Board 8 > Han continues watching the MCU 2 (digi)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2

I'll try to make this relatively quick. I feel like a lot of people are going to be annoyed with my placement. For a lot of this season, I wasn't positive what the direction of it was. I mean, clearly it was about the diviner. But was it about Skye's dad? I guess both. But the first half of the season hit its ending point, Tripp died, and then suddenly it was about teleporting dude and still Skye's father. Really, I guess Cal was the unifying thing from episode 1 to 22. But yeah, ok, the Inhumans were fine BUT also all this nonsense about the "real SHIELD". The season felt busy at times, and the direction a little lacking.

Speaking of which, not enough Tripp development.

I liked the new characters they brought in, but maybe there was one too many? Probably not, once they killed off Tripp, but I still feel like I wasn't getting to know them quite well enough. Every time a character seemed to be getting a good look, they suddenly stopped doing anything for awhile.

I'm still not sure I get what's going on with Ward.

I liked Raina, and where she went. I liked that development.

As for the Inhumans... I guess it was a solid storyline. Just seemed to stagnate at places. There were a lot of moving parts to this season, and their overlap brought things down to a crawl at points. It was one single story - which seems to be what people like about it over season 1 - but like I said, too many moving parts. I came out of it feeling less invested in the team than in season 1. I also liked the plot in season 1 a little more. Sucks that HYDRA went down so easily... but I guess Ward is bringing them back.

I will say - when shit hit the fan things got good. The last three episodes... and two-part season finale in particular... were really good. I was excited and nervous the whole time. It seems Skye has moved past all her shit... so I'll be curious to see where her character stands next season. Hell, Coulson and May are in the same boat... just, Coulson is missing a hand now. Mike Peterson dealt with worse, so perhaps Coulson will become super hand! Nah I'm sure he'll just wear a cast forever.

I liked season 2. It wasn't as endearing as season 1, however. It might be below Agent Carter, but I haven't watched in awhile so I won't.

May > Coulson > Lincoln from CINCINNATI > Fitz > Skye > Mack = Hunter > Simmons = Bobbi > Tripp > Daisy >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Ward

Yeah Tripp lost points for disappearing for the latter half of the season.

TV Shows
Daredevil s1
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. s1
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. s2
Agent Carter s1
Agent Carter s2
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Sounds like you're victim blaming Tripp for dying, for shame.
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As our president says, real heroes don't die.
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omg I wrote so much about Age of Ultron

Anyway, I've come to a decision on what I'm watching next. In interest of VARIETY and PACING, I will be watching "Show that many people think is the best Marvel show" aka Jessica Jones.
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Hooray!
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Let's start.

This intro is really cool. The show starts with a sex scene though, which is really awkward because my mom is watching this with me. Glad Jessica is a badass from the get-go.

"People do bad shit" heh

Is Jessica doing detective work on the toilet? Is that effective?

OHH she's buff

Too many sex scenes man this is awkward to watch with my mom in the room guess I'm taking a break after this episode.

This Trish radio host who has showed up everywhere... is Jessica's sister? Friend?

Kilgrave sounds like a bad dude.

Jesus this is fucking dark.
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I can't believe you like Lincoln.

Also, yay, JJ! What is your order btw? Do you have a link to the site or something that you're using to determine it?
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I'm doing this weird hybrid of chronological, release, and variety order.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xfe--9Wshbb3ru0JplA2PnEwN7mVawazKmhWJjr_wKs/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0

Probably going to stick with variety and hit Ant Man next, then maybe Daredevil s2 before hopping into AoS s3.
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Do keep in mind that AoS S5 runs along with Infinity War at some point, so those should be your final watches.
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This is Luke Cage as the bartender, right? I like him.

Trish the radio talk show host is apparently just a friend, not a sister.

Jessica has big hair. Like, it covers a lot of area.

I like that she found a locker full of cat pics. If I was a nurse, that would be my locker. Hell, why doesn't my desk have a bunch of cat pics?

This show has a lot of representation so far. Women, interracial love, lesbians, PTSD, diaper fetish, twincest fetish, hypnosis fetish, it's got it all.

HAHAHA OH YES Luke in action is great

I don't know why they're trying so hard to hide David Tennant's face, OBVIOUSLY it's David Tennant I mean come on we all know what his voice sounds like you're not making anything suspenseful by saving it.
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Start of episode 3...

"The show doesn't have that much sex" says prof. Dammit prof.

But now Jessica and Luke are happy. It's almost gross, her being happy.

