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beccaelizabethWell finally. I am so glad Phil finally caught on to what I've been telling the imaginary people for weeks. I just don't know what the writers were thinking. "He doesn't have powers, he has security clearance" is only a big reveal if they're, well, stupid. You eliminate the security clearance possibility before you even bother thinking of powers. You consider that your boss might be restricting stuff because of said clearance. Like, that's Spy 101. Or possibly Remedial Spy. What training do these people have?
... I have been very, very frustrated on this point.
As for the whole thing with the dude in the wheelchair... I'm just going to point out where all the disability is in this show so far. Aside from Fury's eye. And now they're wheeling them on as disposable. So tired of that. The MCU needs the equivalent of Oracle. Actually so does the DCU nowadays. *sigh*
Okay, so, I have been spoilered for some things next episode (thanks so much tumblr), so you might want to skip reading this because I'm bound to be influenced by that, but I'm going to try and proceed as if I had no knowings, and build on previous analyses:
By the data the Clairvoyant had access to, from what we'd been shown, their pipeline to the bus was likely Ward or May. Coulson told Ward about the Cellist, so he's the most obvious. And now Ward pulled the trigger on the 'Clairvoyant' in a wheelchair (and I kind of despise him now). Blaming it on having big feelings for Skye and the Clairvoyant pushing his buttons would just mean he's bad at his job as well, which, after the berserker stick, would be plausible. But I'm with Phil, or rather I'm glad Phil caught up with what I was thinking as the bang faded: the only question is where the orders came from. Also why Ward would want to follow them. There's all kinds of leverage in his background and possibilities for interesting motivation.
I rewatched two episodes before this one as well, and last week Ward pulled the trigger on May after we'd seen Lorelai silenced, and with a very smooth transition from possessed to not. Editing messing with time could make that meaningless, but, iiiiiinteresting. Also if (big if) as Lorelai said he doesn't actually have a thing for May, why would they be having sex? To manipulate her? Because she's his secret boss and orders it? (That would be super creepy). But it seems more likely they're on different sides than not.
(Also, I like May. So I want to keep her. I had no particularly positive feelings for Ward. My analysis is biased.)
May has a line out of the plane, but we saw her log 93, and 'he knows' doesn't seem like the report the Clairvoyant would be looking for. Like, the Clairvoyant wants to know what he knows, not just that he knows it. Soooooo, I think from what we've seen, Ward is a stinky bad man, and May is reporting to Fury. Probably looking for side effects from blue guy juice. Since she was poking FitzSimmons to tell her about any that might come up.
But the problem with not trusting each other is that, right at the end pointing guns at each other, they all of them have really good reasons to not trust each other, because they all of them are in fact keeping secrets. Even if some of them are terrible at it. I mean, at this point I don't believe Fitz has any secret or nasty motivation, because if he did he would have blurted it months ago. He's kind of hilarious like that.
If May's gun is an ICER (I liked Night Night guns better, this is a stupid name that thinks its cool instead), then even ICERs can star the glass, meaning they would do significant damage to squishy humans. Worrying.
Secrets and lies:
FitzSimmons have secure comms SHIELD is shut out of, unauthorised archive access via friends, and are ignoring Coulson's orders even though his orders pertain to Level 10 classified information, which, you know, being Fury's eye only, they should take very seriously. They're kind of being a problem. But, for science! So, hey, characterisation, I can buy it. But they should be very fired and nobody ever trust them again.
May has her secret phone line to who knows who, and can't take Coulson's orders to drop the gun. Nobody can trust May. I wonder why she can trust nobody?
Ward is a stinky man now.
Coulson and Skye have the whole blue man thing between them. Which they are keeping secret from the rest of the team. And the world.
And they're family!
:eyeroll:
Well done secret spies, now they can't even trust themselves.
That part is fun.
I don't know why Fury let it get like that though.
So, Coulson's plan started with inviting Garrett, Blake, Sitwell and Hand to come play. That's apparently some very high level agents there.
Blake, being in critical condition, is probably not on the same side as Deathlok, except the Clairvoyant does not like its toys. Which of Blake or May was it who knew the location vs knew the name? The name can be figured out from the location though, that was pretty stupid as trying to keep a secret goes. And Blake tagging Deathlok was what lead SHIELD to the next trap. Soooo... Blake not being dead? Yeah, no, I don't know, that could be sketch.
But then May not being dead would seem sketch and I want to keep her.
All three teams hit suspicious activity though. Were there three traps, and three ways to lead them to the red herring, but only one got tripped?
Hand removed herself from the situation, went to somewhere with big picture access, and does the big villain turn at the very end. So hey, probably a bad guy! You know, assuming she doesn't think everyone else is a bad guy. Which is an option the people on the bus have left very much open. Like, if nobody knows what happened to Coulson, but he's now spreading it around that he was dead for aaaaaaages, even though that's Level 10 information, there's pretty good reason to not trust Coulson. Because he's not acting like a professional secret keeper. He's acting like he's having a big sulking. Also he's calling in all his favours. Activity level: worrying.
