Some of this was violent
Jun. 25th, 2019 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessAgents of SHIELD 6.5 The Other Thing
In which, probably wisely, all the strands made an appearance, because I couldn’t bring myself to feel overly sad about Yo-Yo killing Keller, and Mack claiming he couldn’t care about her because he was director now. I tended to agree with her for casting aspersions about Benson, who did seem out of his depth, although he had started showing some initiative by the end of the episode.
It should have been an in space episode, really, but I’m not getting particularly worked up about jumped-up redshirts Piper and Davis and their bickering either.
Team Zephyr had to put up with Enoch’s Paranoid Android act, although he did proceed to use logic about the big scary spaceship, unlike them. And met his former boss and ex, who had a sad tale to tell about the Chromicoms (I must be the last viewer to go ‘that’s a bit like Comicon’) which had led her to become all tough and military-like. She had worthy opponent potential.
Enoch may have grasped that Simmons would be Fitz’s leverage, but did he grasp that he’s way below her in Fitz’s pecking order? Didn’t seem like it. Simmons using a bit of logic and (finally!) fellow feeling for her long-suffering crew, deciding she’d had enough of being separated from Fitz was sweet, especially because of Daisy’s sadface at her BFF sacrificing herself.
The real feeles were in May’s encounters with Sarge, who was curious as to why everyone recognised him. We also got scenes from May and Coulson’s final days in a frankly unconvincing tropical paradise because she was drugged. Some of the repeated lines in different contexts by the doppelgangers worked better than others.
Anyway, Sarge was going to bring her over to their side. Good luck with that, thought I, but May had to use her violent tendencies to echo Yo-Yo and stay alive. We learned that Sarge and team weren’t entirely the destructive types we thought they were, although May was never going to go along with the plan to burn down Earth to destroy the big bad.
Instead, she magnificently played Snow and beat Sarge. As to his identity, still a conundrum, so let’s hope she can haul him into the lighthouse and they can run some tests. Like she said, she knows Coulson’s history and knew him from before TAHITI and all that (I’d been theorising there were two of them because of TAHITI or some other SHIELD shenanigans and wondering if our Coulson had been the real Coulson.) But Sarge’s claims to have been around for a long time – although he didn’t talk about his origin or childhood - suggests something else is going on.
So, we’re guessing the bad bats have infiltrated Earth (as they did Chromicom 2), and tying them into the Monoliths is interesting. I have no idea if this is a comics thing and, as you can tell, I’ve forgotten what the bad bat thingies are called.
But given the interest in time travel and anomalies…well, best to resist all thoughts of what’s going on in the MCU.
It was too late for Agent Trevor to up convince me that I should take him seriously after last week’s sting. We’re left wondering what Enoch gassed Fitz with and why (and if it means even more FitzSimmons Apart time, I’ll sigh heavily).
The Summer of Rockets – episode 5
I chose to catch up on this over Gotham because I was eating.
Effective, disorienting montage reflecting Samuel’s infection at the beginning. He took out the exact opposite conclusions to mine from the shooting, although Field didn’t help himself by claiming the shooter had just had a mental breakdown when it was clearly a hit.
Esther continued to be Magical Deaf Girl, and Hannah can’t be bothered to learn any sign language. Like Kathleen said, turning up to tell her to her face that Paul had said something as vague about his parents not knowing what Anthony was interested in was a bit OTT. He could have been talking about Anthony being gay, as hinted at, or, I wondered, the opposite of being into art and music – liking engineering and that somehow tied into the nuclear plot. But as observant Esther discovered, he was an Extreme Vegetarian, which didn’t really explain why he ran away – his father wasn’t that much into huntin’ and fishin’, surely.
By the end, of course, one wasn’t as convinced as Kathleen that Anthony = David the bootboy (though I thought Anthony had painted all the animal rights pictures in the veggie hotel), but still uneasy that she’d phoned her husband and told him to come over after all the Three Musketeers business. My unbalanced father is into dubious military-political activities might be a reason to disappear.
Before that, I side-eyed Samuel and Kathleen for the whole kissing thing. Yes, Richard is not the most reliable husband, and I’ve thought Mrs Petruchkin has folded in on herself too much, but nope. I wasn’t feeling repressed passion between them as two people under great strain confusing the relief of confiding in someone. (The contrast between the rattling boarding house and the more tranquil hotel was delicious.)
Poor Sasha being sent back to school. I thought his teacher was wise in actually showing him the letters – though not their content, although maybe Sasha is no Esther. [ETA: Just as I was posting, I remembered this teacher's attitude to the dead rabbits, which may suggest he influenced Anthony's vegeterianism.]
Timothy Spall’s scenes with Hannah were fun. Also, poor third wheel, apart from daily racism, Hannah’s missing Nicholas was most telling. And good for her in trying to get to university. (I wasn’t as harsh as Kathleen was on herself for her ignorance.)
Anyway General Racist was awful and good old Richard and Arthur were poor at covering up the awfulness or providing evidence to back up their claims. Samuel was lucky to get away with ‘not feeling well’. The dog was not so lucky at all.
The stiffness/distance that comes from the cadence of the dialogue and the way it’s filmed has an interesting emotional affect. The better actors with bigger parts circumvent it to convey emotion, but that’s not always the case. It’s hard to pin down what I mean, but it’s one of the things that make Poliakoff’s work so distinctive.
