Board Thread:Television/@comment-1713281-20131004113215/@comment-1895174-20140409063803

SPOILER Warning for the most recent episode, and The Winter Soldier by extent

Despite all the references, Easter Eggs, cameos, and whatnot, the film franchises still exist in their own right. If you don't give a crap about any of the Marvel heroes other than Captain America, you could just watch the movies where Cap is a main character and you'll still get what's going on. You don't need to have seen any of Iron Man's solo adventures to understand what goes on in The Winter Soldier. And it's like this in the comics, too; you don't need to read every issue Marvel publishes in a given month to understand what Spider-Man is up to.

But Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can't say as much; it's a series that cannot exist on its own. Centipede being run by rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is something you can pick up on your own, but that it's really Hydra (the all-powerful, super-evil organization from WWII that this series referenced in all of two off-hand comments before) all along comes out of nowhere. Unless, of course, you have seen The Winter Soldier, and if you have, what's the compelling reason to watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? This series hasn't done anything so far The Winter Soldier doesn't also do in about 1/6th the time and with better production values. Centipede is Hydra, because of course they are, you've already seen the movie. This series can't even give its audience the satisfaction of resolving its own central mysteries.

But what else could they do? The Winter Soldier reveals that Hydra has deeply infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. They can't exactly get around that. On the other hand, maybe they just hit upon a problem with the shared universe strategy. As much as this series has avoided stepping on the toes of the movies, the movies have stepped on theirs. How do you make a television show about S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that runs concurrently with movie where S.H.I.E.L.D. turns into the bad guy? And what do you do with that series once the movie ends and S.H.I.E.L.D. disbands? Can Coulson and his team stick together when they're no longer working for the powerful, shadowy government organization that funds their globe-trotting exploits? Even superheroes need a day job (even if that day job is occasionally genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist). Maybe that "#ItsAllConnected" at the bottom of the screen isn't that great a thing when it devalues your program.

This episode just solidifies Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s position as nothing but the unimportant background adventures of unimportant background characters. But at least we now also know it's the unimportant, background part of the MCU as well.