Ohhhh she's interested in him because Luke's dead gf died 'because' of her.

Jessica is a jerk. She betrayed her junkie friend.

Oh Trish don't open the door for the cop don't do it.

Why does Jessica chase a guy who can control people with his voice? Seems to be risky. She sure like to toss people into walls though.

Man, this guy is obsessive and messed up. Lot of stalking, lots of pictures. I guess it's easy to be a stalker when you have the TARDIS.

This officer strikes me as a recurring character.
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

Man, this guy is obsessive and messed up. Lot of stalking, lots of pictures. I guess it's easy to be a stalker when you have the TARDIS.

He doesn't want to (let) go.
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I'm not actually a Whovian.

Btw this show has bitching music.

It's a little intense and its noire style makes me inclined to pace myself out a bit, though. Might only get one more episode in tonight.
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DD1 > JJ1 imo.
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JJ1 > DD1 imo
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bump
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ZeldaTPLink posted...

Metal_DK posted...

Guardians 2 will age better than a lot of these films that we rank ahead of it. Very contained story, Kurt Russell was as good as any villain not named Loki, Thanos, or Killmonger. Plus Yondu steals the entire film

The good in GotG2 is really good but you could easily take away 15-30 minutes of jokes and fluff and not miss anything. It's trying too hard to be GotG1 with all the Groot and Drax stuff and misses the fact that the first film succeeded because it was new. The second one doesn't feel new enough.

Of course its not as new, the only one that had a chance at that was Cap 2 because hes now in the modern day. Winter Soldier is probably my favorite MCU film, maybe Civil War idk.

Guardians 2 though will age very well though. Its doesn't do much to the mcu as a whole which means you can watch in 10 years after the MCU eventually dies and still will be fine not knowing the entire context, the villain was better than most MCU films, and has a pretty good start and a definitive ending. Ya the mid part was a bit dull at times, but its one of the more complete MCU films, except for maybe Iron Man 1 or Hulk 1, but both of those were origin movies.
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CA2 is easily the best Marvel movie.
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LC season 2 is pretty good, 10 episodes in. It's more consistent than S1 at least.
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Gonna try to punch through as much JJ today as I can.
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Ugh no. He blew up Simpson. Is he dead? :(

Time to see what happens when Kilgrave is in custody I guess.
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"Go back to that group. Help those people. That's your superpower." dawwww

Ugh Hogarth is going to ruin everything. Or maybe not. Maybe Kilgrave's parents will ruin everything. Everything is going to ruin everything. There's no way where this turns out well.

Oh no, just the electrical wire failing. But it seems that he actually can't control Jessica anymore.

Man, if only she knew this, this all could've been a lot easier.

Poor Kilgrave's mom :(
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UGH hey we need 13 episodes why don't we make Simpson go insane with performance drugs he can destroy all the evidence and try to stop them from developing a vaccine that will also solve the problem

oh hey and while we're at it, let's just take this boring divorce sideplot and end it with murder

Oh and we can have crazy chick ruin everything too.

At least Hope sacrificed herself to get Jessica's ass in gear.

This show has a very overt theme of "rip the bandaid off/cut your losses". Wanting to have your cake and eat it too, but getting kicked in the ass every time you try. With Luke, with Hogarth... throughout most of the series, with Hope. There is finally hope in taking down Kilgrave once and for all... and all it took was the death of Hope.

Pretty clever.

This makes me VERY scared for Trish. Jessica won't win without making some kind of sacrifice.
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When Jessica's phone goes off from an unknown number in episode 11, it says "Unkown".

typo alert
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He's the Unbreakable Luke Cage.

What's shooting him in the head with a shotgun gonna do?

Onto the last episode. Then I'll probably shower and then post my thoughts.
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

He's the Unbreakable Luke Cage

He's alive? Dammit.
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IT'S CLAlRE
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The music in this episode reminds me of Twilight Princess.
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

He's the Unbreakable Luke Cage.

What's shooting him in the head with a shotgun gonna do?

His skin is unbreakable. You can still concuss his brain.
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Ok.

That was a pretty satisfying ending.

I need to mull this over a bit before I write things up, but let me lead with this - I already feel like I'm looking back on it with more appreciation than I felt while it was happening.
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

UGH hey we need 13 episodes why don't we make Simpson go insane with performance drugs he can destroy all the evidence and try to stop them from developing a vaccine that will also solve the problem

oh hey and while we're at it, let's just take this boring divorce sideplot and end it with murder

Oh and we can have crazy chick ruin everything too.