In which, probably wisely, all the strands made an appearance, because I couldn’t bring myself to feel overly sad about Yo-Yo killing Keller, and Mack claiming he couldn’t care about her because he was director now. I tended to agree with her for casting aspersions about Benson, who did seem out of his depth, although he had started showing some initiative by the end of the episode.
It should have been an in space episode, really, but I’m not getting particularly worked up about jumped-up redshirts Piper and Davis and their bickering either.
Team Zephyr had to put up with Enoch’s Paranoid Android act, although he did proceed to use logic about the big scary spaceship, unlike them. And met his former boss and ex, who had a sad tale to tell about the Chromicoms (I must be the last viewer to go ‘that’s a bit like Comicon’) which had led her to become all tough and military-like. She had worthy opponent potential.
Enoch may have grasped that Simmons would be Fitz’s leverage, but did he grasp that he’s way below her in Fitz’s pecking order? Didn’t seem like it. Simmons using a bit of logic and (finally!) fellow feeling for her long-suffering crew, deciding she’d had enough of being separated from Fitz was sweet, especially because of Daisy’s sadface at her BFF sacrificing herself.
The real feeles were in May’s encounters with Sarge, who was curious as to why everyone recognised him. We also got scenes from May and Coulson’s final days in a frankly unconvincing tropical paradise because she was drugged. Some of the repeated lines in different contexts by the doppelgangers worked better than others.
Anyway, Sarge was going to bring her over to their side. Good luck with that, thought I, but May had to use her violent tendencies to echo Yo-Yo and stay alive. We learned that Sarge and team weren’t entirely the destructive types we thought they were, although May was never going to go along with the plan to burn down Earth to destroy the big bad.
Instead, she magnificently played Snow and beat Sarge. As to his identity, still a conundrum, so let’s hope she can haul him into the lighthouse and they can run some tests. Like she said, she knows Coulson’s history and knew him from before TAHITI and all that (I’d been theorising there were two of them because of TAHITI or some other SHIELD shenanigans and wondering if our Coulson had been the real Coulson.) But Sarge’s claims to have been around for a long time – although he didn’t talk about his origin or childhood - suggests something else is going on.
So, we’re guessing the bad bats have infiltrated Earth (as they did Chromicom 2), and tying them into the Monoliths is interesting. I have no idea if this is a comics thing and, as you can tell, I’ve forgotten what the bad bat thingies are called.
But given the interest in time travel and anomalies…well, best to resist all thoughts of what’s going on in the MCU.
It was too late for Agent Trevor to up convince me that I should take him seriously after last week’s sting. We’re left wondering what Enoch gassed Fitz with and why (and if it means even more FitzSimmons Apart time, I’ll sigh heavily).
The Summer of Rockets – episode 5
I chose to catch up on this over Gotham because I was eating.
Effective, disorienting montage reflecting Samuel’s infection at the beginning. He took out the exact opposite conclusions to mine from the shooting, although Field didn’t help himself by claiming the shooter had just had a mental breakdown when it was clearly a hit.
Esther continued to be Magical Deaf Girl, and Hannah can’t be bothered to learn any sign language. Like Kathleen said, turning up to tell her to her face that Paul had said something as vague about his parents not knowing what Anthony was interested in was a bit OTT. He could have been talking about Anthony being gay, as hinted at, or, I wondered, the opposite of being into art and music – liking engineering and that somehow tied into the nuclear plot. But as observant Esther discovered, he was an Extreme Vegetarian, which didn’t really explain why he ran away – his father wasn’t that much into huntin’ and fishin’, surely.
By the end, of course, one wasn’t as convinced as Kathleen that Anthony = David the bootboy (though I thought Anthony had painted all the animal rights pictures in the veggie hotel), but still uneasy that she’d phoned her husband and told him to come over after all the Three Musketeers business. My unbalanced father is into dubious military-political activities might be a reason to disappear.
Before that, I side-eyed Samuel and Kathleen for the whole kissing thing. Yes, Richard is not the most reliable husband, and I’ve thought Mrs Petruchkin has folded in on herself too much, but nope. I wasn’t feeling repressed passion between them as two people under great strain confusing the relief of confiding in someone. (The contrast between the rattling boarding house and the more tranquil hotel was delicious.)
Poor Sasha being sent back to school. I thought his teacher was wise in actually showing him the letters – though not their content, although maybe Sasha is no Esther. [ETA: Just as I was posting, I remembered this teacher's attitude to the dead rabbits, which may suggest he influenced Anthony's vegeterianism.]
Timothy Spall’s scenes with Hannah were fun. Also, poor third wheel, apart from daily racism, Hannah’s missing Nicholas was most telling. And good for her in trying to get to university. (I wasn’t as harsh as Kathleen was on herself for her ignorance.)
Anyway General Racist was awful and good old Richard and Arthur were poor at covering up the awfulness or providing evidence to back up their claims. Samuel was lucky to get away with ‘not feeling well’. The dog was not so lucky at all.
The stiffness/distance that comes from the cadence of the dialogue and the way it’s filmed has an interesting emotional affect. The better actors with bigger parts circumvent it to convey emotion, but that’s not always the case. It’s hard to pin down what I mean, but it’s one of the things that make Poliakoff’s work so distinctive.
