"Agents of Shield" had a bumpy start last season. They lost a lot of viewers due to a slow start, valuing establishing their concept and characters instead of starting right off with a bang. I have to admit, I was disappointed as well, it just didn't live up to anything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) up to that point. Luckily that all changed when they got their tie-in with "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and discovered what their strength truly was. Serialised television.
The show did improve some from just after the winter break, to be fair, but how they dealt with the outcome seen in "The Winter Soldier" was what really proved this show could be great. Many, including me, were worried the show would struggle to bring that feeling over to a new season, one that wouldn't have the possibility for a tie-in until the very end of the season with the second Avengers film "Age of Ultron".
In this week's episode we get to see Coulson deal with being the new director of what the public view as a terrorist organization. We also get to go further in on the new additions to the roster, and some further exploration into the new state of affair for several characters. It's kind of amazing what the runners of the show dares to do. We're never formally introduced to the new character, not are we ever explicitly told what's happened since we last saw the rest of the characters. There are no exposition scenes, the information we get is for the most time given to us through natural conversation and our own conjecture. One of the new main characters is still very much a stranger, but it feels like he's been part of the team for as long as they say he has. Throw that on top of them mixing up the entire dynamic of what the show was in the first season, and you almost have a brand new series.
Unfortunately there are some VFX shots in this episode that are really poor, dragging down the overall impression of the new season. It's understandable that they can't have as well-crafted effects as the big-budget films set in the same universe, but they still stick out from an otherwise visually pleasing episode. They couldn't haveexcluded the shots as they were important to the general plot, but they should have done something different to make sure the shots didn't stand out in the way they did. There are however, some VFX shots that are very good. The most important shots that were both crucial to the plot and were relatively close to the camera were all very good, especially considering the format. They clearly had some prioritisation going on and knowledge of what they could and couldn't afford, which again excuses the poorer shots to a limited degree.
Overall I really enjoyed the episode. It was a continuation of the last episode, which hopefully shows that they're wanting to keep the heavily serialised tone of the post "The Winter Soldier" part of the first season. This type of show clearly benefits from a bigger overarching plot, it just gets too repetitive and almost boring under a monster-of-the-week format. When you base your show on the inner working on a multi-national spy organisation the viewer wants something more than what they could get from almost any police procedural show. I'm looking forward to see how this season plays out.
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