The Hole Left by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

In Year Two we talk about Marvel instead of Star Wars

The core Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Over a year ago, Avengers: Endgame released in theatres, to smashing success (do you remember theatres?). Since then, with the exception of Far From Home a couple months later, things have been quiet from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for the first time in years. With the delay of Black Widow and every other movie, things will be quiet for a little longer, but I think it’s surprisingly telling that the absence of such a juggernaut franchise really hasn’t been felt. It’s been an ongoing conversation of mine; one gets the sense that without the momentum of releases keeping the franchise going, interest has almost died out entirely. Maybe we just all need a detox. Personally, I still maintain that none of the MCU films are bad movies (at worst, they’re formulaic, but still fun and competent). Since 2012 I had attended opening weekend showings of nearly every MCU release, rushing to get ahead of the discourse and the spoiler culture. Such a thought process is almost worth its own article.

But for me, personally, there was always one other motivator pushing me for early releases – that being Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Premiering in September 2013, S.H.I.E.L.D. promised to reveal the undercurrent of the MCU, to connect ties and fill the space between movies. After all, at this point there was no Daredevil, no Disney+ shows. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the first live-action television show produced by Marvel and associated with the MCU brand. Associating the show with S.H.I.E.L.D., the enigmatic but omnipresent spy organization in the franchise, promised plots with wide-reaching potential. At some point, the slogan “it’s all connected” became associated with the show, and people spoke in hushed tones about Jeremy Renner showing up as Hawkeye, or something of the like. Conversely, fans of the show hoped to be rewarded by the opposite, praying that some show-original character or plot would turn up in a movie down the road.

However, nothing really came of either idea.

Finding good stills for a show like this while also minimizing spoilers is a nigh-impossible task, but enjoy this cool hero shot.

Despite all of the hype, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. never really became the critical darling that everyone wanted it to be. While the first season featured cameos from Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, later seasons only had the most obscure of character crossovers. Nothing ever came back the other way. Despite its growing array of comic-based spies and superheroes, including Ghost Rider, and the insane acting talent behind its cast, the characters of S.H.I.E.L.D. were doomed to live out the entirety of their lives on prime-time television. Far from the connective tissue it was promoted as, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was pushed into the dark corners of the MCU, to be largely forgotten by Marvel Studios.

Arguably, this was the best thing to happen for the show. And a massive loss to the MCU that had left it behind.

See, despite claims to the contrary, the MCU’s greatest weakness has always been one of narrative. While a certain other major franchise recently displayed just how much a story can fall apart when it can’t improvise well, the MCU has always operated on a film-by-film basis. Sure, the first Avengers movie ended with a tease of Thanos, but neither Joss Whedon nor Keven Fiege really knew what that meant when the movie released. Even its initial movie, Iron Man, is now famous for essentially being written and put together while it was filmed. While this has largely worked out, glaring holes still exist in the narrative, especially surrounding its bigger ‘event’ pieces. Because of the tightrope that the franchise walks between relying on spectacular plots to draw in its comic book fans and needing to be inclusive enough to invite new audiences, movies like Captain America: Civil War end up having minimal ramifications on the world and characters of the MCU. While I will defend the movie itself for being a compelling exploration of its characters, it is almost forgotten entirely by the proceeding movies. There’s a joke here, and if you are lucky some character drama there. But we’ll never know what the world thought of the Sokovia Accords, or of the fight in Leipzig, and we’ll never know how Hawkeye or Scarlet Witch felt about the ramifications of what happened. In some franchises, an event like Civil War would shake the foundations of the narrative to its core. In the MCU, it’s simply another action loosely leading to its big finale.

It wasn’t always that way.

If nothing else, this show deserves credit within Marvel for having a more diverse range of female characters with genuine character depth.

Let’s go back. On September 24th, 2013, the pilot of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. aired. It starred Clark Greg as Agent Phil Coulson, a character fans were familiar with from the movies, and his new team of agents both fresh and experienced as they pursued a new superhero emerging, with powers drawn from the Extremis formula from the then-most recent movie, Iron Man 3. At it’s release, the pilot was received warmly, but there was a general agreement that the show felt safe and cliched. For the next few weeks, the show unfolded as a globetrotting monster-of-the-week adventure, bordering on a procedural. Many checked out because of the familiar plot, or the stereotyped characters, and still others felt the show was hampered by the mere presence of Coulson. In Avengers, the character had died as a galvanizing force of the plot, but now he had been revealed to be resuscitated, and returned to the field after some R&R in Tahiti. As a result, there were those that for whom the stakes felt low and the initial promise of the show seemed hopelessly wasted.

But something happened as Season One reached its halfway point. Suddenly, the insignificant one-off episodes were being tied together into an intricate web. The characters were facing some legitimate challenges, revealing themselves to be more than the cardboard cut-outs they were feared to be. What’s more, the convenient resurrection of Coulson turned out to not be a matter of convenience at all, but one of the driving mysteries behind the first season. The answers at the end would be dark and harrowing, casting deep shadows over the entire show. Then, when all of the peace and good-natured fun of the show reached its tipping point, on April 4th 2014, Captain America: The Winter Soldier hit theatres.

