and peace in the world, yay.

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The last “surprise”, though not really since I literally called it last week, yes Fitz and Simmons have a little girl and a happy ending finally!

Yes, in fact after jumping to one year later we see everyone gets their happily ever after. Obviously from the start that they are holograms and not really together, we get one last glimpse into all their lives after the team has split up. Mack and Yoyo are still agents, Mack apparently upgraded to a helicarrier! They realize every one of them has died or been a zombie at least once. May is a teacher at a SHIELD academy named for Coulson, Daisy and Sousa (reading Cosmos I believe) are off in space with her sister, while Fitz and Simmons live a suburban life. But the last moments of the series are fittingly saved for Coulson and his gift from Mack. Both his control unit and the keys to his baby Lola are presented to him as he goes off to travel the world and decide the next step. Coulson gets to literally fly off into the great beyond.

While not the greatest finale, and certainly with its ups and downs I have to say overall they did a pretty decent job wrapping up seven years of the series. A little more gravitas could have made it truly epic but let's face it, the show had its highs and lows over the years and this was a pretty perfect encapsulation of that. If only we had gotten that cherry on top, an Avengers cameo or even Bobbi and Hunter on the Helicarrier. Just something to make you go wow. But ultimately this was a satisfying albeit rushed ending that gave every character a moment to shine and have a happy ending.

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Agents of SHIELD S07E11: Brand New Day

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The pieces are in place...

by Brandon Coulson

It’s been a long journey with lots of ups and downs but here we are, seven years in and the Agents of SHIELD are almost ready for their swan song. In this week’s penultimate episode “Brand New Day” we got confirmation of one big fact that many had guessed already -- this is a new timeline!

Yes, as was made fairly certain between Mack losing his parents and then Daisy’s mother dying before she could be born it has been confirmed we are in an alternate timeline. What this means for the show moving into its final episode and whether there is a fix is completely unclear.

There was a lot to unpack in this hour though and Daisy wasted no time confronting Kora in a pretty badass Quake and choke move. Kora came a bit further along in my eyes this week though her character still feels thinly drawn and predictable. She posits a way to fix the world by eliminating threats before they happen. Now obviously everyone, except Yoyo, will be against this plan. Here is where Kora suggests killing Ward, and while you can't blame any of the team for hesitating I don’t think anyone ever thought they would take her up on the offer. She does later say that Sybil says there is no future where Daisy lets her fight alone but this stinks of vague speech into a misdirect.

Deke is relegated to basically being a damsel in distress the entire episode, mostly used to motivate Gemma through torture, which fails miserably by the way. His one shining moment however is when he got to make a fantastic Die Hard reference …  just before being completely caught by Garrett. Sad, as I was looking forward to him going full McClane. Malick, still intent on finding Fitz, decides to dive into Gemma’s mind and we get a nice series of flashbacks, some of scenes we know and, later, new glimpses of their time building the time drive. Considering the build up to finally seeing Fitz, these were all too brief and still told us nothing directly.

There is talk of bloodwork results and being worried which makes most brains jump to Fitz being terminal and likely already dead as I have predicted before. But again there's just enough ambivalence here to give me pause that we’re being set up for a switch. So my theory is that the bloodwork is actually Simmons' and it’s a pregnancy confirmation. The tears she shed  during the time loop were not for a dead husband but knowing she had to leave a husband and child to keep them safe. I think this is more likely now for no other reason than to have your big "will they, won’t they" be dead or separated in a finale would be just a big flip off to the fans whereas a reunion and a child feels like perfect finale fodder.

The giant bombshell that does result from Malick’s intrusion is that as Simmons said the implant would cause Fitz to retreat in her mind. What we find has actually happened is Fitz has been purged completely from her memory. Seeing as a one night, two-parter is all that's left this obviously won’t have long lasting consequences, so again I’m declaring it a misdirect. The other option is our SHIELD finale will be the single most depressing night of television ever. We know to expect more than that.

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Daisy gets the bright idea that to out-think a computer's predictions being unpredictably reckless is the key, and somehow convincing Mack and Sousa to come along for the ride, into space no less! All of the stuff with those three was adorable. Daisy confirms her crush to an eye rolling Mack, Mack then playing big brother and interrogating Sousa, and especially Sousa making fun of Quake as a code name. Sousa and Daisy are just adorable together and if anything bad happens next week we’re gonna riot!

Getting back to Kora and the rest of the team it turns out (surprise!) she wasn't on their side after all and knocked out the power to allow Sybil to infiltrate their computers. This leads to Coulson learning he can read and hack code, convenient, and while this part wasn't the most thrilling it did give us a brief fight with May that was impressive as always, as well as giving Coulson a great line calling out how characters always read text aloud on television. The boring knife guy and his crony get out of their cells and after Kora blows a hole in one of their chests, May takes her to see her mother's body. This scene of Kora breaking down is actually quite touching and by far the most I’ve felt for the character. Credit where it's due, she nailed that scene.

