Board Thread:Television/@comment-1713281-20131004113215/@comment-1895174-20140924074256

Thoughts on the S2 Premiere:

Stop reading here if you haven't seen it yet.

This was a really good episode.


 * The opening flashback with Carter, Dugan, Morita, the Hydra agent who appears to be this season's Big Bad. Great way to start the season, giving it a story from the get-go. Hopefully it doesn't blow that like the first season did, and spend the next dozen episodes ****ing around.


 * Look at that, a fully-realized Absorbing Man from the moment he's introduced, not some pointless tease like Ian Hart's Franklin Hall or Dylan Minnette's Donnie Gill last season. And hey, the latter of the two is going to be back for episode 3, so maybe he'll be Blizzard proper by then.


 * The missions were...smart, I guess would be the best word? May and Skye aren't there just to save Talbot from Creel, they're there to abduct him for themselves. Coulson didn't send his team in just to retrieve the Obelisk, they're really there to get a quinjet with cloaking technology because, well, Fitz. They're no Xanatos gambits, but they're much smarter than anything this show did in its first season.


 * Holy **** Simmons. Crazy, brain damaged Fitz is the best Fitz.


 * Killing off Lucly Lawless and her driver who is for some reason named "Idaho" was certainly something I didn't expect. And it gives a good reason for Nick Blood's Lance Hunter to join the main cast.

If there's any critique I could make, it's that the new character played by Henry Simmons, Alphonso Mackenzie, was underused. I almost forgot he was there until we see him in Coulson's office at the end of the episode. And there was maybe too much Skye, but any Skye is too much Skye so I don't think there's any way around that.