Season 4 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is upon us, and there is a lot to talk about after this first episode. Spoilers ahead as I talk about my hopes and expectations for the season based on episode 1.
So, I think the first thing to talk about is this: is Agents headed in the right direction, and will it do well enough to get a fifth season?
And I think the answer is yes. By introducing Ghost Rider, whom I understand is a fan-favorite character from the comics (I haven’t read the comics myself; don’t hate me), the show has once again piqued the interest of a large audience. When my friends and I watched the episode in our college student center, two people who had never watched the show before stopped by to see Ghost Rider do his thing. They stated their intentions to watch more in the weeks to come, and hopefully my friends and I can encourage them to check out the earlier seasons as well.
In other words, by putting a big-name character on the screen, Marvel has made a lot of people who initially wrote the show off decide to give it another chance.
It’s kind of like when DC, after two abysmal movies, advertised their third movie by putting the Joker’s face all over it, to get people who would otherwise have given up on the garbage that were Man of Steel and Batman v Superman to give them another chance.
Of course, in the case of Suicide Squad, although the movie did manage to make significantly more money than it should have coming off the heels of Dawn of Shoehorned-In Cameos, the actual quality of the movie got worse, not better. Oh, and the Joker playing a central role in it was also a lie, so that didn’t help.
Buuut with Agents, the storytelling has never gotten that bad to begin with. The worst we’ve had has been a relatively uninspiring villain, and even that was far from strictly bad; he wasn’t entirely uninteresting, and he had to fight Good Guys that are interesting.
But many did contend after the end of Season 3 that the show had lost its way a bit, and that something needed to change if the series was to keep going. And although I did not hate the end of Season 3 by any means (except that they killed my favorite character!), I could see their point, to a degree.
Apparently so did the directors, because they seem to be very much back on track with a number of interesting new storylines they’ve set up for this season, and with the fact that it seems, as opposed to the Joker in Suicide Squad, Ghost Rider is actually going to play an important role in this season.
Now as for the storylines themselves, it is difficult to judge this early how effective they will be, but it’s worth looking at what we have so far to go from there.
- Skye as Quake, fighting the Watchdogs and confronting Ghost Rider.
- Ghost Rider (’nuff said)
- The old team being split up, and their respective dispositions towards the mysterious new director.
- Radcliffe creating AIDA.
- May getting infected (possessed?) by… something.
Like I said, it’s too early to make judgments about any of these, really. But it’s good that there are multiple ways the story can move forward now. If one or two of these plots don’t end up being that interesting, the others can make up for it.
And thankfully, the show has cut its ties to the HYDRA plot, and the Inhumans plot has been sidelined. Those two plots alone dominated seasons 2 and 3, and although they were not bad plots by any means, after two seasons of them it was time to switch things up.
If there’s one thing I hope for this season, it is that the show does not lose its heart. They’re definitely going for a darker tone this time around, which is fine, but I don’t want it to reach DC levels of gritiness-I don’t want it to become so grim and hopeless that it isn’t fun anymore. I want the fun, witty banter between the characters to continue as it always has (and thankfully it seems that it will; highlights from this episode include Coulson high-fiving himself and Mack’s “that’s not fair” comment). Most of all, I do not want the development of the characters we know and love to become secondary to the evolving plot. May, Coulson, and Daisy need to sit down together and work things out at some point during this season. May needs closure for Andrew’s death, and Daisy for Lincoln’s. Fitz and Simmons need a proper vacation, and Mack and Daisy need to make up. If, in the midst of all the craziness, the characters themselves can find the peace that they so desperately deserve, I’ll be satisfied.