Coulson called Sitwell, and Sitwell said Fury was not talking to anyone. And then in this one Sitwell got sent off to be in Cap 2 (by the name of the boat). Sooooo... spoiler, spoiler, also spoiler, and if you haven't watched Cap 2 you really want to.
If Hand, Sitwell, Garrett and Blake are who Coulson calls when he has something super secret to trust to someone, what kind of pattern does that look like from the outside? Like, are they all the agents of that level in the area, or are they his buddies?
Speaking of connections, SO to SO, Garrett to Ward to Skye, emphasised again this ep. And when he first joined the plane he's all, "you wouldn't believe what I could get this guy to do", or something like that, about Ward. So right now I'm thinking Ward did have orders, and they came from someone Coulson invited in and told secrets to. Well done Phil.
If Cap 2 is just starting in the back of this episode, I still don't see why Fury didn't talk to Coulson weeks ago and clear this up. I mean, that's the thing about plots that could be sorted out with a single conversation, as seems likely if Coulson is loyal to Fury. All Coulson's poking about could be ended by Fury going 'hey, Phil, quit poking, we has a reasons'. It's unsatisfying when that doesn't happen and we don't know why.
I mean, from here on out we know why, but that's still 16 episodes of not having a reason. Or 5 since magical place or 2 since TAHITI. Phil is acting reasonably given his limited data, trying to contact the only person who both has the data and knows why it is limited, but we the viewers don't know why his reasonable efforts are not working, when these things called phones exist.
It does make sense if Fury thinks Coulson isn't loyal. If he's giving him the run around to test the data flows, then there's going to look like a problem, because data is indeed flowing out of Coulson's team. We are pretty sure Phil is a good guy. Are we sure his head isn't bugged? Because I no longer trust the team to be competent enough to think of checking. And we're not sure he wasn't reprogrammed, or rather, we know he was reprogrammed and don't know the extent of it. If Fury doesn't know the extent of it, then, tada, not trusting Coulson. And since TAHITI isn't a SHIELD gig then Coulson's brain got worked on by outsiders and I would indeed be worried.
... isn't it fun watching a show where brain hacking is a real possibility you have to actually worry about.
... so, okay, I can see how people could start thinking primarily in terms of powers, rather than, you know, logic and the kind of abilities open to most people, it's just, I keep thinking of that bit in Torchwood's Countrycide where the humans all start laughing because Torchwood didn't think of it being humans. If your enemy will laugh at you, it's frustrating when you fall for their prank of naming themselves.
So, anyways, things are nicely tangled, nobody can trust anybody, and next week everything is going to boom. I say that entirely spoiler free, there's big boom inherent in that ending.
But you might sort of really very want to watch Cap 2 at this point.
Really.
I look forward to next week and finding out what this show thinks it has been building up to.
... I have been very, very frustrated on this point.
As for the whole thing with the dude in the wheelchair... I'm just going to point out where all the disability is in this show so far. Aside from Fury's eye. And now they're wheeling them on as disposable. So tired of that. The MCU needs the equivalent of Oracle. Actually so does the DCU nowadays. *sigh*
Okay, so, I have been spoilered for some things next episode (thanks so much tumblr), so you might want to skip reading this because I'm bound to be influenced by that, but I'm going to try and proceed as if I had no knowings, and build on previous analyses:
By the data the Clairvoyant had access to, from what we'd been shown, their pipeline to the bus was likely Ward or May. Coulson told Ward about the Cellist, so he's the most obvious. And now Ward pulled the trigger on the 'Clairvoyant' in a wheelchair (and I kind of despise him now). Blaming it on having big feelings for Skye and the Clairvoyant pushing his buttons would just mean he's bad at his job as well, which, after the berserker stick, would be plausible. But I'm with Phil, or rather I'm glad Phil caught up with what I was thinking as the bang faded: the only question is where the orders came from. Also why Ward would want to follow them. There's all kinds of leverage in his background and possibilities for interesting motivation.
I rewatched two episodes before this one as well, and last week Ward pulled the trigger on May after we'd seen Lorelai silenced, and with a very smooth transition from possessed to not. Editing messing with time could make that meaningless, but, iiiiiinteresting. Also if (big if) as Lorelai said he doesn't actually have a thing for May, why would they be having sex? To manipulate her? Because she's his secret boss and orders it? (That would be super creepy). But it seems more likely they're on different sides than not.
(Also, I like May. So I want to keep her. I had no particularly positive feelings for Ward. My analysis is biased.)
May has a line out of the plane, but we saw her log 93, and 'he knows' doesn't seem like the report the Clairvoyant would be looking for. Like, the Clairvoyant wants to know what he knows, not just that he knows it. Soooooo, I think from what we've seen, Ward is a stinky bad man, and May is reporting to Fury. Probably looking for side effects from blue guy juice. Since she was poking FitzSimmons to tell her about any that might come up.
But the problem with not trusting each other is that, right at the end pointing guns at each other, they all of them have really good reasons to not trust each other, because they all of them are in fact keeping secrets. Even if some of them are terrible at it. I mean, at this point I don't believe Fitz has any secret or nasty motivation, because if he did he would have blurted it months ago. He's kind of hilarious like that.