That's the problem with MCU Netflix. The only season I've seen that managed to have 13 episodes without using filler was DD1. Everyone else struggled.

Defenders on the other hand might have pulled it off, but they chose to make it 8 episodes and rush the plot for some reason.
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JJ1 is really amazing in spite of that issue, though. But it could have surpassed DD1 if it had less (or better) filler.
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

Ok.

That was a pretty satisfying ending.

I need to mull this over a bit before I write things up, but let me lead with this - I already feel like I'm looking back on it with more appreciation than I felt while it was happening.

Great endings do that.
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ZeldaTPLink posted...

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Ok.

That was a pretty satisfying ending.

I need to mull this over a bit before I write things up, but let me lead with this - I already feel like I'm looking back on it with more appreciation than I felt while it was happening.

Great endings do that.

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Marvel's Jessica Jones

I'm glad this show got the go-ahead so early on. It was a good pick. "Who is this woman, is she just a private investigator?" Well, she's an alcoholic, kinda a bitch, and I guess she's got super strength too. But that's not what defines her. We see that pretty early on... she's not just "strong woman".

However, Kilgrave saw her as "strong woman". Throughout the series, we get introduced to this villain bit by bit as we learn how evil he is, how messed up he is... and I guess we're given one slight chance at feeling sympathetic with him. But even still, Jessica is right - the dude is demented and trying to make him act the hero doesn't change that.

With Kilgrave... you're given a villain who does things that are so messed up that you can't help but root for Jessica, even if she's an asshole. This sets up plenty of opportunities for the writers to have fun with murderporn, but it creates seemingly little room character development. Whereas Kingpin spent his whole story battling with who he was and just what he could do, Kilgrave... Kilgrave's issue is that he lived life with control and didn't know how to deal with not having it. That's Theme 1.

You see this theme all throughout the show - it's probably the most important one. After all, that's the villain's power. Control. You see many people controlled, and the effect it has on them afterwards. The whole first few episodes deal with Jessica coming to terms with her lack of control when she was with Kilgrave. The rest deal with her trying to patch up others. Even when she finds out that she is in control and he isn't, she still has no control because he is still controlling everything else.

This lack of control is Jessica's biggest hardship - not being able to control the safety of others, not being able to control the way she wants to live her life with Trish pushing in on her, not being able to control how she feels about Luke/his wife... in the end, her growth is by accepting her lack of control. She lets Trish push in, she lets herself care for Luke, and she lets Kilgrave control how he pleases. Jessica won, because she accepted her losses, which is Theme 2. We'll get to that in a bit.

Kilgrave suffered from a lack of control as well, as I said. But for him, it became an obsession. When he couldn't control Jessica the first time, he got hit by a bus. As the show went on, he tried every trick he could to get her to comply... but she turned him down bit by bit by bit. If he would have Accepted His Losses, he could have moved on, lived life, and avoided seeing her again. But he couldn't move past the lack of control. That is what truly controlled him. In the end, it was what took him down... he couldn't accept that he had no control over Jessica, and willingly let his reluctance lead his neck into her twisting arms.

Other Lack of Control - Trish couldn't control her life early on, so she decided to make a change about that. She accepted her faults and learned from it. Her training, her security... easily Trish is the most secure character on the show. She IS the pinnacle to achieve. Even when Simpson went crazy (literally buying into losing control), she kept her cool and stayed in charge. Trish knew she had to accept that she didn't have what it took to save Jessica from him and took the red pill... she was the glue that held Jess together.

Hogarth's whole story is based on being an incredibly controlling and manipulative person, a la Kilgrave, but having to deal with her lack of control in her divorce. It controlled her and made her release Kilgrave, suffering the effects of his evil in the process. Jessica helped her though - made her accept who she was all along, which set her back on path in the end.

(cont.)
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Once Hope had control again, she accepted that she had no way out and chose to release Jessica from her responsibility to her. Hope's point was very clear with her name - the entire series, you're stuck thinking that Jessica's push to do good was led by her hope for clearing Hope's name, but really, it was hope that she could solve Kilgrave without violence. When that Hope died... she was suddenly free from that lack of control, could accept her losses, and move on to kill Kilgrave.

Control was an issue for minor characters as well - Trish's mom was all about control. The guy who 'donated' both kidneys to Kilgrave had a lack of control for the rest of his life. Heck, the woman who wanted to kill super-powered people couldn't accept that super-powers had more control than her, and she struggled to try to take that control of her life back.