All of this leads to the epic reveal that the Chronicoms have called in reinforcements and proceed to level, just completely annihilate, every SHIELD base and agent including the Triskelion. Yes, the timeline is utterly broken and to add insult to injury we are forced to see the grossest onscreen kiss between Malick and Kora. Will Kora have a sudden about face after learning Malick killed her mother? Well yeah, duh, probably. Will SHIELD fix the timeline and restore things to their proper place? That one I really don’t know, but the pieces are in place as we race to what promises to be, if nothing else, a surprising and entertaining conclusion to seven years of storytelling.

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Agents of SHIELD S07E10: Stolen

© ABC

A very uneven outing.

by Brandon Coulson

Back to the '80s this week as the team came back from their time vortex trip and returned to help Jiaying and company. The big surprise came fairly early on as we saw Malick recruit another blast from the past in a young John Garret. Originally played by Bill Paxton, Garrett was one of the best villains the series has seen, played here by Paxton’s son James. His young counterpart unfortunately did not live up to Bill’s performance.

In fact while I appreciate how they tried to pay tribute here, boy did the young Paxton not impress in the acting department. Eyes bugging out and mugging for the camera, he was laughably bad. Adding him to the already unimpressive Nathaniel and mediocre Kora, our big bad team up for the final season is looking oh so sad at the moment.

But onward we go and it was back to the lighthouse, which even May and Daisy seemed exhausted by at this point. They mention the Triskelion SHIELD headquarters is already in use way ahead of the original timeline, in fact they make mention the timeline is coming apart. Daisy tells Gemma about her freak out last week leading Gemma to believe a terrible fate has befallen Fitz, and on top of all that Jiaying shows up to the base as she is being hunted.

Sibyl is still influencing events as Malick is using her knowledge of the time stream to recruit the many people SHIELD will make enemies of in the coming years. Though the fact that everyone they approach is so quick to believe in time travel and fates shown to them in a computer simulation is a bit far-fetched, the idea itself is a clever one and nice use of future knowledge.

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Malick has streamlined the power stealing process and is building his army of powered people, not for Hydra, but instead for chaos. Like most college anarchists, Malick too seems to have little idea of what he’s really trying to achieve. He hasn't gotten far yet as only a foot soldier with knife guy's powers and Garrett taking the teleporter, Gordon’s powers, and then subsequently dying from the transfer.

The meat to this episode was Daisy and Jiaying. Daisy finds out about her sister and realizes a few key things. One is that her sister must have killed herself originally, and second is that event is what drove Jiaying to leave Afterlife and eventually meet Daisy’s dad, so the question of how she will ever be born was already in play. Sousa always has great advice telling Daisy to talk to her mom, as he brings up that the idea of honoring the timeline is gone. The timeline is utterly screwed.

We see Daisy and her mother bond, sharing their pain, Jiaying the pain of not being able to help a daughter in need and Daisy the absence of a mother and the being hurt by that same mother. So when Malick shows up and reveals to Jiaying that she is the absentee mom Daisy was talking about, the exchange of looks between the two actresses spoke volumes.

It looked like we were going to get a Quake-off for a moment before Malick unceremoniously snapped Jiaying's neck, driving Daisy into a rage. But Garrett shows up in time to rescue Malick, leaving the team behind to clean up the mess. From here Garrett and  Malick kidnap Gemma to force her into finding Fitz and take off in the Zephyr.

The team does manage to capture their men and free the Inhumans, capturing Kora in the process, but Kora seems to want to be caught so obviously there’s a much bigger plan going on than we are aware of. I’m really mixed this week as there were some great ups but a lot of downs with the younger cast really pulling things down. I have no clue where the series is heading for it’s finale. I'm still very interested but the villain deficit is really starting to show.

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Agents of SHIELD S07E08: After, Before

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A serviceable bridge episode.
by Brandon Coulson

“After, Before”, this week’s SHIELD entry, felt like a blast from the past both in the guest star as well as the style.

We pick up where the team had left Mack and Deke originally, quickly catching up to last week’s conclusion and nicely filling the gaps and merging the two stories. We quickly got the big set up for this week’s trip down memory lane as May and Yoyo visit the Inhuman village Afterlife run by the still alive Jiaying.

Seeing the time drive on the Zephyr is going haywire, and in typical ticking clock fashion, the time between jumps and inevitable doom is growing shorter and shorter. To deactivate the drive they need Yoyo’s speed which of course has been on the fritz all season, so it makes sense to go to the guru of all things Inhuman to fix her.

Their journey is the main crux of this week as everyone else sits around and waits, including a rebooted and rebuilt Coulson, whose scene with Daisy this week wasn’t quite up to their normal quality but had its moments nonetheless. May’s power came into play big time in the episode especially now that she can feel people's emotions from a distance as she lets Yoyo know that her reunion with Mack was good for her too, oh my!