If May's gun is an ICER (I liked Night Night guns better, this is a stupid name that thinks its cool instead), then even ICERs can star the glass, meaning they would do significant damage to squishy humans. Worrying.
Secrets and lies:
FitzSimmons have secure comms SHIELD is shut out of, unauthorised archive access via friends, and are ignoring Coulson's orders even though his orders pertain to Level 10 classified information, which, you know, being Fury's eye only, they should take very seriously. They're kind of being a problem. But, for science! So, hey, characterisation, I can buy it. But they should be very fired and nobody ever trust them again.
May has her secret phone line to who knows who, and can't take Coulson's orders to drop the gun. Nobody can trust May. I wonder why she can trust nobody?
Ward is a stinky man now.
Coulson and Skye have the whole blue man thing between them. Which they are keeping secret from the rest of the team. And the world.
And they're family!
:eyeroll:
Well done secret spies, now they can't even trust themselves.
That part is fun.
I don't know why Fury let it get like that though.
So, Coulson's plan started with inviting Garrett, Blake, Sitwell and Hand to come play. That's apparently some very high level agents there.
Blake, being in critical condition, is probably not on the same side as Deathlok, except the Clairvoyant does not like its toys. Which of Blake or May was it who knew the location vs knew the name? The name can be figured out from the location though, that was pretty stupid as trying to keep a secret goes. And Blake tagging Deathlok was what lead SHIELD to the next trap. Soooo... Blake not being dead? Yeah, no, I don't know, that could be sketch.
But then May not being dead would seem sketch and I want to keep her.
All three teams hit suspicious activity though. Were there three traps, and three ways to lead them to the red herring, but only one got tripped?
Hand removed herself from the situation, went to somewhere with big picture access, and does the big villain turn at the very end. So hey, probably a bad guy! You know, assuming she doesn't think everyone else is a bad guy. Which is an option the people on the bus have left very much open. Like, if nobody knows what happened to Coulson, but he's now spreading it around that he was dead for aaaaaaages, even though that's Level 10 information, there's pretty good reason to not trust Coulson. Because he's not acting like a professional secret keeper. He's acting like he's having a big sulking. Also he's calling in all his favours. Activity level: worrying.
Coulson called Sitwell, and Sitwell said Fury was not talking to anyone. And then in this one Sitwell got sent off to be in Cap 2 (by the name of the boat). Sooooo... spoiler, spoiler, also spoiler, and if you haven't watched Cap 2 you really want to.
If Hand, Sitwell, Garrett and Blake are who Coulson calls when he has something super secret to trust to someone, what kind of pattern does that look like from the outside? Like, are they all the agents of that level in the area, or are they his buddies?
Speaking of connections, SO to SO, Garrett to Ward to Skye, emphasised again this ep. And when he first joined the plane he's all, "you wouldn't believe what I could get this guy to do", or something like that, about Ward. So right now I'm thinking Ward did have orders, and they came from someone Coulson invited in and told secrets to. Well done Phil.
If Cap 2 is just starting in the back of this episode, I still don't see why Fury didn't talk to Coulson weeks ago and clear this up. I mean, that's the thing about plots that could be sorted out with a single conversation, as seems likely if Coulson is loyal to Fury. All Coulson's poking about could be ended by Fury going 'hey, Phil, quit poking, we has a reasons'. It's unsatisfying when that doesn't happen and we don't know why.
I mean, from here on out we know why, but that's still 16 episodes of not having a reason. Or 5 since magical place or 2 since TAHITI. Phil is acting reasonably given his limited data, trying to contact the only person who both has the data and knows why it is limited, but we the viewers don't know why his reasonable efforts are not working, when these things called phones exist.
It does make sense if Fury thinks Coulson isn't loyal. If he's giving him the run around to test the data flows, then there's going to look like a problem, because data is indeed flowing out of Coulson's team. We are pretty sure Phil is a good guy. Are we sure his head isn't bugged? Because I no longer trust the team to be competent enough to think of checking. And we're not sure he wasn't reprogrammed, or rather, we know he was reprogrammed and don't know the extent of it. If Fury doesn't know the extent of it, then, tada, not trusting Coulson. And since TAHITI isn't a SHIELD gig then Coulson's brain got worked on by outsiders and I would indeed be worried.
... isn't it fun watching a show where brain hacking is a real possibility you have to actually worry about.
... so, okay, I can see how people could start thinking primarily in terms of powers, rather than, you know, logic and the kind of abilities open to most people, it's just, I keep thinking of that bit in Torchwood's Countrycide where the humans all start laughing because Torchwood didn't think of it being humans. If your enemy will laugh at you, it's frustrating when you fall for their prank of naming themselves.
So, anyways, things are nicely tangled, nobody can trust anybody, and next week everything is going to boom. I say that entirely spoiler free, there's big boom inherent in that ending.
But you might sort of really very want to watch Cap 2 at this point.
Really.
I look forward to next week and finding out what this show thinks it has been building up to.
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Date: 2014-04-19 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-19 03:25 pm (UTC)~
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Date: 2014-04-21 11:42 pm (UTC)I missed a few episodes, watched the last three or so, and now--I'm not real happy with the show.