Board Thread:Television/@comment-1713281-20131004113215/@comment-3317214-20140515155129

We haven't learned much at all. The reason we have more unanswered questions than before is because each "reveal" is incredibly vague and doesn't actually reveal anything.

Yes we have. This is what we knew before AoS: Coulson's alive, somehow. After the first season, we now know that Coulson was working on Project TAHITI, a super secret program designed to revive fallen Avengers. The subjects were going insane, so Coulson advised to shut down the program, but after dying himself, Fury ordered the procedure be done on him, because Coulson was important to Fury. This involved giving him the GH-drug with alien origins, which physically healed him, and wiping his memory of the program with that machine thingy, so that he might keep his sanity. And you're trying to tell me that that's not much at all.

Which is why there isn't a full story, and why this doesn't work as a season finale.

No, there isn't a full story. And no, I don't think this episode worked entirely well as a season finale. It did in some ways though.

Right. That's my point.

I know. It's my point too. I'm not trying to justify anything they're doing, except to say that we know a lot more about Coulson's revival than than we did at the beginning of the season, contrary to what you are saying. And also to tell you that I'm okay with where the plot threads are hanging at the moment.

Which makes it a poor twist. Like pulling the mask off the Scooby-Doo monster and it's a character who wasn't in the rest of the episode.

In terms of a TV narrative, yes, it wasn't a great twist. That's my point. Although your analogy isn't great, since the said-character-behind-the-mask is actually an organisation, of which some familiar characters are a part of.

Or if you haven't seen the movie in the first five days of release. Or if you just don't care enough about Captain America to watch his movies. If you haven't seen it, your idea of the show dips a little because it has a very poorly executed twist. If you have, your idea of the show dips a little because you've been reminded of how awesome this universe usually is.

Well, your opinion dipped. Mine did not. And many reviewers of the show place that episode as one of the better ones, I'd say it's not as flat-out bad as you're saying it is.

Wildly speculative. Samuel L. Jackson said his role is small. Hill works for Iron Man now, she shows up because he does. Regardless, it's incredibly foolish to base an opinion on speculation, much less speculation on what happens in something that isn't this show.

Of course it was speculative. I essentially told you that. In my opinion, it's incredibly foolish to call someone else incredibly foolish for something they didn't do. I'm aware of the position of Fury and Hill in this universe, and made note of that; I said "could be" and "not necessarily"; I also know of the comments Samuel L Jackson made. But do you seriously think that SHIELD will never make an appearance in an MCU film again?

Yes, this series undeniably became a spin-off of The Winter Soldier in its final episodes... You know that stuff isn't all on the same level.

And you know that this show has always been about the aftermath of these films, and that naturally, since they are different films with varying relevance to SHIELD, that means approaching it in different ways. Generally, to call something a spin-off, it requires at least one character to "spin off" and become a major character, but the only two characters who appeared in TWS that appeared in post-TWS AoS are Fury and Hill, who made the same number of appearances pre-TWS.

The aftermath of The Avengers was one episode. They didn't deal with Extremis, they dealt with something similar to it. They cleaned up after Thor for a couple of minutes before doing something completely unrelated to that. The aftermath of The Winter Soldier, on the other hand, was a multi-episode arc that closed out the season.

And come on, the aftermath of the Avengers wasn't just one episode. We're still dealing with Coulson's death. And have been for long enough for you to be complaining about it. And Extremis was mixed into the Centipede stuff. We saw the effects of Extremis not too long ago in episode 21. Also, after literally cleaning up after Thor's battle, we dealt with an Asgardian prison escapee as a result of the Dark Elves' attack. And then we dealt with people affiliated with the same organisation that was uncovered in the Winter Soldier.

The threats dealt with before and after "Turn, Turn, Turn" were not the same either. The Clairvoyant and Centipede became moot points after the Hydra reveal, as the only reason they existed in the first place was to give the characters something to do until Captain America: The Winter Soldier could come around and reveal Hydra infiltrated SHIELD.

The Clairvoyant remained the main antagonist right until the season finale, where he was obliterated. And the Centipede project, headed by Garrett was revealed to be a cog in his greater scheme, which remained the focus.