It was fun having Jiaying back on the show as well as bringing back Inhuman technology like the Diviner test they give Yoyo to prove she is one of them. Along with Daisy’s mom we also get Li, an Inhuman with the power to …  make a knife appear? Okay guys, we’re all out of powers, now we have Swiss army man, and no not the film!

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Li is set up as our red herring for the episode, throwing shade at May and Yoyo and threatening to never let them leave. But the big twist is the actual villains are Nathaniel, back again, and Kora, a  young girl first shown as a poor prisoner in the compound. We find out later she has great power and has been incredibly destructive, frightening the other Inhumans. She also happens to be Jiaying’s daughter, making her Daisy’s half-sister!

Leading up to all of that chaos however, we see Yoyo trying to unlock her ability again with zero luck even through a cute meditation and sparring sequence with May that reminded me what made Yoyo so fun to begin with instead of the sad, mopey, boring version we’ve seen so far. The big revelation is her problem is … all in her head! Yup, the most obvious answer that her PTSD and guilt were holding her back turn out to be the cause.

That was certainly anticlimactic as was the eventual last minute save as Yoyo somehow realizes that the main thing about her power that made her unique, that is how she always returned to her point of origin after using her speed, was also just in her head? I think we were supposed to see a flashback about her childhood as the origins of that, where she snatches a necklace to keep it from a thief who then in turn kills her dad. Now first off, this scene felt incredibly forced and poorly staged. It also came out of nowhere and if it is the supposed origin of her power’s limitation, well that’s just weird. Since she ran back into a closet she always automatically snapped back instinctually? And now she can just be a normal speedster? I mean, okay, since there's only a handful of episodes left I’ll just wave it off, but the whole affair seemed just thrown together and sloppy.

What was pretty awesome was May’s last minute ship flip move to dock was classic Cavalry badassness. With the setup of Nathaniel stealing and distributing more Inhuman powers alongside Kora, we could be shaping up for a gigantic final fight with lots of powered people, possibly why so many episodes have been so budget conscious.

Then after all that struggle to stop the time drive, the damn thing fired up even after being shut off and jumped our team to god knows where, and by the previews looks to be one of my favorite plot devices: a time loop! So this week was decent but probably one of the weaker entries of the year so far.

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Agents of SHIELD S07E07: The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D

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Radical to the Max!
by Brandon Coulson

Just hit after hit with SHIELD this year as this week’s episode once again just hit every mark in stride. Starting with Deke being debriefed by May post-adventure as a framing device, we knew right away that Deke at the very least would make it through okay. I briefly worried at the start that Mack would be lost or left behind but this episode was just all about the '80s fun.

1982. Synthesizers in full force, the genre mashups were fast and furious here as we got a whole lot of '80s in one package. Sibyl is shown to be still alive and hiding inside a clunky old computer, manipulating a nerdy repair tech into building her a new body that was appropriately terrible and clunky looking. As Mack says later, they go full Short Circuit on the design.

Mack and Deke on the other hand understandably freak out having been left behind in the past, and Mack especially takes things to heart still mourning his parents. Mack even runs off, leaving Deke on his own in a strange time. After checking in on his younger self Mack becomes a recluse just sitting drinking and building models of cars while Deke, upon tracking him down, starts leaving him food and trying to bring Mack out of his depression, unsuccessfully.

Finally weeks and months later, as shown by Mack’s epic beard, Deke finally lures him out to Swayze’s Bar, an obvious homage to Roadhouse, and it turns out Deke has been a bad boy. Yes, up to his old tricks Deke has created a band to “cover” classic '80s songs but prior to their actual creation. Stealing credit and cashing in tracks completely with what we’ve seen of Deke in the past. Actor Jeff Ward looks like he had a ball rocking out as Deke in this episode and when you meet his “Squad”? Just perfection!

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It turns out Deke has been forming the squad as a cover for the band as a black ops team, a terrible one but all the same. With a very A-Team meets every straight to VHS movie ever feel to it, you get the Chang gang, twin Asian men, along with Cricket the stoner dude and Roxy the together one, and Pachinko the badass Russian woman. Just broad silly characters that in any other setting would have been terrible but here were just great.

Of course for a base we go back to the Lighthouse, this time outfitted with lights and turned into a party pad. Boy that set has paid for itself hasn’t it? We find Coulson survived the explosion here and lives on in a UHF Max Headroom style TV on wheels (love it!) and Deke attempts to recruit Mack back to service by presenting him a brand new shiny Axe/Shotgun! Everything from here on should feel cliché and predictable but I still loved it, especially when we switched genres to horror.

