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

[Crothian]

I just use the guide option on my cable and it tells me a description of the episode and when it first aired. It shows information up to two weeks out so it is fairly easy and convenient to know if it is a rerun or not. This week it is not on and next week is new. The last few weeks were reruns because of the Olympics. I would say that going up against the number one show in TV (NCIS) is a bigger reason for ratings then these reruns.

 

[Bullgrit]

T.A.H.I.T.I.

What the hell?! They want to get one of their team into a SHIELD medical facility, but the facility is classified and locked. So they kill two SHIELD (good guys!) guards to get in. THEY MURDER TWO MEN to save one of their team! Holy crap. The writer and director and whoever OKed this script/plot should be fired. Coulson's team is no longer good guys. What happened to the stun guns (night-night guns) they've used in previous episodes?

I watched this with my wife and 13 year old son, and we all were stunned by these murders. Not in a good way. We were all three saying, "This isn't like Coulson." This is supposed to be freakin' comic book-style stories, with good guys and bad guys and heroics. But this episode had the heroes straight up murdering other good guys who wouldn't let them into a secret good guy base without a password.

And this whole thing about Coulson wanting to die on the operating table, and being angry that he wasn't left dead, well, hell, he can kill himself right now. He seems angry that he's alive.

I'm not liking this show anymore.

Bullgrit

 

[Kramodlog]

Things aren't always black and white. They rarely are actually.

 

[Umbran]

And this whole thing about Coulson wanting to die on the operating table, and being angry that he wasn't left dead, well, hell, he can kill himself right now. He seems angry that he's alive.

I haven't been watching the show since episode 2 or 3.

But this sounds pretty realistic. Anger or guilt at surviving when one feels one should not have is a pretty well-known phenomenon, even if the situation at hand isn't exactly a real-world thing.

And, "he can kill himself right now" is a glib thing to say. Suicide is physiologically complicated. One can be angry at having survived, but still not willing to outright commit suicide.

 

[Bullgrit]

But this sounds pretty realistic. Anger or guilt at surviving when one feels one should not have is a pretty well-known phenomenon, even if the situation at hand isn't exactly a real-world thing.

And, "he can kill himself right now" is a glib thing to say. Suicide is physiologically complicated. One can be angry at having survived, but still not willing to outright commit suicide.

Yeah, I understand the phenomenon. But it doesn't seem to fit Coulson's situation. It's not like he survived a plane crash that everyone else didn't. He was injured, and doctors saved him, brought him back from [-]the brink of[/-] death. That's what they do. His issue now seems to be that at the time, he was asking to be allowed to die, but they didn't let him. He's angry that doctors didn't listen to his giving up while in great pain, and now he's alive and well. But you know what, doctors do that all the time.

My father had severe complications from surgery, and one day was in great pain. I was in the room while the doctors and nurses worked to save him, while he was saying, "Just let me go. This is too much. Just let me go." But they eased the pain and saved his life. Though he lived less than a year longer, he wasn't angry at the docs for disregarding his pain induced surrender.

I could understand Coulson being angry at the direct memory manipulation, but angry at them saving his life? And then he murders two people in order to use the exact same life saving medications to save the life of one of his team?

Again: His team murdered two people. Not bad guys, not in self defense, not by accident. Straight up murder of guards at a medical facility. Coulson didn't consider those two guards' lives of value compared to saving his team member. That makes Coulson not a good guy (in the comic book hero sense).

Bullgrit

 

[RangerWickett]

They weren't SHIELD agents, if I recall correctly, since it wasn't a SHIELD facility. And those guys were shooting at Coulson and crew, who warned them that they would defend themselves. It wasn't like they went in there planning to kill people.

That said, I think the nightnight gun probably should have been mentioned. If the gun didn't exist on the show (and I'm on the fence here whether it should), I'd have had no problem with them infiltrating this mysterious location and defending themselves with violent force. But since they wanted to go for a PG rating, yeah, you shoot badguys and knock them out, and if you fire a missile at a tank the driver jumps out just before it hits.

It could have been something as simple as Ward tries to shoot the nightnight gun, misses, and takes a bullet in his flak vest from return fire, so Bill Paxton says, "Screw this," and guns the defenders down.

 

[Bullgrit]

They weren't SHIELD agents, if I recall correctly, since it wasn't a SHIELD facility. And those guys were shooting at Coulson and crew, who warned them that they would defend themselves. It wasn't like they went in there planning to kill people.

It's the facility where SHIELD docs revived Coulson. The team learned of the place from SHIELD records -- remember, SHIELD calls it the "Guest House." I thought I saw SHIELD logos in the place. (At least SHIELD fonts on the various labels.)

Coulson and crew went in heavily armed, hacked their way in the front door and the foyer door, and the guards fired on them once they were completely inside as intruders. That's what guards are supposed to do. Also, Coulson even mentioned, when they were gearing up, "We need the doctors alive." I guess, screw the guards, they aren't of use to us.

Just overall, this thing feels *very* out of character for what Agents of SHIELD is supposed to be like. Coulson and crew have shown more concern for actual enemies/criminals. Remember the previous episode, where they invaded Quinn's house where he had shot Sky? Ward went in with the night-night gun blazing. This was just wrong. Incongruent.

Bullgrit

 

[Crothian]

They repeatedly said it was not Shield. They repeatedly said that the doctors in the shield records did not exist. They could not have made it clearer that it was not Shield. Coulson tried to do it the peaceful way but the guards followed their orders to kill anyone with out the pass phrase.

I hope it was Sword. That would be cool to have them in this.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I thought it was strange, particularly given that they were apparently debating the morals of executing a captured murderer in one scenario, but apparently gave no thought whatsoever to these people guarding the base. I would not call them good guys, but certainly they were not as bad as the prisoner they were agonizing over.

Then again, the whole setup was very odd. What kind of base has only two people guarding it, and has them both awake and in the same room and at the same time? That doesn't seem like it would work very well.

I'm also not clear on why it was so bad that the drugs were coming from some dismembered blue guy. People get transplants all the time. Obviously, keeping the creature captive, if it was even alive, was a problem, but the team was willing to murder people to get to him so it seems odd that Coulson was so sickened by this revelation.

And of course, there's always the perpetual question of why Fury is obstructing this, why he first feels the need to farm out his secret sketchy medical research but then even knowing what Coulson is doing does not call them up to either let them know to cooperate or to tell them to trash the place first. His behavior always seems to be to just create obstacles for everyone.

On the whole this scenario just felt like something that must have made sense to the writers based on some mythology but really seemed incoherent to me.

 

[Elf Witch]

I sill admit I was a little angry at the killing of the guards who were only doing their jobs especailly since they have technology like the night night gun that just stuns. Why were those men lives worth less than Skye's.

I do understand Coulson anger. I don't think he wants to be dead now. I think some of his anger is that they hid what he had been through from him for so long and that they basically experimented on him. Who knows what side effects this is going to cause down the line what price he may have and now Skye may have to pay.