Let's talk about Theme 2! Jessica accepted her losses in the very beginning, because she had to in order to face Kilgrave. However, as time went on, she tried to have too much, and it led to complication after complication. It wasn't truly until after she lost Hope that she could move on.

Luke hadn't really accepted the loss of his wife. Once he lost everything - his bar - he could finally move on and take out Kilgrave (well not really because he was still in control but w/e). Simpson's refusal to accept his losses led to his downfall. Hogarth refused to sign the divorce papers and ended up losing her ex-wife and girlfriend in the process. She kept the money though!

Malcolm had so much taken from him. He was one of the first to accept that he had no control with drugs, and chose to accept that and take the hit to get over his issues. He started a support group. He was always trying to help. His whole bit was trying to teach people to accept their losses and move on. He finally managed to help crazy chick do it too.

Anyway, I'm done with the symbolism talk now. When strong themes are given clearly, it's fun to read into all the ways they've been explored.

Jessica Jones is, at its core, a show about a woman who was raped and her deep struggle with moving on.

Anyway, some good things - Malcolm being saved and recovering who he was was a great story. Luke was pretty badass. Jess and Trish going from episode 1 to "I love you" in the finale was beautiful development. Jessica herself was a delight... just a shitty person in a shitty situation who had to deal with the fact that she wanted to do good but it was kinda out of her nature.

Things I did not like - the divorce subplot was boring. The violence and darkness was maybe too much... I mean, we got that Kilgrave was crazy evil, but man they took every opportunity. The amount of loss in the show... for the twin sister, for Hope, for every person that died along the way... it was staggering. Maybe it's not a negative, but the show was a little too dark for my tastes. I need to watch something cheerful to get my spirits up again... something cheerful like Game of Thrones.

Ultimately, it fell into the issue that Daredevil started to have that I feel all of these shows will have... the plot doesn't need this much space. Stop solving the problem JUST to 'oops it's not here's a complication'. Just get it over with.

I enjoyed the show for what it was, but I'll be honest, not enough really happened to keep me engaged throughout as much as I was with Daredevil. Characters were less interesting. Backstory wasn't explored clearly and consistently enough. Cast wasn't expansive enough, and the main characters, aside from Jess/Luke/Trish/Kilgrave, weren't enough to make up for the lack of interesting characters. Plot felt stretched out. It was good, but... this is going to annoy some people I'm sure:
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TV Shows
Daredevil s1
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. s1
Jessica Jones s1
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. s2
Agent Carter s1
Agent Carter s2
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DD > JJ is cool, but I never expected to see it lower than AOS
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I can see it being lower than AoS, but not AoS S1. Han is weird.
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I kind of forgot how much I disliked the use of Simpson until your recaps.
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RyoCaliente posted...

I can see it being lower than AoS, but not AoS S1. Han is weird.

AoS s1 just had me very captivated! I didn't want to put it down.
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bump
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@Gmun

feel free to assign a bot to this topic :)
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bump
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Band camp season is about to pick up, so I need to find time to smash through Ant Man and then get started on AoS s3.

I have a feeling I'm going to put the Netflix shows (and Inhumans) on the backburner and just go through the rest of the movies and AoS...
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I'm excited for you to get to AoS s4.

S3 is still good (and has the best single episode of the show overall I think) but S4 is where it's at.
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

Band camp season is about to pick up, so I need to find time to smash through Ant Man and then get started on AoS s3.

I have a feeling I'm going to put the Netflix shows (and Inhumans) on the backburner and just go through the rest of the movies and AoS...

I'd advise watching one of the Netflix shows or Inhumans though. It'll be easier if you know there's some good stuff coming. If you're like most people, Inhumans and S1 of LC and IF and Defenders might be a slog to get through. If you're really planning on watching all of the MCU, I'd advise you to get through Inhumans or LC now.
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HanOfTheNekos posted...

@Gmun

feel free to assign a bot to this topic :)

Unless bot commands have changed, you can do it yourself by posting #bump# or ##bump## (has to be the TC). Bot already scans every single topic when they get added to log faqs, so it'll see it.
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Murphiroth posted...

S3 is still good (and has the best single episode of the show overall I think)

Which one is that? I'm currently on S3 episode 18 and curious as to what people consider to be the best.

You can put it into spoilers just in case Han doesn't want to know going in.
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I'd be very surprised if it wasn't 3x5
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