Yes, when the hunter bots come a calling we got shades of Chopping Mall. Poor Cricket gets a hookup session interrupted by one of the Killbots in a bloody death. Actually several extremely gory deaths happen through this section with a surprising amount of blood for ABC. We get an old fashioned suit up montage and find that Sibyl is looking for a timestream device still at the base. After knocking the new team out or running them off one by one, eventually the team managed to take out the bots and save the day! Also unfortunately one small bot gets away with the device and gives it to Nathaniel Malick, so we know who the big bad is next.

This episode was a hilarious and bloody good time. Cheesy in all the right ways. When Mack finally calls Deke “D” and Deke calls him Mack Daddy? That “nope” from Mack had me rolling. This wasn’t the best episode by any stretch but damn if it wasn’t a ton of fun.

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Agents of SHIELD S07E06: Adapt or Die

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Surprising and heavy turns
by Brandon Coulson

Wow, just wow guys! Agents of SHIELD took that bar and just raised it again this week as “Adapt or Die” heard my complaint about surprises and just shocked me this time.

The gist of the plot was fairly simple: the Chronicoms awaken their Hunters who in turn are replacing SHIELD agents in the Lighthouse in an attempt to take things over. The whole episode took place in a few sets and with limited cast. Once again splitting the team up and giving everyone little tasks made things feel like they were moving much more than they actually were.

If nothing else is taken away from the last few seasons of SHIELD, and especially this final one, it’s the way you can take a “modest” budget and stretch it. That and the way they’ve been plotting things out keeps that breakneck pace going even if the actual plot is moving at a much slower speed. Just a big achievement for those behind the scenes that I can not credit enough.

Very quickly General Stoner realizes something is not right as, against his orders, the base is locked down and missiles are fired at the Zephyr. So with May and Coulson with him we have our first thread. Mack and Yoyo are on a rescue mission to liberate Mack’s parents,  Daisy and Sousa are still Nathaniel Malick’s prisoners, and Deke Enoch and Gemma have to repair the Zephyr after the missile strike.

There was a great sense of tension and the ticking clock scenarios really kept you on the edge of your seat. The smallest of the storylines had to be Daisy and Sousa but what was there was still strong. Daisy got drained of blood and spinal fluids in Nathaniel’s attempt to go full Whitehall and steal her powers. Sousa got a chance to be a total badass and take out a few minions before seeing Nathaniel actually get powers but then suffer from the same bone shattering side effects Daisy herself had. As they left his body under a collapsed ceiling I wonder is he truly dead and gone or will we see a shattered future version moving forward? Also with Daisy left incapacitated in a healing chamber will there be future ramifications to the transfer?

We got answers on Gemma’s mystery implant as Deke walks in on Enoch servicing it and decides to defibrillate the poor guy. Now while this does lead to an adorable apology scene with Deke, it more importantly gets us answers. The basics being the implant is used to suppress memories of Fitz’s location and is malfunctioning and blocking information Gemma needs. But my question is if it’s already malfunctioning and Enoch is helping in maintaining it, couldn’t any Chronicom upon capturing her merely deactivate or remove the obvious foreign body? Oh well, take out your big grain of salt for this one.

Coulson and May had some really nice moments together. Phil got to air out his feelings on being an LMD and her cold demeanor towards him, and May acted almost like a human being. In addition May has become their go to robot detector which helped them root out the replacements and save General Stoner in the nick of time. Having the Chronicoms stealing personalities to adapt, sort of mimicking the LMD model, was a nice touch.

Coulson even got to meet the Predictor though that part was sort of a mixed bag. Coulson had some great lines, “dying is kinda my superpower” being the best one. But the Predictor’s assertion the difference between them and humanity is time and how death means nothing to them sort of makes zero sense. The whole purpose of their plan is to save their people. If death means nothing then what’s the point? But Coulson, having found the ship of Hunters, sacrifices himself to blow the lot of them up, as May says “he’ll come back, he always does”. But still an unexpected move.

Mack and Yoyo’s storyline however, was the most unexpected and in the end the saddest. It started cute enough at first, Mack feeling nervous around his folks and eventually having a little fun suggesting they buy their kids an ATV. I should have seen a twist coming but still when Mack’s dad pats May on the shoulder and she feels nothing, my heart hit the floor. Then when we found in turn that his mom was also already changed into a Chronocom and in turn telling Mack both his parents have been murdered forever changing his childhood as he remembered it. Wow. Talk about a dark and unexpected turn. Not only that but that Mack has to then kill the duplicates of his own parents was a heavy moment for the series.

No surprise that Mack takes some air after their time jump with Deke close behind for moral support. I thought we’d get a nice little heart-to-heart but instead the Zephyr jumps away stranding the two men out of time with no way to know if or when they will ever see their friends again.

For a series that knew it was coming to an end they certainly took advantage in making big swings and lots of surprises. Just another fantastic episode.

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