Agents of SHIELD: Season One Lookback

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first voyage into the small screen, premiered

Screencap from Trailer

around this time last year, and had some mighty big expectations on it's black-suited shoulders. Through last year, AOS had problems with ratings as well as frequent hiatuses, but thankfully made it to a second season (and with any luck, a third and so on). The series brought back fan-favorite Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), who was "killed" in the Avengers. It also introduced a whole new team for SHIELD, including Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), Skye (Chole Bennent), Grant Ward (Brett Dalton); Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), more commonly known by fans-as well as characters on the show-as 'Fitzsimmons'. The show featured a slew of guest stars including Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Bill Paxton, and Jamie Alexander.

Season Overview (Minor Spoilers):

Phil Coulson has finally left Tahiti-it's a magical place-and is putting together an unlikely team that includes Melinda 'The Calvary' May, Grant Ward, Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz, also known as Fitzsimmons. When they get wind of a new 'superhero' on the scene, they cross paths with a hacker, named Skye, who has known ties with the Rising Tide, an organization that has been leaking 'S.H.I.E.L.D.' secrets onto the world wide web. Despite their differences, they have to bond together to stop Mike Peterson, who has been used as an experiment,  and who could die any moment, with similar effects to Extremis.  Skye eventually joins the team, as they continue into "[their] journey into mystery" as Simmons puts it. Along the way, they encounter an alien virus, Lady Sif herself, a weather machine, and a threat that was revealed in The Winter Soldier. Eventually, the team learns that the main question isn't 'what's out there', it's 'who can we trust?'.

Any minor spoilers will be redacted with the use of this: [spoilers]. 

Review:

Agents of SHIELD: Marvel/ABC

  I'll be honest and blunt with you. I loved the show from the beginning. While, yeah, the pilot might not be the best pilot in existance, it was still pretty darn great. While I know that many people have said that the first half of the season wasn't all that great, I thought that majority of the episodes from the first half were good, with the exceptions, in my honest opinion, 'The Well'-the Thor 2 crossover- and 'The Hub', which featured the introduction of Victoria Hand.
   The episode that I think really set in stone that this was a great show was 'FZZT' which was mainly about Fitzsimmons. While I won't spoil the episode, I will say that it's still one of my favorites of the season-I actually have a lot of favorites from season one-and this episode is definitely an emotional one, and made me tear up more than once.
   In my opinion, the second half of the season really kicked off at 'T.R.A.C.K.S.', which featured a cameo by Stan Lee, which I originally didn't like the style of, but it's grown on me. The pairings in the episode were really interesting, and it definitely had a surprise ending that made my mouth drop (though it was kind of obvious something bad was going to happen to [spoilers], given the promo for the trailer). The season got really good at the next episode after, titled "TAHITI", which showed most of the characters at their most emotional. The episode also introduced Bill Paxton as John Garrett, and B.J. Britt as Antoine "Tripp" Tripplet.
   One of my personal favorite episodes was "Yes Men", which featured Jamie Alexander as Lady Sif, who previously appeared in both Thor films. It featured a worthy opponent in the form of Lorelai, who has the power to bend men's will to her command. While it has some scenes I don't like, it's still a great episode.
    After "Yes Men" is when things really start to hit it off  at "End of the Beginning". The team has to pull together several different SHIELD agents, including Hand and a previously introduced Agent Blake (in a one shot, I believe), as well as Garrett and Tripp. The episode ends on a sort-of-but-not-really cliffhanger, after a major twist in the previous episode. The next episode, "Turn, Turn, Turn" is easily one of my favorite episodes, and re-introduces a threat that was revealed in The Winter Soldier, and reveals that you can't trust anyone. Really, I mean it.
   After these episodes, the show just got better and better, and it all wrapped up in a neat little bow titled "Beginning of the End", which it's title was quite similar to a previously mentioned episode-to the point I occasionally get them mixed up. The episode deals with the scream-at-your-TV worthy cliffhanger on the last episode, and features more than one character in mortal peril, and left some tantalizing questions left open, ones that will hopefully be answered in the first episode of season two, titled 'Shadows'.

Skye & Fitzsimmons, Edit by Me

  Every character on the show is surprisingly like able, to the point where it's kind of hard to pick favorites because I'm like "these two are my favorites. But also these are my favorites too,". My two favorite characters are Fitz and Skye, with Simmons, Tripp, and the rest of the team not that far behind. The show is full of relationships, rather it be family-type relationship, which the team really has, actual relationships (or ships) as well as friendship. Some of my favorites would be the father/daughter dynamic that Coulson and Skye has, and my personal favorite ship would be-surprise-Fitzsimmons. My favorite friendship would be Skye and Fitzsimmons though, their friendship is really sweet and funny.
 The show is a funny, action packed, jaw-dropping, emotional roller coaster of a show, and you see the characters go through thick and thin, and not all of them come out of it too well. I'm interested to see what will happen next in the new season, and am concerned about the well-being of one character on the show, whose fate was teased but not revealed in the season finale.

Rating:
Humor: 5 Stars
Action: 4 Stars
Heartbreak: 4 and a half Stars (seriously, this show has made me cry. I'm a sensitive person)
Plot Twist: 5 Stars
Characters: 5 Stars
Story: 5 Stars
The Show: 5 Stars

In all, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has wormed it's way as one of my top three favorite shows, which currently consist of Doctor Who and Castle. It's a seriously good show, and, trust me, if you don't like the first half of the series, the second half is amazing.
Preview for Season 1
The Next Season Premieres Tuesday, September 23rd at 9:00pm on ABC.
Jame's Review for Season One can be found here
What did you think of Agents of SHIELD? Comment below!
-Tegan