User blog comment:Jamie/Episode 22 - The Flash Mid Season Review/@comment-1895174-20141230081321

You guys should be talking about Agents of SHIELD, the most improved show of the 2014-2015 season so far by a long shot and somehow one of the best network series on right now.

The Flash is pretty good but bogged down in a villain-of-the-week format. Also, Iris is the worst. Berlanti and Kreisberg also seem to be giving all their attention to that show and let Arrow go on autopilot, leading to a season that has mostly been various plot threads that don't show any sign of converging and a set of flashbacks that seem more superfluous than ever. Also, Laurel is still the worst, so the show giving her more importance (which is built on killing off one of the show's more popular characters) probably isn't a good thing. Gotham is all kinds of awful, ranging from an inconsistent tone to some of the worst interpretations of the major Batman characters I've ever seen (and I've seen all 26 episodes of Beware the Batman). Also, Barbara is the worst. What is it with the designated girlfriend characters? Constantine shows promise but is being killed by behind-the-scenes trouble.

Meanwhile, Agents of SHIELD, the most disappointing new show of the 2013-2014 television season, goes into its sophomore season by almost paradoxically ballooning the number of major characters while making them all useful to the narrative. Characters who a year ago hadn't evolved past their archetypal traits (many of which were redundant) have suddenly gotten their own, distinct character arcs that can anchor down an episode of television. A show that once seemed unable to tell a story had an episode with five major plots, each of which was (more or less) done justice. And villains? Some of the best. Ward is getting more interesting the creepier he gets. A little of Reed Diamond's Daniel Whitehall went a long way, giving his character the kind of menace Garrett and Centipede woefully lacked last season. And Kyle MacLachlan's doing the Killer BOB performance he's been dying to do for two decades. And he's Mr. Hyde? When Mr. ****ing Hyde is a more interesting villain than Ra's al Ghul, you know they've done something right.

Heck, I feel like I'm selling Mr. Hyde short there. For all Marvel Studios has done right with the MCU, establishing villains isn't one of them. Kyle MacLachlan's Mr. Hyde is the most interesting villain in the MCU after Loki. Agents of SHIELD is now by all means exceeding expectations.