If I were to make one criticism of this show, its that that the Secret Warriors arc was tragically underused.

I’ll never the first time I watched that movie. I stepped out shaken, feeling as if it flipped the entire franchise on its head. The shocking twists and reveals in The Winter Solder changed everything, or so it would seem. Later that week, when the next episode of S.H.I.E.L.D. released, my suspicions were confirmed. The status quo of the show fundamentally shifted. The world of the show and its characters reacted dramatically to the greater world around it. It was electrifying. All of the build-up of the first season came together in some genuinely thrilling television. Upon rewatch, with all the benefit of hindsight, the first season of S.H.I.E.L.D. feels less like a stakes-free procedural affair, and more like an immaculately crafted slow-burn introduction to its characters before absolutely igniting in the second half. More than just being good television, it was exactly what the MCU needed. It needed something that could show the impact and effect of the changes in its universe. In the context of the movies, it would seem that the big reveals of The Winter Soldier simply exist to be undone by the time Avengers: Age of Ultron rolls around, to reset everything to a comfortable status quo. But S.H.I.E.L.D. revels in those game-changing shifts. It lives and breathes in them. The television format allowed S.H.I.E.L.D. the sort of elasticity that Marvel always wanted to flash in its movie but was never really able to contain.

However, it became clear that the rest of the MCU wasn’t going to pay the show any of the same respect. Naturally, not every ebb and flow of the show’s plot was going to cross over, but the fact that none of the characters appeared, even in minor roles, is kind of surprising. Even in Endgame’s giant “Portals” sequence, none of the S.H.I.E.L.D. cast were asked to appear (Again, Ghost Rider is in this show, and looks fantastic. Even people who aren’t fans of the show would have been on-board for that). The most distant the greater MCU became, it seems the less inclined the show felt to tie things together for the movies. Before long, S.H.I.E.L.D. was on its own path, exploring Inhumans and L.M.D.s and even time travel, eventually. All the while, its core cast dramatically evolved, both by gaining members and through the deep character growth of everyone involved. Going back to Season One after watching Season Five feels like looking through your high school yearbook. Increasingly unchained from the need to keep tabs on the greater MCU, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been able to grow into its own beautiful show. Even while I have lukewarm feelings on the future of the MCU movies and the next couple released, I’m still excited for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..

These two actors deserve long, successful careers for everything they've brought to the table.

Which brings us to today. On May 27th, 2020, the first episode of season seven, the final season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., airs. It’s a show that has gone dramatically underappreciated in the greater franchise, to the point where the MCU itself seems intent to forget about it. It has sat under the threat of cancellation for nearly its entire runtime, and has performed surprisingly well even under severe budget cuts. Its actors are insanely talented and deserve the world. Showrunner Jed Whedon has displayed the same skill of balancing humour, character, and drama as his brother, Joss Whedon, but without any of his brother’s more problematic tendencies. And despite distancing itself from the MCU, S.H.I.E.L.D. has never stopped changing its status quo. Every season – every half-season – feels like it could be expanded into an entirely different show. But it constantly grows and evolves, trading out cheap drama for genuine character conflict and growth. It has shockingly few misses and a surprising amount of continuity. The legendary Bear McCreary kills it every week with a score that elevates the material beyond its already-great status. Despite dodgy beginnings, S.H.I.E.L.D. has become something truly special, something I’m glad to have grown up with, and something I am sad to say goodbye to.

The MCU will surge on. At long last, we’ll have Disney+ shows expanding on characters like Bucky Barnes or Scarlet Witch, who always had potential but never any room to grow in the stuffed ensemble films. But for them, it feels a bit late. Despite being the center of conflict for several movies, we hardly know Bucky. Despite being one of the central female leads of the movies, we hardly know Scarlet Witch. Without the time or willingness to slow down and develop many of its characters or the world around them, the central Avengers films can feel shallow or lifeless. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re mostly fine, but this feels like a notable error. Despite their focus on characters, the movies move too briskly for some characters to grow. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if it had taken S.H.I.E.L.D. more seriously. Maybe characters associated with S.H.I.E.L.D. like Falcon or Hawkeye could have gotten the depth they needed. But then, I feel like we wouldn’t have as great a show as we have today. It would have always been stuck in the shadow of the Avengers movies, never able to grow into its own being. It’s a conundrum I think about a lot.

I did it, I managed to write about six seasons of television without spoiling anything except cameos.

In any case, watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., if only for Ian De Caestecker as Leopold Fitz, the best part of this show. Or to see more of Clark Greg’s irrefutable charm as Phil Coulson. Or to see Chloe Bennett absolutely transform as an actress. Or maybe you’ve been wanting to see Ming-na Wen still bring her all after all her years in the game. Maybe you’ve wanted to see Ghost Rider, or Deathlok, or Quake, or Mockingbird brought to screen. Maybe you just want more fun Marvel action. Honestly, maybe you’re just looking for a cool show to binge, and you don’t care about all this Marvel stuff at all. Whatever the itch, I genuinely urge you to give S.H.I.E.L.D. a chance. Time will tell if it ends as well as it started, but it hasn’t disappointed me yet.