Author Archives: Rick

We’ve come to this, finally: the end of the first season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “The Beginning of the End” was as good as I could reasonably have expected it to be, packed with great moments and doing a lot of heavy … Continue reading →

Is Grant Ward a sociopath with a plan, or John Garrett’s well-trained pet? That’s the question that “Ragtag” set out to answer. By delving into Ward’s past, Garrett’s true goals, and Fitz’s unshakable faith, this episode attempts to humanize Ward in … Continue reading →

Last week I bemoaned the fact that, even though we should be building toward the senses-shattering (in the Mighty Marvel Manner) conclusion to the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a good portion of last episode was instead spent with a fairly … Continue reading →

Just so we’re clear, I love the new Hydra-Edition Agent Grant Ward. His whole shtick of having a nearly non-existent personality retroactively improves the character, now that we know it’s all been an act. The entire B plot in this week’s episode … Continue reading →

Let’s get one thing out of the way before diving into a critique of this week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: if ever someone deserved to be on a Marvel Cinematic Universe TV show, even in a bit part, it’s Patton Oswalt. It’s … Continue reading →

I have to concede that it seems like the showrunners on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were playing the long game and creating the illusion of a show that’s a little too low-stakes, a little too pat, with too few actually threatening … Continue reading →

I’m beginning to think that it’s impossible for me to watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with even the slightest bit of objectivity. The cumulative effect of spending the entire season pointing out problems and shortcomings has made it, I think, difficult to … Continue reading →

Now, it may be that I’m just lazy, but I’m getting a little weary of episodes with imitation-acronym titles. Typing all the periods in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is fiddly enough without having to do the same multiple times over the course … Continue reading →

Finally, a good Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode. Like objectively good, not just “good-for-Agents-of-S.H.I.E.L.D.” good. I’ll admit, I’m being a little unfair. There have been a handful of legitimately good episodes throughout what has been a generally mediocre first season. “T.R.A.C.K.S.”, however, … Continue reading →

Last week’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., “The Magical Place” was a high-ish point of the season, delivering on the mythology and the film ties that the show has been promising (and largely failing) to give us since last fall. … Continue reading →

It seems like only yesterday we waved “See you later!” to ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., after a somewhat poorly executed episode that cast aside the show’s procedural MO and ended in a cliffhanger: S.H.I.E.L.D. superhuman Mike Peterson apparently dead, and Agent … Continue reading →

And now, finally, we come to the mid-season finale for Marvel and ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., wherein it seems as though the creative team suddenly remembered that they needed to write a mid-season finale, because serialized TV dramas generally have an … Continue reading →

And now we come to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s much-ballyhooed Thor: The Dark World tie-in episode, “The Well”. I’m going to get this out of the way immediately: as far as tie-ins go, it was really, really disappointing. Yes, it opens in Greenwich … Continue reading →