TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 2×1 – “Shadows”

I’m going to be upfront about this: I was torn on season one of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I stuck with it for the first six episodes, and kind of gave up. It takes a lot for me to tune into a 22 episode network series every week, and it was much easier to wagon hop over to Arrow on Netflix. But I knew I would come back, as a follower of Stan Lee’s Church of Excelsior, but also faith in The Whedon brothers’ vision. I tuned into a few specific episodes on Hulu during the summer to catch myself up:

“Yes Men”: for an episode featuring Jamie Alexander as Lady Sif of Asgard.

“End of the Beginning”: To see how the series will tie into Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

“Turn, Turn, Turn”: because HYDRA.

and, “The Beginning of the End”: for the sake of it being the finale.

I’m noting this in case there are specific details regarding episodes in between all of this, and the first six that I missed out on, although I don’t think anything regarding Gravaton has yet to be made out of Dr. Franklin Hall from episode, like, three.

So, let’s get into where season one left us off, as a refresher. Pretend the following is in an exuberant Stan Lee voice:

“We last saw our heroic Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with HYDRA revealing their dirty work from the shadows. S.H.I.E.L.D. is changed forever as we know it, and after the events in Washington D.C. as seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Nick Fury has gone into hiding, giving Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) the role of Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

In the event of HYDRA’s resurgence, Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) was revealed to be a traitor, leaving Coulson, Skye, Fitz, Simmons and May in a state of despair, unable to trust anybody for fear of encountering HYDRA, and others believing they are HYDRA.

Coulson’s mysterious resurrection was revealed, and it turns out Tahiti isn’t quite the paradise we thought it was. Not only that, but the mysterious means which brought him back to the land of the living are the same that were used for Skye when she was brutally shot!

Season one concluded with Simmons and Fitz being saved from certain death at the bottom of the ocean, Skye became one step closer to finding her father, Patton Oswalt joined the party, and Coulson began to draw mysterious texts on the walls in the late hours of the night… who knows what adventures, dramas and super encounters we’ll see this season on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Thanks, Imaginary Stan.